Respite RecipientsThe following are the request testimonials from families who have received respite funds from ASBC: 2009 Respite Testimonials:1st Quarter (3 awards) (1) My son has just been diagnosed with Aspergers by the ABLE team at Boulder Community Hospital. I was directed by Julie to apply for a Respite. I am currently in the process of trying to get Medicaid for my son and he is on CHP right now. With a family of four and the only one employed I am a little pressed for the money it will take for Occupational and speech therapy. My husband is currently disabled and trying to get SSI. (2) My wife and I had triplet boys on April 26, 2005. Two were identical and one was fraternal. They are now 3.5 years old and life has been an incredible journey ever since they were born. Aside from raising three boys at once they were our first children and my wife had to stop working so she could care for them. I have been working many jobs ever since just to try to keep us from losing our home and to provide for our family. This combined with the stress of our autistic child who has frequent tantrums and screams uncontrollably at times has been most stressful especially for my wife who cares for our children most of the time. About three weeks ago one of our triplet sons was diagnosed as autistic. Although it was not the diagnosis we were hoping for, we have always known that he was different than the other boys as he still does not speak yet. He has been receiving treatment for over two years for his speech delay and low muscle-tone, thankfully we have been on it from a very early age. We are concerned as the cost of all the treatment we are seeking is not covered by insurance and because I earn a certain level of income we do not qualify for any grants. Although my income is at that level we have been living paycheck to paycheck for over 3 years and like many families may be forced to lose our home and declare bankruptcy. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. I rarely see my kids as I need to be working most nights and weekends as well as my fulltime job. Any break we could get from the hectic stressful life we have would be greatly appreciated and I would love to take my wife out for dinner and a movie, which hasn't happened in years. (3) We have a son who is eleven and has HFA. I am starting to look a summer camp options for him. We have learned the hard way that he needs to have a very structured routine when he is out of school for summer. We have found that his favorite summer activities are computer camps and outdoor adventure camps in Boulder. We have experienced a change in our health insurance and we now have to pay for his expensive medications. I am not sure that I will be able to afford the summer camps that he loves and benefits socially from because of our health care costs. 2nd Quarter Hi there. I have 2 Autistic beauties. They are 6 and 3. I'm in need of this respite care grant badly! I don't get a lot of time off and I’m too poor to pay anyone to come watch them, so mommy can have a life. I go to school full-time and when I'm not there I'm home with them. Their dad doesn’t help me AT ALL. My mom died in 2007 and she was my support system and babysitter. My dad has a new life and doesn’t help me either. Please help me and pick me for this grant! thank so much for your time! My husband and I are parents to two young children, one who was diagnosed with autism in April 2008. We spend a lot of our attention and time on our children and that doesn't leave a lot of time for us. We would love to be able to go out for a nice dinner together. Getting a respite grant would allow us to afford this much needed time together. Thank you for considering us. 3rd Quarter I am an attorney representing a mom who is working with the department of social services in Broomfield. She is indigent and I am therefore court-appointed counsel. I asked my client, to write a paragraph as her application for the respite grant and told her that I would send it to you. I have received the resumes of various babysitters for special needs children and have passed those on to my client. As background, my client is the mother of a 4 year old autistic son (who is nonverbal and is approximately 18 months of age in abilities) and a 9 year old son who is bi-polar. My client’s husband is a good father and works as a janitor at a local Broomfield school. My client is currently only able to work as a pizza delivery person for two hours per week, and is close to qualifying for SSDI due to some health issues that she has that prevent her from working. The following is what she wrote as her application for your respite grant.
