Sensory Saturdays at Canby Cinemas

From the website:

Sensory Saturday is for kids (and adults) with special needs or with just sensory issues. Monthly Canby Cinema 8 will open their doors for children and their families for a Sensory Saturday movie. All movies are going to be Family oriented.

• Canby Cinema 8 at 252 NE 2nd Avenue • Canby, Oregon 97013
• First movie November 21st 2009 at 10:00 am
• Movie playing is “Planet 51”
• Cost is $6.50 each but if you buy 10 or more they are only $5.00 each.
• Lights will not be turned all the way down, sound will not be turned all the way up, and the kids can walk and or dance around, with no worry of disturbing the rest of the public.
• Half way in the movie there will be a 10 min break for all
• Children with special diets can bring in their own snacks (gluten and wheat free foods)
• Kids tray available for $3.00 comes with popcorn, drink and a fruit snack on a tray.

Come join us for Oregon’s first known Sensory Saturday Movie, Doors will be opening at 9:00am, box office opens 1/2 hour before the first show. We hope that you can help us spread the word on this extraordinary opportunity for the special need community.

If you would like more information or an interview contact: Robin at 503-349-9170 or Linda Benjamin 503-819-0600 (General Manager of Canby Cinema8).

Product for Independence - Proloquo 2 Go Portable Communication

Go to the Proloquo2Go website and it has a lot of information about using this software in combination with an iPhone or iPod touch to expand communication options for people with a variety of challenges with expressive language. I attended a conference where autistic self-advocate Dora Raymaker (she does not like to be referred to in person first language) used this device to teach her breakout session. This is much cheaper and frankly much cooler than the chunkier technology such as Dynavox. The website tells you everything you need to know about how to get started.

Stuff you NEED

http://www.autismfurniture.com/
and
http://www.ourcreativemindsinc.com/main.sc

Both of these businesses were vendors at the conference I attended recently. The autism furniture are super cozy foam pillows and beds that are easy to clean and so comfortable. I cannot believe how cheap they are. The creative minds store is a business that brings together all of those products we spend hours searching for on the Internet for fun, safety, and learning.

Check them out!

Amazing website that will read text, websites, and documents to you

I learned about www.readthewords.com from a post that Rachel Maddow had put on Twitter. I reminded myself recently what a great resource this is for people that need reading support and want to have a variety of male and female voices to choose from. Membership is FREE.

Argument #2 in favor of a public choice for health care

Many families I know that have a child with a disability are desperately seeking respite care, babysitters, skills trainers, and consultants. All of these supports are difficult to find at least in Oregon because you have to either be an independent contractor to do the work, have to get lucky enough to find full-time work for an agency, or do the work with no benefits or paid training and hope for the best. There is an agency that will hire and train skills trainers but they charge the funding source almost $30 an hour. Mental Health pays more than that an hour for a skills trainer or respite provider.

Often, families will actually be able to get funding for extra help for their child through the county or state but they cannot find anyone to do the work. The fall out of this is that parents often give up their child to foster care because they cannot manage the stress any longer. This costs the tax payers a lot of money when a child goes into foster care.

Why is it so hard to find someone? You could argue it is the work itself that people do not want to do but in fact what more people say is that they need benefits and working in someone's home for 10 to 12 bucks and hour with no benefits is just not going to be possible.

The county and state spend millions of dollars on foster care for children who come from loving families that simply could not find the help they needed to keep their child safely at home. If the county or state would give just a fraction of this money to families so they could hire and insure some help at home then the savings to the state in foster and crisis funding would happen fairly quickly after some adjustments to the system.

In a nutshell, if there was a public choice for health care then there would be an increase in in-home caregivers (trust me, there would) and a decrease in children having to go into foster care or group homes. In addition, there is a decrease in children being hospitalized which saves money, no police have to go to the home....savings....and the crisis system for children will need less funding. These kids will not grow up in foster care which then can sometimes create a system savvy child that ends up in jail. By the time these kids are adults the state will see much less need to fund crisis programs because more kids are able to stay home with the family and the family gets extra help. It might sound nutty but I know how the money works in human services and if parents are informed and have help then kids do much better than being sent away for the extra help. A public choice equals more respite providers.....equals rested parents.... equals happy kids and positive adult outcomes..... equals less need for crisis funding...... equals more money for funding a public choice or other state needs...... equals better services in other areas.

