Left Brain Right Brain

Today, Megan attends a pre-school with kids her own age for the first time.

This is due to her Play Therapist pushing and pushing for it and getting it. Basically, instead of being seen at home, Megans Play Therapy sessions will now be at this local pre-school. Naomi will go along with her as well.

Best of all though is the fact that finally she will be interacting with kids her own age so when she does start school proper it won’t be totally alien territory to her.

I really hope this turns out well. It probably will because the LEA aren’t involved in any part of the process. Amazing how brilliant the Health Authority is and how shit the Education Authority is in Staffordshire.

Add this to your signature for every forum, newsgroup, blog you have. Mention it to your family and friends and inform the teachers at your kids schools- from the 17th-24th May its Autism Awareness Week.

Naomi (my better half who in an amusing but unrelated event took an online test to find out what sort of leader she was recently and came out as Hitler 😀 ) used to work at a Health Clinic as a receptionist. It was a bit ‘new agey’ this place and offered chiropracters, massage-therapists, hypno-therapists and homeopathists.

As is my wont I sneered at most of these treatments without actually trying them or even reading up about them. Yay me.

Anyway, when Megan was diagnosed with ASD, Naomi kept in touch with the homeopathist who she used to work with and this homeopathist, Karyl, began to treat Megan.

I was totally unprepared for how succesful it was. I mean I was really shocked at the difference. All I could see was Naomi giving Megan various combos of these little sugar pills but gradually, over time, Karyl got the balance right. It still needs tweaking as Megan grows but the Homeopathic regime Megan is on has cleared her body of a lot of the toxins introduced by the immunisations she had and-best of all- has helped her settle back down into a much more stable sleeping pattern. Megan has her Homeopathic stuff twice daily with Eye-Q and a multi-vitamin and the combination really has worked wonders on her patience, temper, perception, concentration, cognition and general happiness.

I’d strongly recommend Homeopathy as a treatment. If anyone wants to speak to our Homeopathist in particular, let me know by posting here and I’ll send her details to you- she really has changed our lives with Megan.

As well as the LEA meeting on Thursday, we also had Megs scheduled for a buggy test.

We need a buggy for two reasons. Firstly, she won’t walk anywhere and as neither of us drive yet that tends to limit us. Secondly, she’s wearing clothers for an 8 year old (she’s only 4) so as you can tell, she’s a big girl (very tall for her age) and so an ordinary buggy just doesn’t cut it.

So we go along to Cannock Hospital, have her ‘sized’ and hey presto, we now have a nice buggy on order- another positive tale this week 😀

And so on Thursday just gone it came to pass that I finally got to sit down in front of someone from the LEA and explain our position.

There was one main topic of conversation- the Statement Proposal that the LEA sent through. Basically, this proposal is a ‘draft’ of a childs statement of needs.

It was a very simple thing completley lacking in any sort of detail. In fact I made a post about it on AADFriendly which also contains our response. You might want to read the thread and the response to get a feel of where we’re coming from.

Anyway, so the meeting starts and it becomes clear nothing’s going to get sorted today- this meeting is more about staring your enemy in the whites of their eyes for both of us. Basically, our positions can be laid out thusly:

The Proposal: They feel they’ve performed adequately. I point out neither the law, nor Naomi and I feel they have. Things get a bit frosty. The LEA invite me to write what we feel is acceptable- I quickly agree.

The provision: They outline their position that they don’t think that one-to-one provision for ASD kids is a viable solution as they feel its detremental to a childs education as it shields them from too much (translation: its too expensive and they don’t want to cough up). I explain that whilst I have sympathy with that position, its not suitable for Megan. I explain our options:

1. Megan goes to a specialist ASD unit- except none exist in Staffordshire so there goes option one.
2. Megan goes to a ‘special school’- except the nearest one is the one she attended last year for half a day and wasn’t good enough for us. The other 2 in Staffordshire are over 20 miles away and neither of us drive. They (the LEA) also explained that they only funded transport to the nearest suitable school.
3. They pay for her to be privately educated. This will never happen but I’m cheeky and rude enough to have a go for it.
4. One to one provision at a mainstream school. This is what we’ll be concentrating on from this point on. Even if it takes courts and lawyers.

All in all, a good meeting as I knew exactly where they stood at the end but they had no idea where I was coming from yet. Element of surprise and all that.

So I’ll be writing a draft proposal myself and I’ll also be contacting the local Parent Partnership to get some feedback from them.

Onwards…

Life’s been a bit of a challenge of late- and in my last blog entry I noted how much I seemed to be moaning about stuff lately so its nice to write a really positive entry for a change-

My employers (feel free to comment on how excellent the website looks by the way 😉 ) called me in for a metting last week and said they were aware of how much Naomi and I were struggling with things like keeping appts, attending hospital visits etc so they wanted to offer me the opportunity to work from home 2 days a week.

This is excellent news and I was totally bowled over and couldn’t thank them enough. So, proof that the corporate sector do care about their staff sometimes!