It Begins....

We have to travel to Chicago tomorrow for Lil Man to start therapy, so of course there has to be a Winter Weather Advisory out! Ha!Ha!  We wouldn't have it any other way.  Really, the snow doesn't bother me so much.  It is the wind.

This will be the first session of tag team therapy.  We will see what they come up with for our assignments for the month.  We are scheduled to go up every 4 to 6 weeks, have PT, OT, and Speech therapy and get "assignments" to work on until the next appointment.  He has changed some since the eval at the beginning of November, so I expect they will be getting to know him again tomorrow.  We all have a general idea of where we are going and what we want.

Since I don't have much to say about anything going on around here, I thought I would put in some info that I have been collecting from various sources including our newletters from the Heart of Illinois Down Syndrom Association (HOISDA) and Down Syndrome Network of Champaign County.

The Current State of Health Care For People With Disabilities:

The National Council on Disability (NCD) recently issued a report calling for immediate health care reform for people with disabilites.  The report includes a roadmap for eliminating the pervasive barriers to health care for people with disabilites.  The complete repot can be downloaded in PDF at:

http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2009/pdf/HealthCare.pdf

What Can You Do?

This is the centerpiece of the Campaign for Disability Employment, which seeks to promote positive employment outcomes for people with disabilites.  Go to: http://www.whatyoucandocampaign.org/ 

Case for Incusion:

The United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) has resleased its annual Case for Inclusion that benchmarks states' actual performance in improving lives for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilites.  Among the findings, there remain 169 large institutions (more than 16 beds) housing 36,175 Americans.  For more information go to:

http://www.nextsteps.peatc.org/newsmanager/news_article.cgi?news_id=17&no_stats_record=1


Just in time for the annual R-word campaign, Campaign to Change attitudes About Disabilites:

http://www.creaturecomforts.org/

Scoop Group Online Resource:

Disability Scoop offers and online discussion group where parents, self-advocates, and friends of people with disabilites can ask for advice, advocate for their causes and share ideas.  http://www.disabilityscoop.com/forum/  

They also have a video which explains the IEP process:  http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/16/video-iep-english/3672 

I have more that I will list later.  Have a great day!

Hugs!

Steph