Get the Summer You Want (and Deserve!) with Regional Center

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this week's Undivided Live. Summer is right around the corner. While kids may love being out of school, summer can be especially stressful for many of our families. So how can we fill the time with fun enrichment or stretching our boundaries? What about kiddos who don't do well without structured routines like school? Finding something accessible and appropriate for our children can be challenging, but I probably don't have to tell you that, and the age old question is how can we pay for a summer of specialized activities, especially if our child requires supports to participate? So today we're going to talk about how Regional Center services how Regional Center services can ease the stress of filling the two month summer spread. Respite camps, social rec, aides, and more. We're getting you ready for summer with Regional Center. I'm Lindsay Crain, and I head the Content and Community teams at Undivided. With me today, we welcome back Undivided public benefits specialist Lisa Concoff Kronbeck. Lisa counsels families about government programs that support our kids and families like Medi-Cal, CCS, IHSS, and our focus for today, Regional Center. She's also the mom of an eight year old with Down syndrome, and self-identifies as an individual with disabilities. And after Lisa tells us how we can optimize our summer, we'll be bringing on special guest Larkin O'Leary, who is the co-founder and president of Common Ground Society. Here she is. Hey, Larkin. -- Hi. Common Ground Society is a nonprofit organization that educates communities on inclusivity and empowers them to be more compassionate and accepting of people with disabilities. Larkin is a mother of two, including a son with Down syndrome. She is going to be documenting her quest for summer services with help from her Undivided navigator, Kelly. She is going to put into motion what we're discussing with Lisa today, and you're going to be able to follow along. So what is the first thing that we need to do before requesting summer services from Regional Center? I think the first thing that you'd want to do is review the IPP and make sure that it includes goals that support the kind of services that you're thinking about asking for, because, as always, the Regional Center is going to fund services that will help your child meet the goals in the IPP, so if you look at it and they're not really there, then you want to request an IPP meeting, or if it's time for your annual soon, make sure that you bring some of those to the table and that they get documented in the IPP. Right. So before even jumping in, look and see if there's already something there that's going to validate your requests, right? Yeah, and then ater that I would say to kind of think to yourself just in terms of preparing to make your funding request, I would say to think about three things. Think about what are the additional services and supports that your child is going to need to get through the summer, and that can be recreational, that can be additional behavioral supports If they don't do well with changes in structure. What do they need for the summer? The next question is what do you need. Do you have other kids who are home? Do you have a change in work schedule for the summer? What are the resources that you're going to need in order to meet your child's needs? And that might include respite or childcare. And then the third thing to think about is what are the generic resources that are available to you, because the Regional Center will want to know, and they will... that will be a consideration in terms of thinking of funding, and so what are the generic resources? Does your child have ESY, extended school year, from the school district? Are there insurance programs that can be covered by your health insurance? Is there family around for support? Just think about what are the generic... the generic and natural supports that are around you. And those are the three things that you want to think about in terms of where the Regional Center can fill the gaps. And by generic resources that... -- can mean resources that are available to everybody, like if your local Parks and Recreation has a summer camp, and your child can participate, that's something to think about in terms of generic programs that are available. If your child is going to school during the summer, that is a service that the district provides, and so the Regional Center is going to think about that too. So think about what your child needs, think about what you need and what else is going on, and think about what's already available, and look at your IPP and figure out, so that's the before, right? That's the ‘let's get prepared.’ And then I wanted to start thinking about an obvious Regional Center resource that can help with some child care, which is respite, which a lot of people are familiar with, so what is the difference between respite and specialized supervision, because I know we hear a lot of those kind of thrown in together, so what do parents need to know about the difference? So specialized supervision is essentially daycare. It's daycare for children who are not able to participate in the usual programs that parents send their kids to for daycare, like the afterschool programs, like hanging out on the yard after school, or local programs, or just having a babysitter come if they need additional support. So specialized supervision is childcare for parents who work full time, so it's based on the parents unavailability because they're working full time, so they're going to think about what available childcare there is for kids of... typically developing kids of the same age, and they’re going to think about are the parents working full time. Respite is in-home care specifically to allow the parents a break from their child's extraordinary needs, so it's not that the parents are gone because they're working, is that the parents need a second to run errands. They need to spend time together. They need to spend quality time with the other kids in the house. It's not childcare because