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Respite Worker

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Lena75

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Have any of you parents had a respite worker? A volunteer who comes to take your special needs child out in the community and spends some one on one with him/her? What are your experiences? I know how the financial situation works, so that's not an issue. My autistic son is 9 years old and I think is ready for a worker to hang out with.
 

Fangtastic

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it gave me a much needed break but ya know what/ i worried the whole time. the guy i chose was great,but i have had several not so great. i chose someone with an actual psychiatric understanding and prior work with autism. now we are friends but ive moved about 2 hrs away from where this worker lived. im without respite but have a few people in my life that can handle my son.
 
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kayd1966

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My son has an aide that works one on one doing ABA with him every afternoon for two hours and she also takes him into the community for 3 hours per week.

I didn't want her to just take him to the mall or to hang out at the playground so he's enrolled in swimming lessons in the summer and skating lessons in the winter. She takes him to these activities but I drive them. While they are in the lessons, my daughter and I do our own thing.

It has been wonderful for us to have that mental break and our daughter also needs the one on one attention from us. We found that its given us a chance to just let her be a little girl.

Because of Jesus!
KayD
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9​
 
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Hisrosebud

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I get nervous leaving my son with anyone. He is only 4 and very young minded. I paid a young teen from our church to be a mother's helper. That way I was still within ear shot and yet I could have 10 minutes to wash laundry, the kitchen floor or what ever I had to do. He just started a preschool program last month. I had wanted to homeschool him but this seems to meet his needs better. I can not believe how much that 2 1.2 hours a day has done for the state of my house cleaning! And more importantly I have had some awesome one on one time with my daughter who will be 2 in May.

Jane
 
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Lena75

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We had our first meeting with our Respite Coordinator. This system seems pretty flexible. We have the options of either having the person here at the house or he/she can go for a walk, or go to town...whatever we see fit as parents. We were very relieved to find out that we are pretty much in control of all that. If we wanted this person to watch all 3 of the kids, we'd have to pay him/her just like any other baby-sitter. So yeah. We've never done this before and have a book to read through yet to better understand this system.
 
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Lena75

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Well, we've had our respite worker since the middle of May and our son is just loving her! She's great with him and very active with him, which is great because he's always on the go and we needed someone who can keep up with him! Unfortunately, she's only seeing him during the summer. But he's really enjoying the time away from us (4 hours a week) and we have a special day planned for us as a family and for her to come with us, come August.
I was worried for the first few times about my son leaving the house with practically a stranger, but the more I talk to her and get to know her and by the way my son runs to her to greet her when she comes to pick him up, calms any fears I might have. Praise God for such a great person!
 
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we5frogs

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I don't know where you are from, but in Pennsylvania in the area where we are, we have a Youth Advocate Agency and also Kidspeace National Hospital Outpatient Program that have TSS ( therapeutic staff support) services, as well as mobile therapy (the therapist came to our house). We had to begin by applying through our counties MH/MR (mental health/mental retardation) office. Once they approved Gavin for services, they told us how many hours per week of each type of service we were alloted, and helped us contact the agencies who provide these services.

Also, here in PA we have Parent-To-Parent, with a website and a toll free number. This program is created by families for families to share experiences and resources in the area in which they live. I don't know if other states have a similar program or not, but when we first got our diagnosis, this was an invaluable help to us.
 
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