We are two sessions down and at the start of the third. In between the last session, I was busy trying to find as many resources as possible, which meant extensive SHOPPING! And no, not for shoes, or cute outfits, but for sorting baskets, +Rubbermaid shelving units, drawers, puzzles, anything that was colored, or bounced, squeaked, had some kind of texture, FLASH CARDS, bubbles, +Play-doh, Markers, +Crayons, Coloring books, anything that could be manipulated - love the wooden toys for this. the Pizza making kits (the +Melissa and Doug line of wooden toys are my favorites), sandwich making kits, vegetables, fast food, plastic grocery food, I filled up his closet with these kinds of items. Had them all organized. It was great, because it was also around back to school time, so I got scissors, colored paperclips, glue sticks, recipe cards/note cards, all at great prices! I used +Glad storage containers to keep things organized, and plastic zip freezer bags work well too! As I mentioned in previous posts, I hit the dollar store and "kitted" up as many things as I could think of - Feature/Function/Class things. The party store is a great area to stock up on things like kazoo lips, sunglasses (the larger and the sillier the better for Patrick - in multiples of colors) all of these things can be used to sort items. Separate/sort the things the are alike (this is where you can shake it up a bit - start simple - two different colors of the same object - then as they begin to succeed, do different objects of the same color - then do same objects of different colors, and you can see it will go on and on).
So we felt we were ready to take the next step which was to find out how - logistically - we were going to pull off 40+ hours of intensive 1-on-1 training with our son, when both of us work full time at really demanding jobs, plus have three other children (fairly young ages too) and a house and family who wanted to see us, not to mention live our lives and have any time left over for each other - forget laundry or dishes, or toilets (I live with five males...). Because this is what it was going to take for us, and for the other families in our training group. 40+ hours a week - not including the once a quarter visits to "clinic" for three hours a session three days a quarter. I was sure there was a magic time turner (you know the one Hermione wears in one of the +Harry Potter Movies) somewhere Dr. Kim was going to tell us about that would allow us to turn back time so we could find these hours in our week... Without which we would not be able to do this, and Patrick would suffer.
See, if you haven't guessed already, I'm a fairly self motivated individual, who loves a great challenge - strategically for my brands and clients, or in life, so God definitely knew what he was doing when he blessed us with Patrick, and connected us with this EIBI/ABA program. He plopped down a big fat 40-hour goal that I had to achieve - I had to. Ultimately we are working towards our Vision where Patrick's Autism/PDDNOS would not interfere with his daily life, right, what a BHAG (Big Harry Audacious Goal)! And that's saying something! Real Pressure anyone? Because I was feeling it!
The key to accomplishing the 40+ hours was to hire tutors. So not only were we parents of a child on the spectrum, but now, we were understanding why we developed the vision, mission and goals, and why it was called a business plan. However, we were just getting into the planning part. I was totally overwhelmed! I had NO idea how I was going to meet the 40+ hour goal, not to mention recruit (had no idea where to start!), security clear, train, let alone afford a staff of tutors to help us with Patrick. When/Where was this going to take place? We had some significant obstacles to overcome, and I needed to cry! And this was more than the simple I'm sad cry, this was a full out, full blown jag! I felt utterly hopeless, with no road map to guide me home. How was I going to do this? Josh had basically checked out at this point. He was running financial models in his head and had slotted it impossible. (remember how much I love my husband, but this was the truth, and I also promised you real, truth). I, however, feeling very overwhelmed, lacking a clearly defined path and how to manual (which by the way would be a GREAT IDEA - just give me a shout out when you create it). Oh, by the way, don't forget we had basically two years to make a significant impact in Patrick's life (or at least we were lead to believe that. We know differently now).
So with 40 hours a week, every week, 52 weeks a year 104 weeks in the two years we had to do it in, every minute counted! AND, I literally had no idea how to start. Do you ever feel that way? The pressure is on, and you need to reach DEEP down inside yourself, and you know it, but you are almost paralyzed with a complete sense of overwhelming that you can't even provide the most simplest solution or answer the most basic of question like - where's the milk? That was me. Pathetic, I know, but I was totally in the weeds, completely incapable of seeing the trees, let alone the forest.
So I stopped. I stopped it all. I sat back, took a deep breath, and began to road map - or build my brand and obstacle course. I had my goals clearly outlined, now I needed to define my objectives first, and that started with logistics. How and where would I find tutors? - Well, Craig's list was pretty popular at the time, why not use this free service and advertise for positions? So I did, I began what ended up being almost a quarterly endeavor. Advertising for tutors. At one time we had almost 15 different tutors working with Patrick!
Okay, so now that I had some responses to my ads, where should I interview them? Was this going to be a security risk for my family? I couldn't interview them at work, and I thought they needed to see the environment they would be working in. So I interviewed them at our house. We ended up receiving primarily Psychology majors and graduate students, a few ABA trained tutors as well, and some Child Focus employees who were loyal beyond belief and stuck with us through the tick and thin of it all.
Finger printing & Background checks - YES! Definitely, DO THEM! I asked for copies of drivers licences, and had them go to the local police department to be finger printed and have a background check. If they were going to be working with my son, and with my other children in the house, they were going to be cleared! Another possibility is to work with your local Catholic church to have you teams fingerprinted there and go through the Archdiocese program, then request copies of the documentation of course completion and results. DO NOT HIRE UNTIL THIS IS DONE and YOU HAVE THE RESULTS! PLEASE!
Wages - this is a difficult question, how much to pay your tutor? Should it be based upon experience? Great question? One I asked myself. And where we weighed out on it was no. They have no experience with our son, and every child on the spectrum is different, so they all started at an hourly rate of $10.00! YIKES! Quick math says $400 a week, which means $1,600 a month! That was more than our house payment! And this was not the clinical fees. So when I say its a BIG investment, it is BIG, but it is also EXTREMELY worth EVERY penny!
We had help, we didn't have a waiver, but we had help from family who were amazing! We wouldn't have been able to it without them. Between Tutor salaries, Clinic bills, we were spending almost $3,000 in cash every month. That was about half my monthly salary at the time! And we were living paycheck to paycheck before this, with all four kids in daycare... But we had made the decision to do it, and we were committed, so we would find it, and cut back as much as possible, wherever possible to make it work. And God has always provided for us, and he continues to do so!
Training - well, I was just trained, so it was still fresh in my mind, but how to train the trainers? I was by no means an expert, but it needed to be done. So I broke down his programs, made copies of all of this course descriptions and we had training sessions.
This is when Josh came up with the idea to ask our daycare if they would allow us some room in their facility where Patrick could go during the day with his tutor(s) and work...And next time, I'll tell the very dramatic story of daycare neglect, and how we learned our first lesson of advocacy, the hard way. Until next time, I'll be waiting for you at the corner of Hope and Love.
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