the parents are at work. It's childcare because the parents need to take some time for self-care and get a break. So those are two... They’re two different services. They're coded differently. They're assigned differently. They have different eligibility criteria. And so if you aren't working or you work part time, can you get an increase in respite hours if your child isn't in ESY? So, I mean, one of the things they're going to want to know is why the child isn't in ESY, but during the time that... It's going to depend on what other resources are available as usual. It's going to depend on when your work schedule is relative to the time that your child needs care. They're going to look at all the other services that are available to you. What about if you are not working and it's after ESY, right? You do the four weeks or whatever it might be of ESY, can you ask for additional respite hours after ESY is finished? You can. You can ask for additional respite hours, but you're usually going to need to make kind of a compelling argument for why you need those additional respite hours. That's... I mean, as always. Right, and then a question just came in. Iris was asking a question for a parent. She said, “What if you do not think that ESY is appropriate because it's not an inclusive setting? Regional Center would not provide support to the mom for that time since they have the option for ESY, but it's their personal choice not to use it.” I... That is a challenge that I personally have faced in similar situations, and I think what it comes down to is that, number one, you would want to deal with the district in terms of what their responsibility is for providing your child with an appropriate setting for the summer, and if you can’t resolve things with the school district, then I would go back to the Regional Center and and really argue why that ESY setting is not appropriate, and what you've tried to do with the school district to work it out. Okay. -- Yeah. So provide everything you can. Yeah, but you want to start... You got to start with the school district, because if it's educational service it’s the district's responsibility to provide an appropriate education in the least restrictive setting, and so it's fundamentally like a disagreement between you and the school district. All right, back to respite. What if you are an IHSS parent provider for your child? Does that affect any kind of increase in hours? Can they look at that and say, “Sorry, you already... you also have IHSS, so...”? So it can get a little bit tricky, and a lot of times the Regional Center will do that. They'll try, especially if there's protective supervision, because they'll say, “Well, it's your choice to be the provider,” but it gets really tricky because there are really specific rules about when families can hire an outside provider and when they... the parent has to be the provider if they're the ones who are available and able to care for their child, and so if you're asking for additional daycare hours, there's a good chance that they're going to say you should use your IHSS. I mean, if both parents are working full time, then you already have that service as a generic resource, but if a parent is the provider and you're asking for more respite and they say to use an outside provider, you... the circumstances under which you can get respite are different from the circumstances under which you can use IHSS to hire an outside provider. There are situations where you can use IHSS as respite to run errands or to take care of essential household tasks, but you can't use... you can't hire an outside provider to provide IHSS services so that the parents can go to the movies, or so that the parents can take the kids out to... take the other kids out to a park. It's much more restrictive, and so it's really easy to say, “Oh, it's your choice to be the provider,” but IHSS has very particular rules about hiring outside providers, so that would be my response if they said, “Well, use your IHSS.” Absolutely. So then back to specialized supervision. If you work full time so you can qualify for specialized supervision ostensibly, and... so can you get extra hours then during the summer, and again, how does ESY affect that? So during the summer it's going to vary from Regional Center to Regional Center, but what I see a lot is that they'll give like four additional hours of supervision per day to account for the time when the kids are out of school, because ESY is usually a shortened school day. At least in my experience, it's a shortened school day. Everything is shorter. It's a shorter session of school, and so the... what I've seen is then they give like four hours additional supervision time per day, and sometimes it will be more if the child's older, just in general, not just during the summer, but in general, a lot of Regional Center service... a lot of Regional Centers will make more hours available for kids who are maybe 13 and up because under 13 they say, well, there’s some degree of parent responsibility for daycare because parents who have kids need daycare, right? But once they're adolescents and you would expect that they might be able to not need childcare, some Regional Centers will give additional supervision hours at that point because they're like, well, the parents of typically developing children wouldn't have the expectation of having child care costs at that point. Yeah. And Wendy, actually, she asked a great question. She said, “How do you apply for the special... for specialized supervision for full time working parents?” So you would talk to your service coordinator. You would either... at either the IPP or if you have the kind of relationship where you make requests in writing and the service coordinator will just kind of deal with them as they come, but yeah, what you... it would be the service coordinator that you request and you would show them that you work full time and that you need those additional services, and also why your can't... child can't participate in, say, the after school.... a lot of, I don't know, after school programs or the local community daycares. Show the additional care