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News- Page 4
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Finance : Cutbacks could damage autistic projects
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Posted by Sylvia on Sunday, February 15, 2004 (14:27:47)
East Anglian Daily Times 13/02/2004
Government cuts could force the closure of a successful project helping the families of hundreds of children with autism.
The future of the Suffolk Autism Project, set up a year ago in Pytches Road, Woodbridge, is in serious doubt following an announcement that the Children's Fund has overspent.
There are also numerous other projects at risk throughout the county which help children with a variety of different issues but yesterday they were all given a six-month stay of execution.
Margaret Hodge, minister for children, said in the House of Commons on Thursday: "The Children's Fund was allocated £450m in the 2002 spending review. By September 2003, 302,000 children and families were using the services provided by the fund. However, efforts to ensure that all allocations were spent have resulted in a projected overspend. Reductions were therefore made in allocations for 2003-04 onwards.
"Following my discussions with key stakeholders, we have taken action from 2003-04 to address the most difficult problems, and I am now urgently re-examining the allocations for next year. I expect to write to partnerships in the next few days.''
Lindsay Towns, the Suffolk Autism Project's development officer, said: "Amidst planning our one-year celebrations, news of the possible closure of the project has been a terrible shock to all involved.
"In the past year support from the local community has helped us run two HELP! Programmes for parents, autism awareness workshops, a Saturday club in Stowmarket and a drama group for children with autism. Now, more than ever, we need local support to help secure the future of this much needed project."
It costs £103,000 in this financial year to fund the Woodbridge-based project and this includes salaries for two full-time and three part-time staff. In December, the project was told there would be a 15% reduction in the grant for 2004-05 and then in January it was warned that the Department for Education and Skills had over-committed resources to the Children's Fund and could not meet all the obligations.
A spokeswoman for the National Autistic Society said the Suffolk Autism Project was trying to find someone else to fund the work.
"The response from people has been amazing but it is not looking that good. This one group has touched so many different people and it has been such a great success. Now it has really touched the nerve that funding could be cut," she said.
The Project develops educational resources for families, helps them to set up parent support groups, identifies and discusses their needs, sets up social networks for children, raises awareness of autistic spectrum disorders and recruits volunteer befrienders.
Autism is a lifelong disability that affects the way a person communicates and relates to others around them. An autistic child appears normal but exhibits behaviour that onlookers may describe as naughty.
Tony Lewis, the county's portfolio holder for children's services, said: "We are working hard with the local Children's Fund to make sure that the project is safeguarded at least in the short term.
"The Children's Fund will fully fund all the projects for the first six months of the 2004-5 financial year. This will give time to assess the effectiveness of projects and to try to find alternative funding streams, if necessary.''
Richard Spring, MP for west Suffolk, said: "In the short time they have been operating they have created a database of over 400 parents and carers - many of these families are in my constituency.
"It would be a tragedy if all the hard work and good were lost due to a lack of Government funding."
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Finance : State Lowers Fees That Families Will Pay For Therapeutic Services
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 (19:28:28)
WNBC.com 27/01/2004
TRENTON, N.J. - The state has lowered the fees it plans to charge the parents of thousands of young children who now receive two free hours of in-home care each week for physical, speech and other disabilities.
Under the plan announced Monday, officials also raised the annual income families must earn before they are charged for the therapy provided to children ages 3 and under as part of the Early Intervention Program.
It helps those with developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy or autism, or those having difficulty speaking, hearing, feeding or walking.
As initially proposed, a family of four earning $27,600 would have been charged $5.29 a month, or about $63 a year, while a family earning $250,000 a year would have paid $1,250 a year. The fees would cover whatever amount of therapy the child requires.
Under the new plan, families of four that make less than $64,400 will not be charged, while the fee for those who earn more will be determined by a sliding scale. For example, families earning $156,400 would have been charged $5,300, but will pay $2,300 under the new plan.