4th Quarter (2 awards) I received a respite grant 5 or 6 years ago. Is it something I can receive more than once? I am in need right now. I have a 13-year-old son with Asperger Syndrome and a 12-year-old daughter with PDD. I am a single mom and I work full-time to support my family. My daughter has two friends, but my son doesn't have any friends. I try to divide my time between my two children and to spend time with them doing things they both enjoy. It gets difficult when my daughter has a friend over. My son is painfully aware of his lack of friends. There is a boy in our neighborhood whom I pay occasionally to spend time with my son, but I can't afford to do that very often. Recently, my son expressed to me that he is despairing. He is worried about what his life will look like and how he will get by. He expressed that it has been too long since he had fun. I reminded him of the time we went to Water World and we flew down the water slide. We were all screaming and laughing, and most definitely having fun. I think we were all giggling for days after that. It was such a nice break from social skills groups, medication, diets, exercises, psychiatrists, psychologists, phobias, anxieties, depression, and navigating the social world (all the things we deal with on a daily basis). I would like to receive this grant in order to just plain old have some fun again with my kids. My son is right that it has been too long. I'd like to use the money to take them tubing at a ski resort. Life has been so heavy, and we've been working so hard to just keep our heads above water. We just need a little breather, but I don't have any extra money to do anything like that right now. Please consider us for a grant. As I write this letter I am surrounded by boxes and packing tape. This fall my son entered an extreme period of anxiety that became very scary and I realized that we needed to move from Florida for more support. My sister lives in Westminster and can help some even though she travels for work so I focused on relocating to the Boulder area and was lucky enough to find a job teaching in Boulder beginning this January. It is a challenge being the sole provider for my family and I try to do as much as I can for my children in all areas of their lives. However, money is tight and I find myself depending on my daughter to help with child care. Therefore, when I saw your grant I thought that it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to hire someone to help as we all adjust to the move. I would like to spend the funds in two ways: for my son to receive some respite care so that I can help my daughter adjust to her new town and pay for one month of a Tae Kwon Do class for my son as he has taken one in the past and it really helped relieve some of his anxiety which will be initially heightened by the move. Thank you for the opportunity to apply and I do hope that we are able to help my son and daughter as we settle in and become part of the Boulder community. 2008 Respite Testimonials:1st Quarter (2 awards) (1) Our son is a wonderful, energetic 10-year-old diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum/Bipolar Disorder. We would love to hire someone to come and babysit him and our 6 year old daughter in our home. I am currently unemployed, we can't afford childcare, and my husband and I could use a night out or 2. We haven't been able to find resources to help us with any of our son's medical-social needs. Thank you for considering our application, and thank you for your organization! (2) We are requesting to be considered for a respite grant for our son, age 28 years. He has autism. He will be accompanying us to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN where my husband will be undergoing a clinical trial. We expect to be in MN for at least 4 weeks and will need to return monthly thereafter. Our son will accompany us because it is the best care for him. We will need to secure some care for him when we need to meet with the doctors. This grant would be very useful to help our son to be safe. Any other resources you might know and could share would also be appreciated. This is happening very quickly and we will be leaving the area this weekend. However, our mail will be forwarded and our home phone number will ring on the cell phone. 2nd Quarter Hello, my husband and I were so thrilled when we read in your newsletter the invitation to apply for this fund. We have a 5 year old ASD boy and as wonderful as he is, we could really use a night or two to ourselves. Our family is all back East and it is just the three of us out here. We have downsized on everything in order to afford the therapy services for him, living now in a just over 900 square foot home with only two bedrooms. Currently, my husband and I do not even have the evenings to ourselves as we have a "family bed" to accommodate our son's needs. A night out as man and woman, husband and wife would mean so much that I do not have enough words to describe it. Thank you for considering us for this fund. 3rd Quarter Most states do not require private insurance companies to cover essential autism treatments or services. In the absence of insurance coverage and Medicaid benefits/waivers we pay out-of-pocket. In fact, most insurance companies designate autism as a diagnostic exclusion, meaning no autism-specific services are covered. Unfortunately, we fight the fight for which treatment is most essential now with limited funds. Thank you for supporting our needs by awarding our family Respite funds. A Boulder County Family 4th Quarter (2 awards) (1) I am a stay at home mom of two preschoolers, both with special needs and IEPs. My daughter almost five years old has a speech delay and my son three and a half has been diagnosed with ASD. It has been very difficult for me and my husband to find some time to rest from the daily cares of our kids, with only one income and so many necessities that increase day by day. Please consider our application for the