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John's usual--
It was Ohio University's father's weekend last Friday & Saturday, so I was running amuck in Athens with all the other dads gone wild. It was super fun, but I am grateful that it was only 2 nights. I don't think that my body could have survived a 3rd! My son is a senior this year, so this was my last such weekend at OU. My daughter is only a Sophmore, so I will have 2 more chances at Eckerd College. I think often of that quote from Eddie Cantor, that "it takes 20 years to make an overnight success." My son will graduate this year and I'm proud of him. However, that graduation day is the fruit of 22 years-- both in terms of saving the crazy amount of money needed to put a kid through college and in terms of preparing him to be ready for that challenge and that independence. I'm fortunate in many ways, but one of those ways is that I had lots of advice from other parents and from the schools way before graduation. When Graeme was born 21+ years ago we could start saving for the huge expense that we knew would begin in 18 years. We were aware of important options, such as community college vs. state school vs. private etc. We had some instruction about scholarships and other aid. It's common for parents to foster an interest in a particular sport because in might result in a scholarship or just make their kid more attractive to better schools. The necessary first steps to supporting kids as they transition to adulthood are a 2 decade plan so that you are ready to execute that plan-- and knowing what your resources, your tools are. I think our system in general gets a solid B in terms of college prep-- and some of the vocational schools like EHOVE are really setting kids up super well for non-college career tracks. We are lagging behind when it comes to helping young adults with DD and their families. I don't think that comprehensive planning (vocational, community participation, long-term residential, etc.) starts early enough. Even worse, parents have no idea of what their tools are-- or even how very dramatic the difference in resources available while the child is in school from post-graduation. We are doing the opposite of building 20 year overnight successes.
This has been on my mind a lot over the past couple of years-- and especially over this past OU father's weekend-- because the Schwartz family is in the middle of executing our kids' transition plan to their adult future. Ohio is a progressive state that devotes significant financial resources to important things like education, DD services, etc. The education and DD system has to figure out how to better allocate those resources to help families succeed in this new ala carte, post-workshop world. But even more simply, we need to figure out how to make the adult DD system resources more accessible and transparent to families so that they can start long-term planning when their kids are babies too.
This Tuesday is election day and HCBDD is on the ballot with a "renewal" levy. Your vote will all HCBDD to continue to collect the same property tax receipts that they've been using for the last 5+ years. While I am often frustrated with the pace of progress, I am grateful that Ohio's DD system has the resources it does (because of 50 years of County Boards of DD history). People with DD need those financial resources. I know that people are very confused about "Christie Lane" and how CLI's money relates to the OG "Christie Lane" money-- but the very simple answer is that this levy & your tax dollars are needed to continue to support people with disabilities. And while I think the state needs to figure out how to reallocate a larger portion of Ohio's tax dollars toward direct service-- our system can't afford to lose dollars-- especially now. Please vote & encourage your friends and family to also vote.
Finally, I am sad to report that Tabitha Wilkens has taken a substitute SSA job with the Clearwater Council of Governments. Our loss is definitely Clearwater's gain. However, we recognize that this is a good opportunity for Tab-- and I believe that it's really productive for an SSAs to have direct care experience. Tab has worked for CLI for more than 4 years and has done great work in developing our OOD and vocational programs. She's a great team player and we'll miss her on our team. All of us wish her well.
John
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