"The two main complaints we heard at our public hearings were the detrimental effects on low-income people and the problems that would be faced by those in the higher brackets," said Charlotte Andriot Wood, an assistant state health commissioner. "We tried to resolve those issues and we think for the most part we've succeeded."
The new fees will take effect in March for those entering the program and will be phased in during March, April and May for those already enrolled. The state had said the fee increases would generate at least $7 million, and they expect to earn about $5 million under the revised plan.
Officials said the fees are needed to keep pace with enrollment -- which has grown by about 15 percent during each of the past eight years while federal funding has failed to keep pace.
They said New Jersey's cost has risen 96 percent in the past two years, from $21.9 million to $42.9 million, and the cost this year will be $68 million.
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Finance : Pay-as-you-go therapy
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Posted by sylvia on Monday, January 26, 2004 (16:56:15)
The Times-New Jersey 26/01/2004
By Mark Perkiss
Priscilla Purnick of West Windsor thought things couldn't be much harder than having a disabled daughter.
Now she's dealing with that plus the prospect of having to stop her 2-year-old daughter's therapy, which previously was provided through the state's Early Intervention Program.
New Jersey's budget problems are prompting officials to start charging for in-home services that have been provided free to infants and toddlers for three decades.
"It kills me to have to make that kind of decision because she's benefited so much from the early intervention, but we simply can't afford what the state's looking to charge," Purnick said.
For Purnick and her husband, the fee proposal amounts to $7,200 a year the couple doesn't have.
Purnick's daughter, Jessica Phalen, was born with a paralyzed right arm. Today, with the help of two operations and extensive therapy through the state's Early Intervention Program, she can crawl but can't reach her right arm out with her palm facing the sky or touch her left shoulder with her right hand.
While the fee proposal, which is being reviewed by the state Department of Health and Senior Services, has an obvious effect on low-income people, families with higher incomes also are feeling pinched.
"I understand that people are not going to be sympathetic to me because they'll think I make enough money to pay for this service, but we're not rich," said Purnick, a scientist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey who researches the spinal cord and, with her husband, earns a combined $150,000 a year.
"We're middle class," she said. "We live modestly. We're not extravagant. My husband and I are still paying college loans. We don't have the money to cover this."
Jessica Phalen is one of about 8,100 infants and toddlers in the Early Intervention Program, which provides two hours of free therapy a week for children under 3 with developmental disabilities. The program covers children with physical, speech, hearing and other disabilities, including blindness and autism.
Now, because of state budget constraints, combined with the growth in the number of children in the program and a doubling of costs in the past four years, officials say they must end free services and charge a monthly fee that uses a sliding scale based on income.
The state's plan has drawn an outcry from parents, physicians and advocacy groups for the disabled as well as for treatment centers that provide therapy, who are concerned that families will be unable to afford to pay for therapy for children at a young age, which medical research indicates is the key to future progress.
Under the current state proposal, a family of four with an annual income of $27,600 would pay $63 a year while a family earning $250,000 would pay $15,000 annually.
The fee would cover whatever amount of therapy a child needs and would bring in between $7 million and $9 million, said Assistant Health Commissioner Celeste Andriot Wood.
A final decision is expected to be made this month.
"We understand that this is going to be felt by families at all levels of the income spectrum but we also recognize that the state has only so much money and we need to bring in revenue," she said. "We are hopeful that this will not lead to people dropping out and children losing treatment."
In the past eight years, enrollment in the program has been increasing at about 15 percent a year. In the past four years, New Jersey's spending on the program has jumped from $21.9 million to $42.9 million while federal money has not kept pace, Wood said.
The state already charges a fee to families of four with incomes in excess of $64,000 - or 350 percent above the federal poverty level - for services beyond the two free hours and is proposing to bring the starting threshold down to 150 percent above the federal poverty level or $27,600 for a family of four.
The fee brought in a net of $35,000 for the state last year, Wood said.
She said state officials are concerned about people at the low-income end of the spectrum and are looking to see if the payment threshold can be raised.