that your child needs that requires the service. Okay. And then, just like I always quiz you with a million different scenarios with IHSS, I have a couple questions just about the respite in specialized supervision. So if one spouse works full time and the other does not, does that change anything for respite or specialized supervision? So if there’s two parent household. So again, respite and specialized supervision are two very different services, and so with respite you would need to explain why the parent needs additional respite with the child out of school if they're not working. Maybe there are other kids in the house. Maybe there are specific things that are necessary to run the house that are usually done while the child's in school. You would have to explain why you need the additional respite hours. For specialized supervision, that's a little bit more tricky because the parent is there and they're available to provide child care, so why do you need child care? And so, for example, if a parent is going through medical care, and has a lot of doctor's appointments, and they would usually do those appointments while the child is in school, that might be a situation where you might want to ask for some supervision time or additional respite so that you can get to your doctor's appointments for your medical treatment, but yeah, generally they're not going to provide child care when there's a parent that's available and not working and not otherwise unavailable. Can I ask a question that just... and I don't know if we've ever talked about this and we haven't received a question, but I'm sure there's parents out there wondering if there is a divorced couple would each.... and maybe you don't know the answer to this, but would... could... if... and they were both working full time, could each parent get specialized supervision hours, or is that child... Does it go for the parents or does it go to the child? So there's, this is all you can get. If you get the four extra hours, is that per parent or do you have to split that up? I think that it's going to be individualized to the child's circumstance. It's going to depend on where they are at what point in the week, because it's not the parent is receiving these hours to do with as they please. It's the parent is unavailable because they're at work, so which parent is the child supposed to be with? What is the other parent doing? I don't know that I feel comfortable totally answering that because I think it would be particular to the child’s situation and how the family has arranged things. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, completely. Just one of those... Just as you were saying that, I thought, well, what happens? So ask your service coordinator. Yeah, I mean when it comes to respite... I mean, when it comes to respite, then it can get a little bit tricky because if there's shared custody, then the Regional Center may come back and say, “Well, you kind of have a natural respite when the child is with the other parent, so why do you need additional respite hours during the week?” and so these are just all things that you have to think about. So now we want to kind of switch gears to social rec. First, can you... for some people who maybe heard it but haven't really looked into it yet, can you explain what social rec funding is? Okay, so one of the things that the Lanterman Act recognizes is the right of people with disabilities to participate in their communities and have leisure time, and have fun, and engage in the community, engage in recreational activities, socialize with peers, and just generally be part of the community, and so social recreational funding is funding for services that are not medical in need, that are not academic in need, they’re specifically to enjoy life, and so social rec funding is exactly that. It allows Regional Center clients to build relationships with peers and participate in the community, and access what the community has to offer. And to be clear, this is separate funding from camps, correct? Yeah, so when they restored funding last summer, what they restored funding for was social recreational activities, camp, educational services for school age children, and non-medical therapies like art therapy, music therapy, dance therapy. So all of these services are separate categories and they're... You wouldn't normally be expected to choose one over the other, although there may be restrictions on funding more than one type in one day. And I definitely... I want to follow up and ask a question about that, but we have a question from Cambria. She said, “Can you give an example of what would be in the IPP to support swim lessons?” So when we're saying go and look at your IPP, what could support this, she said, “Is it... it's much more expensive to do individual lessons, but group lessons don't work with my child's needs. He loves the water, but I worry about safety.” Okay, so when it... I mean when it... when it comes to swimming, and I've heard other people say this as well, when it comes to swimming I have seen people even before the restoration of social rec funding, I have seen people successfully get swimming lessons as a matter of safety. If you have a pool, if family members have a pool, and you're concerned about safe... water safety, that's not recreational. That's like, what if the child falls into the pool? That's a safety issue, and so you... that might even fall outside of social rec funding, and there's a more compelling argument, as a matter of safety, to provide those swimming lessons, and so if they're not likely to learn in a group setting, then make that argument and explain why, and explain why it's necessary for your child to learn to swim in the first place. We have another example here, another question from Shari who says, “Specialized rec wouldn't cover karate in a class with all disabled children., correct? Or one on one sessions?” So wherever possible, the Regional Center... and this interacts with federal rules regarding the use of funding, the HCBS rule on not segregating people with disabilities, so wherever possible, they want kids to participate with their