It just makes sense to take care of people.

Argument in favor of a public choice for health care #1

In May 2008 I quit my job of 8 years to start my own business as an independent consultant. 6 months later I was looking for a job and not because business was bad. Business was in fact incredible and I was even thinking about hiring an employee to help me out with all the work I had to do. The number one reason why I had to end my business was health care. I had other reasons of course but health care was the dealbreaker.

Naively, I applied for a family plan with Kaiser Permanente in order to continue with the same coverage I had through my employer and keep the same pediatrician for my daughter. I was very surprised when I was approved and my healthy 5 year old daughter was denied coverage. The reason she was denied was "unfavorable hospitalization or medical attention" and the letter did not clarify what specifically this meant and the insurance company representative said they did not know what it meant either. I appealed the denial and spoke with my daughter's pediatrician. I asked her, "Could it be autism she is being denied for?" She has never been hospitalized and autism is a developmental issue so the doctor and I both decided that her letter should not address autism when agreeing with my appeal to Kaiser. Smart cookie I am decided that I just better pay a little extra postage for delivery confirmation when sending in the appeal. Wouldn't you know it....when I followed up 5 weeks later (because the appeal information said do not call before then) they had never received my appeal. Or course when I said, "Oh that's funny because according to my delivery confirmation you received it 3 days after I sent it." They were very very prompt in making sure I was able to fax my appeal to the right person immediately after that. Only a few days later I received a letter stating my appeal was denied because of "autism". I decided soon after that it was time to find a job instead so my daughter would have coverage.

I could have been a successful small business owner and was hoping to employ someone. Thanks to health insurers denying private coverage to my healthy daughter who just happens to have autism I could no longer keep the business going.

Heroes in Iran - Building a Global Community

It was 3:30 in the morning June 19th when I started writing this. I was curled up under my blankets in bed with my Blackberry - I was refreshing twitter to get the latest news about the post election rally's. I felt helpless and ironic all at once; comfortable in my bed but gripped by the reality unfolding across oceans from me.
I am overcome with emotion still - I am sharing a minute of this persons life, their real life, happening right then and right now. The twitter posts (I am still too new to twitter to call it a tweet without feeling like a complete tool) have a time marker...half a minute ago it says. I picture this student on the other side of the technology and share the urgency.
I care about these people! I want them to do well, I admire them, I want them to...survive. One person using twitter was off the air for over 20 hours and other users began to air concerns. Collectively we care about these complete strangers and we want them to be free and to live. The two twitter users that I am following the most inside Iran also cause me to worry when many hours go by with no news.

We realize we are more the same than different. The people of Iran want what we want in the US. Freedom and to have our leaders truly representing our needs, interests, and concerns.

Imagine if online social networking is what changes the world. I have learned more about Iran in a week than I have learned my whole life. I want them to do well. They are heroes.

Since I wrote the above post it is now a few days later - June 21st, 2009. We have seen real horrors and murder unfolding before us through our computers and televisions. Few in the world will be the same after this experience; especially those living....and dying in Iran.

There are haters on the web complaining about the Internet traffic devoted to this and proclaiming our utter lameness as Americans in becoming interested in the Iranian situation but not having a clue about the region prior to this. To them I say..."So What!" Honestly it is better late than never that our ethnocentric, individualistic, and attention deficit disordered nation actually notices that there is a world outside of our shores. I am sorry it took this terrible event and that people suffering and reaching out to us through the web is what opened our eyes.

I really am hopeful that this opportunity to understand that we are more the same than different in this world will not be lost.

I think it would be wonderful if we build on this shared global experience and collect more stories and images from other places of both joy and pain.