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Read More... (3.81 KB) | 6 comments | |
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Finance : Budget Cuts Could Hurt Disabled Children
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Posted by sylvia on Monday, January 26, 2004 (15:21:13)
WTVM 26/01/2004
Georgia's Govenor is being accused of balancing the budget on the backs of families caring for disabled children.
Parents say lost funding could be a matter of life or death.
Governor Sonny Perdue is proposing to make parents pay up to 400 dollars a month for services they now get for free.
The money is for people who are not poor, but still can't afford the cost of caring for a disabled child.
The cuts could have a big impact on Brandon Goins.
His grandmother Donna Spies says, "He only weighed 2 pounds 11 ounces when he was born. He has cerebral palsy, autism, and he's just extremely mentally retarded."
The Governor's plan is to stop paying for services like day care which help Brandon's family keep him out of an institution.
Spies says "He's used to being with his friends here. If he had to stay at home everyday or stay in an institute--I don't believe he would last long. A lot of these kids are that way."
Potiphar Miles agrees that by keeping his 27-year-old daughter Princess at home, he can make sure she is happy.
"I like to play music for her. Sometimes she wants to jump out of the chair. The louder it is the better it is for her."
Miles has been caring for his daughter alone since 1990.
"That's a promise my wife and I made with each other. That which ever of us went first she would never go to an institution."
But caring for the disabled is an expense almost no one but the wealthy can afford. For example, special chairs can cost up to 5-thousand dollars.
Wthout help, many families would have to skip therapy which can help children reach their highest potential.
Mother Wendy Ericson says, "She would not grow. She would not improve. We will do all we can afford, but that's all we can do. I will not put my child in an institution. It's not fair to her. It's taking my child away from me. It's a miserable life. Put a dog in a cage and leave it there until it dies."
Once cuts are in the Governor's budget they are close to reality.
That's why advocates hope to rally enough support to get lawmakers to change their minds. Advocates will be going to Atlanta on February 11 to testify before the Department of Community Health.
If you'd like to voice your opinion to state lawmakers, the program which helps these families is called the Katie Beckett Waiver program.
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Finance : Autism funding cut-off 'discrimination'
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Posted by sylvia on Thursday, January 22, 2004 (12:19:08)
Toronto Star 20/01/2004
It's "discriminatory" for the Ontario government to stop funding the treatment of autistic children at the age of six, the Ontario Human Rights Commission has ruled.
Norrah Whitney, whose son Luke Burrows is eight, had asked the Ontario Human Rights Commission to rule on whether the province should fund Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention beyond age six, the current cut-off age.
The commission ruled that refusing to pay for therapy for older children "is discriminatory to children with autism over the age of six."
"It is based on inadequate research and stereotypical assumptions that the optimal age for treatment is six years and younger," the commission said in its recent ruling.
Burrows' case is now heading to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, Whitney said at a news conference today.
If the case goes to the tribunal, its ruling will be binding on the Ontario government.
Premier Dalton McGuinty has said he wants to ensure that autistic children get the treatment they need. However, the government continues to fight court cases brought forward by parents of autistic children who are fighting to have the province pay for treatment beyond the age of six.
McGuinty said late last year in the legislature that the government is fighting those cases because it doesn't want to set the precedent that the court can tell the government how to spend its money.
The one-on-one treatment in question is expensive, costing about $55,000 a year for each child.
Whitney said the government is trying to block her case from going to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.
"There are solutions to these problems and the government now has them," Whitney said at the news conference.
Whitney and other parents with autistic children have already given their suggestions to the government, such as redistributing funds that are already allocated to other areas.
"I am here to beg Mr. McGuinty to please call off these attorneys," Whitney said.
With the government fighting her case and several others, Whitney said she doesn't believe the government is willing to find ways to fix the problem facing autistic children in the province.
"He's not only hurting children now, he's starting to hurt the families that are caring and protecting them."
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