typically developing peers, and if, for those of you who are in the self-determination program, you know already that that rule is in effect, that they don't want people only in programs that are designed for people with disabilities that don't have any typically developing peers in them, and at some point, that will become the rule universally for the Regional Center. Right now, it's kind of a priority that unless there's a very compelling reason why they can't participate in a class with typically developing peers, they want them to do that, and so part of what the funding would provide is what will allow them to access that class with their typically developing peers. Are there limits for how much social rec funding a child can receive in a year? Because this isn't just a summer program, right? You can access this all year round now, so what are the limits? -- I know that some Regional Centers are doing it, but based on not so much by the year as by the week. They can only have a certain number of hours for this kind of programing per week, and it has to fall within certain times. It can't fall on the same... at the same time as another funded service, or on the same day as another funded service. It seems like for social rec, it's more like hours per week than dollar amounts per year. You said hours per week versus... Hours... like the number of hours per week, and I mean again, you're... any expenses that you're asking for funding, you're gonna have to justify why... why they need that particular service and why... what goal it's going to help them reach. If it's a community... If it's... and I know that we'll get to this, is that if it's a community program, the Regional Centers will likely argue for some sort of parent responsibility. If your kid's going to go to summer camp at the Y, the Regional Center is probably going to expect some of that to be parent responsibility, but if your child needs supports to participate in that program, then that's where you really want to emphasize how your child will be able to engage in that community activity, assuming that they have the right supports in place. And a follow up, I think, to what you just said about maybe the parent responsibility, Cambria asked, “Are there family income limits on asking your Regional Center to fund services?” So I think that that's kind of a two part question, because I think there will be some degree in... like I said, I haven't seen all the service standards yet. I think there will be some degree of parent responsibility for community programs like Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, if they're participating in the local soccer or T-ball league, I think there will be some expectation of parent responsibility, and then the Regional Center would be funding the additional supports they need to participate in that, but I also think that if there's... if there's a really strong reason why this is kind of the program... the program that will help your child meet this particular need and the family can't afford it, then I think that that would be a reasonable request to make and make the request and see what happens, but yeah, it would be my child needs this service, and without this funding I won't be able to provide this service. Do you know what I mean? But in terms of just generally accessing social rec programs, there isn't specifically an income cap. I hope I am saying your name right, because it is beautiful. Aquahlaluah, she said, “I have twins who elope and they keep telling me I can only get respite services and respite is only in-home so I can't take them in the community.” That would be where you may want to look into behavior... behavioral supports, and behavior services, and for that you would start with your insurance. If you have private insurance, start there. The next step would be Medi-Cal, and then if you have managed care then Medi-Cal should cover it, if it's medically necessary. If you have fee for service, that’s a whole discussion that we'll have, but the point is, I would... that would be where you would want to start requesting behavior supports as opposed to respite, and in order for Regional Center to fund that, you have to show that your other... your other resources will not fund it. If you have Medi-Cal managed care, then they should... then if it's medically necessary, they should cover it. And Jana and Aparna had good comments. She said, “What language do we use to push back?” because then Aparna said, “Case manager says they don't have a directive from their director yet.” I would still make that request in writing and ask for that response in writing, and then if that’s consistent, if you're consistently getting that pushback, I would elevate to supervisor, continue elevating to supervisor, and file a complaint if you have to, because this is something that they're supposed to be doing, but what it... what you often see with the Regional Center is what they'll tell you on the phone is not the same as what they're willing to put in writing, so if you ask them in writing, “Can you please provide me a copy of the policy that says that you don't provide social rec funding,” see what comes of that. Right. That's great. And this next question, I also see a lot of people are asking, which is about reimbursements. I mean, a lot of... we've talked to a lot of parents about social rec and they're not having a lot of luck finding vendors, social rec programs that are appropriate for their child, so what are you hearing? I mean, if there's no vendored programs available or that are appropriate for our child, can we request reimbursement for a non-vendor program? Okay, if you're on the traditional funding route, which is not self-determination, but just the traditional funding route, I have been told repeatedly that reimbursement is not an option. If you're on self-determination, the programs don't have to be vendored, and so it's a whole... it's a whole separate discussion, but for traditional funding, I have been specifically told that this is not a reimbursable service, that payments have to be made directly to the provider. Every Regional Center on their website has a