respite that ASBC is offering to families in need. (2) I just read about your grant for respite care and hope that you consider us in east county. My husband and I would like to find some help with babysitting for our 4 year old daughter who was just diagnosed with Autism Disorder at Children's Hospital, as well as our 2 year old daughter. We lost our family help from my parents this year, as they both now have chronic debilitating health issues (my mom was just diagnosed with a tumor) and can't watch our girls. My dog was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and we need a break for ourselves and for our marriage. Both girls are wonderful, fun-loving people with great senses of humor, anyone watching them will fall in love. Please consider us. 2007 Respite Testimonials:1st Quarter A single Dad with two boys 3 and 4. Before he became a single Dad he had a career opening and running restaurants, but the hours were not conducive to single parenthood. Now he drives a cab at night. He has a nanny that he takes his kids to overnight. He tries to sleep in his cab at night between 3:00 and 7:00 if he doesn't have a call. Then he picks the kids up at the nanny's in the morning and takes them to preschool. He tries to sleep again until has to pick up the children. The youngest still takes naps; the oldest is a busy boy. I hope you consider my nomination for the "Give Me a Break" respite grant for this single dad & family. 2nd Quarter Thank you so much for awarding us the "Give me a Break" respite fund. The extra money was a great welcome and helped to ease our financial burden a bit. With the extra money we were able to pay all of our bills on time-- which was a welcome relief. We have incurred a tremendous debt providing services for our child that our insurance company has refused to pay claiming that cognitive behavior therapy was not "proven treatment" and in legal fees fighting our local school district for it's failure and refusal to provide our child with FAPE. At a point when we felt no one cared about our family or our child ASBC was there and provided a helping hand. Just knowing the wonderful people that comprise ASBC cared about our plight and wanted to help was a great morale booster at a time when we needed it the most. 3rd Quarter 2007 3rd Quarter "Give Me a Break" respite grant was used to attend the August USAAA Conference for one day with the help of your respite fund. I used the money to pay for a babysitter for my ASD daughter, so that I could learn more about the biomedical options available to her. Most states do not require private insurance companies to cover essential autism treatments or services. In the absence of insurance coverage and Medicaid benefits/waivers we pay out-of-pocket. In fact, most insurance companies designate autism as a diagnostic exclusion, meaning no autism-specific services are covered. Unfortunately, we fight the fight for which treatment is most essential now with limited funds. Thank you for supporting our needs by awarding our family Respite funds. 4th Quarter 2007 4th Quarter "Give Me a Break" respite grant goes to a Boulder County family of 4, who struggles with the every day choices of food or gasoline. As this family was nominated, ASBC honors their request to remain anonymous. 2006 Respite Testimonials:1st Quarter Our family would like to request the "Give Me a Break" respite grant to help defray the costs of hiring a caregiver for our son while my husband is out of town on business and I am teaching in the evenings. Our son is 15 years old and has Asperger's Syndrome. He was officially diagnosed about 4 years ago by Susan Hepburn and colleagues at JFK. 2nd Quarter I am writing in request for the "Give Me a Break" respite grant. I have three sons, all with varying degrees of special needs. My oldest, is four years old and was diagnosed in January 2006 with autism. I also have 2 œ year old twins. The twins have significant speech delays and sensory integration needs. Because of their speech delays, they are starting to show some concerning behaviors (escalating tantrums, incessant crying, etc). As you can imagine, these behaviors are disturbing to my son who has autism. Many times each day, one child will act out, which leads to another child to cry, which leads the third child to start screaming. I am at my wits end and feel that having some respite would do our whole family some good. My husband and I would be able to recharge our batteries and the boys would each have a refreshed mommy and daddy to give them our best. 3rd Quarter Hello! We would like to apply for the "Give Me a Break" respite grant. Our only two children, 5 & 2 years old have both been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder within the last 8 months. We sort of expected the first one, but have been shocked and depressed with the second diagnosis. Our children have aspergers and autism. We have been doing a home curriculum for our son of 30 hours a week. (I have had to cut back on my job to only 2 days a week to perform all of the therapy at home) and we are doing over 10 hours a week with our daughter. Evenings when the kids go to sleep is spent reviewing ABA & RDI books. We need a break but are spending so many funds on both children's therapy (outside of what is paid for through services) and I am working so much less that funds are tight. We are also contemplating special needs trusts, etc which we feel we should spend funds on instead of ourselves. Any funds would be greatly appreciated and I think we would have a night out without our kids to regroup! 4th Quarter Our son will be five years old in December, 2006. He was first diagnosed with autism at the age of two. He is quite a social kid for some one the spectrum. He loves cars and to ride and to hike. His mommy works very hard to make the family run smoothly and I am sure she would be very happy to receive the "Give Me a Break" respite grant for a short respite. |
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