Admission Paperwork: On Friday, May 6th, our daughter becomes a client of her service agency. The other mother and I are instructed to bring psychological evaluations, documentation of all income sources such as SSI and SSA; Medicaid and social security cards; guardianship documents; recent medical exams; lists of medications and doctors information to a meeting at 10 A.M. to  launch the young ladies’ relationship with the agency.

According to the service director, “There is also a great deal of admission paperwork that will need signing and explanation.”

Budget Draft: We will begin to draw up a budget template guesstimating costs of utilities, rent, cable, and daily living expenses.

A Client Profile: This meeting will offer tangible information to staff on these young ladies, hence enabling them  to create a profile of their future clients’ vocational, social and residential needs.

Plowing Through Piles of Papers: Don’t you hate that part? Assembling documentation on your special needs child who has been tested, evaluated, re-evaluated and re-tested; whose needs have been vouchsafed by various experts, proven to an array of  bureaucracies and fought for in school districts.

Apology to That Other Mother:  I wonder how many parents had to build additions to their homes just to accommodate file upon file labeled  “yes, our child needs your help, please”? How many trees have been felled in the service of this fight for our special needs children? To that greatest mother of them all, Mother Nature, so sorry that we drew from your offspring to help ours flourish. 

©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011