Someone asked me the other day, what was it like accessing services for your child?

My child is now 8 so it was approximately 5-6 years ago when I started the process of Accessing Service for my child.  Disability Tax Credit, Special Parking Permit, Incontinence Program for Diapers, SNAP Referral, Daycare Subsidy, Developmental Services Resource Centre -DSRC (formerly DSAC) Extend-A-Family for Special Services at home.  Even the intake process for our Children's Treatment Centre - KidsAbility.

Truthfully it was a really overwhelming time for me, and the only thing that immediately stood out for me was the piles and piles of papers and forms that I was required to fill out to "Access" services, only to find out that my child, our family did not qualify or was not eligible for certain services.  Why, why for the goodness sake did I bother filling out the horrible 12 page fully detailed questionnaire  if there was a few key criteria you could ask so you could figure out if we were eligible "before"  I, an exhausted full-time working mother with a 2 year old that required weekly therapy, monthly doctors visits, fittings for various AFO's and other "aids", and several other specialist appointments filled out the  previously mentioned horrible mountain of paperwork.

Was your experience close to mine?  We now have an opportunity to have our voices be heard.  There is a project underway to explore ways to make this Accessing Services for Children easier.  There will be two Parent Forums held next week for parents to have the chance to share their stories of trying to access services in Waterloo Region for our children.

This project is sponsored by the Integrated Access to Services Committee which is part of the Waterloo Region Children & Youth Services Planning Committee.

The evening session will be held Monday January 16th from 7-9pm at KidsAbility in Waterloo.

The afternoon session will be held Thursday January 19th from 12:30-2:30 also at the KidsAbility Waterloo location.

For more information please ccontact laurie_robinson@rogers.com or call at 519-635-6719  or check out the flyer on our website at www.waterlooregionfamilynetwork.com

I encourage you to come share your story.  I will be there, will you?