My parents, grandparents, siblings, husband, extended family, and me have all worked for, and paid

taxes to, the state of Virginia for decades. Never have any of us ever asked for anything from the state

until years after the birth of my daughter.

. We managed with what insurance offered, sporadic nursing, and taking on full

responsibility for our son ourselves. 

Now my daughter is an adult, I find myself managing him alone and did seek guidance and help from the

state on my son's behalf.

Her needs have become more extensive over the years, and I became his live-in caregiver. It took

months of meetings and paperwork and hoops to jump through to get help to begin with, and now the

same people who helped me are also losing their jobs. That's incredulous!

Virginia will take away the Service Facilitators, who we chose, who helped guide us through the DMAS

maze and who advocates for us, forcing us to use to use a "Broker" of Virginia's choosing not our

own, employed by the fiscal agent who pays us. Isn't that a conflict of interest?

Virginia also wants to cap our hours. Well, my hours are 24/7 regardless of what Virginia feels is

justified in paying for. Why not have Virginia cap the DMAS workers hours, but expect them to

continue working unpaid to help these disabled persons, how many would do so? Even for an hour?

Probably no one. Yet parents do it day after day year after year.

I have one question, what would Virginia do if all the parents caring for their adult children, become so

overwhelmed with the system and the lack of resources, that we lift our hands in defeat and we put

our children in the state of Virginia's care? We walk away?

Where would you house these disabled adults? What agency would care for them? Who would you

then have to train and pay to care for our family members? Would you send them to group homes?

You would never have enough homes for them all. Foster care is not an option, they are too old.

I'm sure using the families homes and vehicles is incredibly less expensive than having to maintain

group home properties, staff them, provide transportation and so on. What would the state do if all the

parents walked away? Have you considered this?

You have advocates in the parents and family member caregivers of these disabled adults. Help us

help them and in turn help Virginia. Use our expertise in these complex issues our kids face to better

Virginia's care, raise awareness, work on good alternatives for these struggling adults. Provide us with

the resources we need!

These special adults need compassion as do the exhausted faithful families who care for them, to the

point of giving up our own dreams, freedoms and careers to care for our families in need. Put yourself

in our shoes. Don't be a state that shamefully turns it's back those who need you the most.