User:Woozle/archive/rez/Josh

Starting in approximately mid-2003, I became involved with caring for Sandy's profoundly autistic son Josh, involving both daily care and work towards finding services for him.

As time went on, his needs became more intense (as did our battles to obtain services for him in NC's very broken mental health care system). This gradually preempted all but a few hours of work a week, and was generally very disruptive to my ability to focus on programming or obtain regular work, since I could never predict when Josh might be in crisis and my physical presence (and full attention) would be needed.

On April 28, 2010, after much paperwork and legwork, we were finally able to move Josh into a therapeutic residential program where he will be living full-time until he is ready to move into a group home. Although I am still involved with Josh's care on an advisory level, this will be much more predictable and low-level -- and even in the event that funding is cut off, there will be some advance warning (presumably enough time for two weeks' notice to an employer) before we would have to go get him.