list of vendored programs, and you can go... it's usually under the head... the header of service providers, and then you click on that and there's a link to a list of vendors. Some of them are more thorough than others. Some Regional Centers have made an active effort to reach out and I know some Regional Centers have emailed parents and said, if you know of any providers who might be interested in being vendored, have them come talk to us, and so some of them do have some of those vendors on their list now. Others haven't. I mean, one of the things that I suggest people do like right now, like last week, is start thinking about the providers that you want to reach out to for the summer and see if they're willing to become vendored, if they're not already, and if they're vendored with a different Regional Center, then they can send the file over and they can deal with that on the back end, but if they're not funded with any vendor... vendored with any Regional Center, then reach out to them and see if they're willing to go through that process. Some are not and some are. I also wanted to put this because Ro says, “North LA published them,” like you said, and she said, “Because there's a limited amount of vendors, they have authorized a parent reimbursement option. Okay, that's very likely something that's going to vary from Regional Center to Regional Center. -- Right. I've been dealing primarily with West Side, and they have specifically said that reimbursement is not an option. Now, again, sometimes what is said and what actually winds up happening if you have to appeal, I don't know, but they're saying right now that it's not feasible. And Katty also... she said Lanterman... Lanterman are doing reimbursement for summer camps under the traditional setting, so maybe they're... It's starting to be timely, so maybe they're realizing they have to fulfill that, so, I mean, no matter where you are, ask, right? Jana just asked, “Is specialized supervision only available in the summer?” No, specialized supervision is available year round, but summer is a time when people often have to ask for additional supervision because the kids are out of school, so traditionally specialized supervision is provided after school and during breaks, so during the year, it's going to be that block of time between when the kids get out of school and when you get home from work. Yeah, and another part of the social rec funding that you mentioned before was educational services, so does that mean that we can request tutoring or educational therapy in place of ESY or after it's complete? Sort of two questions. So the educational services are still not a substitution for generic resources, so the Regional Center will always say this. It is the payor of last resort, it’s the payor of last resort. So if you feel that your child needs additional educational supports during the summer, the first place you want to go is the school district, because that's who has the primary responsibility for educational services. If they are not able to provide additional supports, that's when... and you can document that, that's when you would go back to the Regional Center and see if they can provide services during the gaps when the kids are not in school. Yeah, you would definitely want to go to the school district first. Right, and then just see, and that's another thing, right? It's just been restored. I would love to hear from any families, if you are asking for educational therapy or educational resources. I don't know how it's stated in the social rec protocol, but I would love to hear, okay, did your child go to ESY? Was there regression this year? Was that enough of a reason? If the school is obviously saying we don't provide anything beyond ESY, we would love to... We would love to hear again. And educational therapy is one of those things that the school district will often decline to provide, and so that's something that, again, you want to ask them, but they generally don't unless it's through compensatory services, and so that might be something that you want to look into over the summer as an additional support. Okay, and so specifically for camps, we talked about social rec and how much you can get throughout the year, which depends. What about camp? How much camp funding can a child receive year round, because, again, this is not just for summer camp, it's for camps, so how does that look? I know that some of them will do it the number of calendar... like, a set... maximum number of calendar days per year. Some of them will do it by season, so if you've chosen a summer camp, then that's your summer camp, and now you can choose a winter camp. It's going to be different from Regional Center to Regional Center. What you need to know is that it will not be allowed to overlap with generic resources, so they're not going to provide summer camp on the same day that your child's in ESY, because the school district is fulfilling that need for that day, so think about the times when... before and after ESY, because ESY’s like four weeks, right? So think about those gaps in coverage. Many of our kids require more support, and some Regional Centers will provide aides who will attend camp or program with your child, so what do we need to know about aides? So, I guess there's kind of two... there's kind of a few different situations where kids would need a 1:1 in a program. The first thing you want to look at is your Regional Center’s current service standards. A lot of Regional Centers already have an entry in their service standards for an inclusion aide, so, for example, your child is attending a community camp, but they need... the camp is not really... has not historically had a lot of kids with disabilities, and so they kind of need some guidance on how to make sure that they're being inclusive. Some of the Regional Centers already have that in their service standards for an inclusion aide that is meant to be phased out, where that person would go in and kind of give an... be the 1:1 aide for now, but also give instruction to the program so that they don't need that in the future. What a lot of our kids need in any kind of