You may be thinking that title doesn’t make much sense. Some things in life just don’t make sense, not to me, not to you. Or maybe something that seems sensible to you won’t seem that way to me or vice versa.
Our republican state legislators this week proposed future DDD funding measures in HB 2945 that limit the amount of hours a parent caregiver works to half of the current number, so basically 1 in 2. Well, the two is what is needed. This program doesn’t just cover parents like myself who are doing habilitative therapy, and certainly our kiddos won’t have half the needs. This program is also used for attendant care. These services are needed for disabled kiddos and adults who need constant 24/7 one to one supervision or care. Their loved ones can’t be left alone, not ever, and have the types of needs that used to be addressed with a placement into a facility, where abuse and neglect often occurred. Some decades ago that model was abandoned to promote more humane care standards and lower costs. So for parents who are providing this service to their loved ones, attendants couldn’t be found outside of them, so they are getting paid to do it, likely making less than they would if they were able to enter the workforce to pursue their own career interests.
It doesn’t make sense to me that somehow this proposed reduction in hours a parent can be paid to provide therapy or attendant care support is supposed to save our state money. Someone will still have to be paid to provide care in a facility (so the money that would be going to the parent attendant care giver would now go to a provider in a facility, facilities who can’t provide only half the hours legally). Facilities and utilities will have to be paid for (creating extra costs), and if there aren’t enough facilities to cover a surge in need, the creation of those facilities will certainly cost even more money…if we don’t see what other states are currently seeing, which is parents who can no longer afford things like behavioral healthcare turning their kiddos over to the state. Which certainly costs more than an individual living with their family even with the parent as an attendant where both parents are working, paying for food, paying for housing/utilities/transportation costs that the state currently isn’t paying for. Because even if they move those salaries into a facility, that facility also has to still buy food. Still pay for utilities. Still pay for supplies, things that get broken…things that currently right now are only coming out of those parent’s salaries. Are you following my math?
Generally, when parents provide the attendant care, costs are lower and outcomes are better. The disabled individual has a better quality of life. There is less neglect. Families get a chance to have a closer connection with their disabled love one.
So it’s cheaper, and better for the individual.
I’m not seeing the math add up for this proposed reduction. We can’t wish away the needs of disabled individuals in an effort to balance budgets, nor can we engage in magical thinking that those costs can and will be absorbed and covered by the disabled individual’s family in this economy. Many families are already financially stretched to the breaking point. All this reduction will do is create harm and ultimately increase costs for caring for individuals who need these services.
And it might deny them the opportunity to grow the skills necessary to function in our communities. I’ve had therapists along our journey tell me they thought my son would need a facility before now. And in our now, he’s going to school and learning how to read and type with one finger, in a huge part thanks to the parent as paid caregiver program, which has allowed him to receive services he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to as another provider couldn’t be found.
Raising Special Kids is recommending that community members impacted by these changes register for or leave comments via Request to Speak, as this will become part of the legislative record. This can be found at https://apps.azleg.gov/Account/SignOn
