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Finding Support Services for Special Needs KidsSeptember 24, 2003Raising a child is a hard job, but especially if that child has a condition that requires huge amounts of his or her parents’ time.If the parents have a support system that allows them to get away occasionally, they’re fortunate. If they don’t, they’re sometimes overwhelmed. Many parents of special needs children in Spokane have a hard time finding good child care. Doug Nadvornick profiles the struggle of one mother with her autistic son. Doug: When Dawn Sidell looks back to when her eight-year-old son Holden was diagnosed with autism, she remembers one afternoon at their home in southern Oregon. Dawn Sidell “We had a big piano in the living room and, let’s see, he was probably two, so, yeah, it was right before the diagnosis. He crawled up on the stool and would bounce on his bottom on the piano to play it and was having a great old time. And, of course, I told him to get down and not to do that. And he didn’t, so I physically removed him.” Doug: But the child climbed back on the piano, again and again. Sidell “You know, at the last point, I spanked him. He had a diaper on so it wasn’t too bad. But I spanked him and got very angry and put him on the other side of the room. And I’ll be danged, he crawled over there and got back up on the piano, but this time he was looking at me and he was crying, and does it again. And I just thought, oh my god, he can’t not do this.” Doug: That led to Holden’s diagnosis with autism. Sidell learned what she could about the condition and about how to work with her son, to keep him engaged. She and her then-husband, a physician, would work one-on-one with Holden and they had the money to hire therapists to come into their home. But that stability didn’t last long. Sidell “I became one of the 80-percent of people whose marriages don’t last when you have a child with autism.” Doug: Dawn Sidell separated from her husband and moved her children to her childhood home, Spokane. And she tried to find a place where Holden could learn and mature. For the first year after the move, Sidell stayed home and provided one-on-one care for him. She had some help. She’d brought with her a tutor for Holden, but the tutor couldn’t stay for long. And she found two neighborhood girls who could watch the boy occasionally. But as Sidell became more involved in the community and went back into the job market, she knew she’d need to find a regular preschool program for Holden. She took him to a center near her Nine Mile Falls home. But the arrangement lasted only two days. Sidell “Holden was in constant motion at that time and not very responsive to verbal commands, especially if you didn’t approach him the right way. Some people will say things like, oh come on now, don’t be walkin’ around on that. That won’t work. You would have to say, get down! It had to be very clear, very direct and right in front of him where he could see you. People who don’t understand that and don’t know what to do when he doesn’t respond see it as disobedience.” Doug: The preschool called and said they couldn’t work with Holden. By this time, Sidell had given up on trying to find a daycare-slash-preschool program that would work for him. She applied through the state and got some financial help for in-home care. That helped, but Sidell was frustrated that she couldn’t find a place that could accommodate her son. She’s not alone among parents of children with special needs. Jo Marie Francis from Family Care Resources, a Spokane agency that matches parents with day care, says there’s a strong demand for child care for children with disabilities, more than what’s available. Jo Marie Francis “I was amazed how many of those providers wanted to say yes, they really, really did, even if they didn’t have the training or the experience. Their minds were really open to it. The glitch was getting paid for it.” Doug: She says government programs that provide child care subsidies or money for special care are often either underfunded or restrictive about who qualifies. Sometimes, Francis says, day care providers are put off by the paperwork the state requires from them. Francis “There is also the issue of would this child need one-on-one care. Would the provider need to bring in another employee?” Doug: Kathy Blair, who owns the Spokane Child Development Center, says she takes children with disabilities whenever she can, but she says providers who look at the overall cost are sometimes scared off. Kathy Blair “There’s a lot of time in working with families and a lot of communication and what’s working and what’s not and accessing the one-on-one funding, for example, takes a lot of time. It also takes a lot of time in advertising and interviewing.” Doug: Some providers decide it’s not worth the investment. And parents like Dawn Sidell are left to cobble together whatever care they can get. Sidell “A student that has been helping me has a class that she can’t get out of. She wouldn’t get to my house until five. I need someone to meet the bus at three and it is murder finding someone to do that. I’m just piecemealing for now.” Tomorrow, we’ll profile one well-regarded preschool center that’s trying to make a go of it, but faces the prospect of having to permanently close its doors. For “Growing Up Healthy”, I’m Doug Nadvornick. By Doug Nadvornick 
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