program like that is a behavioral aide, right? And that needs to come from the behaviorist and from the behavior plan. The recommendation and the justification for those additional services need to come from the behavior plan, so they need to look at the program. Number one, look at the program and make sure that it's... if the child has a lot of behaviors, make sure that it's a safe and appropriate setting for the child, and also explain why they need the behavioral support in that setting in order to access the program and fully participate. And so that recommendation, again, has to come from the behavior plan. To go back also to the inclusion aide or the aide, so if you do get camp funded, can you also request an aide? Like, it’s not an either or, right? It isn't just... -- Yeah. Okay, yeah. And then, if your chosen camp is not vendored, you can still request an aide to help support your child with a non-vendored camp, correct? That's my understanding. I think that is something that might vary, but the whole... I mean the whole point is to be able to participate in community activities and so the aide being vendored... but you probably would have to check... you would have to check with the camp first to see if they can staff a 1:1 aide, like if your child... like if it's not a matter of instructing them on inclusion, if your child just kind of needs a little bit of redirection because they're likely to wander off, or... you would probably... you would want to check with the camp first to see if they have the staffing to provide a 1:1 aide, because that would be part of the generic service, and if they can't, then you would go back to the Regional Center. And what are some of the reasons that a child would qualify for an aide at camp? Is it just that if you're a Regional Center... if you're a Regional Center client, you can get an aide, or are there specific things that... eligibility? Or, that depends? That's a great question. I think that it's going to depend on each specific child. I think for some kids, it may be a medical need. Maybe the child is not toilet trained, maybe the child is not ambulatory, maybe the child has a G-tube, and then you start getting into into nursing care and LVN care, but it can be for health and safety. It can be for behavior. And again, it can be a matter of making sure that... facilitating social interaction, making sure that the program is inclusive and kind of instructing them on that. I think it's going to vary, but I would think that the child's personal physical needs are one main... one major reason why, and also behavioral needs. And Alison had a follow up. She said, “I'm confused. I thought they'd tell the family to pay for the community camp cost and Regional Center would pay for the aide. Is that the most likely, or how often does Regional Center pay for the camp itself?” That would be the most likely scenario, the most... if it's like the Park and Recreation camp or the YMCA camp, the odds are they're going to ask the parent to pay for the program that they would be paying for if their child didn't have a disability and they would provide the additional supports. So they have to be vendored, right? And is it direct pay or is it reimbursement? Yeah, it would be... I mean, it would be like paid to the behavior agency or to the nursing agency or whoever's providing the services. Like for respite, most Regional Centers have a specific agency or two that they contract with, and then if you choose your person, then they have to go and enroll at that agency and get onto their payroll, but the agencies also have people who can come out and provide the service. Right. And Aquahlaluah asked, “How long does it normally take for them to approve paying for aides?” Again, the answer is it varies. It depends on how much documentation you need to provide to justify the need for the aide, and also just know that typically the funding committees meet like once a week, and so if you make the request, you're not likely to hear back within a couple of days because they meet... they do those funding meetings once a week. I personally like to have things set up sooner rather than later, and so I'll start messaging them in April or May to start asking about summer services, but... I mean, a couple weeks at minimum. Again, it's going to depend on kind of the reasons why you need an aide and how long it takes you to go back and forth with them and communicate that and establish it. Right. And I guess I kind of asked this a little bit before, but do any of these services cancel each other or cancel the others out? For example, can we get additional respite, social rec, camps, and an aide if our child meets the criteria? So, they don't cancel each other out in the sense that they're not mutually exclusive, so they're not going to say, “Your child receives social rec; therefore, you can't get respite,” but they are going to look at what services you're getting to see kind of where the needs are. So, for example, if your child is going to summer camp and you're asking for more respite too, they're going to say, “Well, you get a natural break, you get some respite while your child's at summer camp, and so we're going to deny this additional respite because you're already getting X number of hours per day when your child's at camp, and that's the time for you to go and do stuff.” There might be reasons why that's not practical. If parents are working full time while their child is at camp, then they're not really get... they're still not getting that time to just breathe, and so there's all sorts of situations where you can be asking for services and kind of explaining why you need them, but they are going to ask those questions, so just bear that in mind. What can parents do right now to get started, Lisa? The first thing is to review your child's IPP and look at the goals and make sure that all your concerns are addressed there and that there's goals to support the services that you want to ask for, or if you're not really sure what services you want to ask for, think about all the concerns you have and kind of the goals that you want to get in there, and ask to see the