Whilst going through the diagnosis process with Ethan I heard the term Specialist Teacher quite a few times. I knew that other children saw them and I knew that Ethan didn’t, so I did some chasing.
As with everything in life most of the time we are waiting on people to pass one bit of paper work to another before anything can be done. So finally, three months after his diagnosis, we met Ethan’s specialist teacher.
We actually met her on Ethan’s birthday and as Darren had the day off as holiday he was also around for the meeting. I have to do so much of the process on my own, or with my parents it really is a breath of fresh air when Darren can also be available. It isn’t his fault as someone has to pay the bills, and not all bosses are as flexible as we would like.
This was also the first day that she was introduced to Ethan even though she was aware of his needs at nursery. She had to officially wait for the paperwork from the doctor, and then the education services to come through before she could add him to her case load.
We met with her for an hour and basically talked about Ethan, his personality, traits etc. She was lovely, she will be there to help us through pre-school and the dreaded statement processes. Ethan’s statement is what really causes me the most concern and I was worried that I was going to miss the key dates to request one before Ethan starts school but I finally feel there is someone in place and that I can call on for help. This is the first time I don’t feel like we are on our own.
For those of you unaware a statement is a document that will list all of Ethan’s needs during his time in education. It also needs to list how these needs will be met by the school he attends. From what I have heard and read it is not an easy process to go through and can take quite a while to set up.
After our meeting she observed Ethan in his nursery setting, she also visited us at home a week later with our Family Support Key Worker. The plan at the moment is that our Specialist Teacher will visit us every six weeks and we are booked in to see the Family Support Key Worker every week for six weeks. They will work with me so that we can introduce PECS into Ethan’s daily routine.
Its nice to feel not so alone and receiving some help, even if it is only booked in for a few weeks at the moment.