is it income based?! I think I figured it out!!! Our family had a big win last month with notification that our son with autism was eligible for Florida’s Children’s Medical Services (CMS). My mouth fell open, I jumped up and cheered. It felt like hitting the lottery! For years, our family has scrambled to…
Author: ruthfulness
A journey of education, access, advocating and love!
Educational Advocacy
Need money for services or products…the new Gardiner Scholarship
Gardiner Scholarship offers $10,000 for special needs children education. Even if you homeschool! Find out more, how to apply and what you need to know.
The serious business about the McKay Scholarship
Does your child have an IEP or 504 in the state of Florida? Florida was the first state to implement a scholarship like McKay. McKay allows for parents of special needs children to use funds allocated to the public school for private school tuition. (you can use McKay to transfer to another public school as…
The importance of a medical diagnosis…
As parents we often have a large fear about diagnosing our children. We don’t want to harm our children in any way or make the outside world treat them differently. We think that a label with define him or her indefinitely in life. So, why is the medical diagnosis so important insurance developing an IEP/504…
WHY is getting Medicaid so…
unfortunately difficult?! BIG NEWS! My son is now in the Medicaid Children’s Medical Services program of Florida Kid Care. (I’m not even sure if this is the correct way to describe it). This process was very confusing and lengthy. There seem to be so many different parts or subgroups within the Medicaid program itself. Just…
holy behavior plan, batman
Yesterday, I amended my son’s IEP and behavior plan. It was another 2 hour meeting. My last meeting was 2.5 hours and was to determine eligibility (the longest IEP…) At our last meeting, the behavior plan was so terrible that we had to agree to meet again to change it. A draft copy of the…
my 5 year old does laundry better than…
many adults! My 5 year old has ASD and has a great ability to do chores or activities that many can’t do at the same level. He has an ability to observe an action or set of actions then repeat them. He is able to create a system to complete the chore correctly and accurately…
dealing with denial sometimes divorce…
because of autism/special needs. Dealing with denial is a phase that everyone and every family will experience and decide to work through or not. When you have a child with special needs there are definitely phases that you experience in finding your path to advocating for your child. In most cases, one parent will work…
the longest IEP meeting of my life!
IEP re-evaluation and eligibility determination my meeting was from 2:30 to 5pm! This time of year is key for parents of pre-k students or students getting ready for kindergarten. When a student is first eligible for services with the school they are most often labelled DD for developmentally delayed. This label drops by age…
breaking up with your child’s therapist…
is hard to do. I quit OT and speech therapy today! It is never easy to break up with your child’s therapist. I have sadly researched how to break up with therapists in the past. I have broken up with therapists in the past as well as currently. Various reasons can make you break up…
Ruthfulness 