the provider list and see what kind of services... or talk to friends, talk to other parents with kids with disabilities and see what services have helped their kids meet those goals, but start brainstorming and start making sure that those concerns and related goals are documented in the IPP. Right. And the second thing is...? Call now. Start asking for those things now, because it can take time to get approval, and I mean, if the camp is in July, you might have a little bit more time, but our kids get out mid-June, and if you want to make sure that that gap is filled between the time that they get out and the time that ESY starts, depending on your district, just start as soon as possible. Larkin has been listening this whole time, so come on in, Larkin. You're one of us. We have to show you something. Because Larkin and Lisa met a long time ago, I think when your kids were little babies. Okay, see. This was at... this was at the Down syndrome conference, a national Down syndrome conference in Sacramento. And they were so tiny. -- Little babies. They're beautiful. They're so cute. And now they're big and they're ready for camp. And how do you feel going into the summer? Are you relaxed? Stressed? Not thinking about it yet, just starting transition? I'm sure you are familiar. It’s hard, and then the transition into school year, and so I'm still playing around with is he going to do ESY, because James is fully included in his first grade classroom and then him going into ESY is not really the least restrictive for him, but him having that interaction with kids every day instead of my pterodact..., I mean, two-year-old, I go back and forth. I think about how much I would really love for his aide that he has currently in the classroom to continue with him during the summer and then hopefully never leave us, because she's amazing, but trying to play around with what is the best for him, and the amount of transitions. I did sign him up for, well, one and a half camps, meaning I signed him up for one, and then I filled out half the paperwork for another, and I just remembered that I still never finished that, so... I have forms like that all over my desk. It's just, it's so long, and with the medical... having to list all the... It's a whole thing. You know, Lisa, with all of the options now back on the table, I feel like we have... we have to, of course, figure out how to navigate those, but hopefully today we'll start breaking those down and helping, but I feel like there's more options than ever for us to get the support that our kids need. Yeah. Sometimes it helps with the medical stuff to just kind of like have it... have a document that you already have and just say, “Attached.” Yeah, that's a good idea. Include it because it's just so much easier than trying to fit a million things into their little tiny form. Yeah, I know, right? I always write on the back. But Larkin, you have been kind enough to volunteer to share your summer quest with other parents, so we are... we're going to be documenting Larkin's journey and planning a rockstar summer for her son, but Larkin, why do you want to share your story with parents? Well, my tagline for life is you don't know what you don't know until you know, and so let's learn, right? And as I'm going through it and having to do all of these... the hard things, why not share it so that other people may not have to endure all of that? And so I'm happy to share what we're going through if it will make it easier for others. Awesome, because of course, we all know that the most we learn is from each other, from other parents. Always. -- Exactly But I know you did... You met with your Undivided navigator, Kelly, for your boost call. Yeah. And if you're listening and you don't know what a boost is, our member parents get monthly boost calls with their navigator where they can talk about what they want to accomplish, what they already accomplished, questions or priorities that they need to tackle, or anything on their mind, and we actually... we have a quick teaser from your Monday call that we wanted to share, just so we can get excited about starting to follow you on your journey, so let’s take a look at that. I sure love that lady. She's just so wonderful. How come there are not more of her just everywhere? I just... She’s the best. So easy to talk to, so helpful. I just... I really feel like I am heard and like she understands where I'm coming from. She's just incredible. I really enjoy being able to work with her. I can't wait to tell Kelly and show her that because I know she feels the same way. She’s like, “I just talked to Larkin!” Does it feel different heading into summer with a partner? Yeah, absolutely. I feel like I'm constantly grasping at straws or trying... falling down this hole and trying to find things to hold on to as I'm falling down this hole, and it's so nice to be able to catch on to something and bounce ideas. I mean, we... Through my nonprofit, we have a large group of parents who we support, but it's nice to be able to... and we're able to communicate and talk about these things, but it's nice to have someone who's like a paid person to know these things, and a professional person that has the answers, and if they don't have the answers, they go research it in a timely manner, and I think that that is the most useful for me, for sure. I love this platform and feeling so connected and so... being able to understand and know what's out there, and it all being in one place. Organizing is really hard for me, and there's so much to organize. If you've learned only one thing today, call your service coordinator right away, or Lisa will have words for you, but we do know that things take time, so try to get on it as soon as you can. You're going to be glad you did once your kid is rushing with joy to their camp. Also, if you want a summer partner our Undivided navigators are ready to start your first boost, so Larkin and Kelly don't get to have all the fun, and we have a step by step guide built by Lisa that takes you through everything that we talked about today, and the best part is that you don't have to navigate that guide alone.