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 son.

Upon his birth I was no longer able to work since he required 24 hour care. Even then I did not ask for anything from the state. We managed with what insurance offered, sporadic nursing, and taking on full responsibility for our son ourselves. Since I could not return to work, my husband worked 3 jobs to support us and did so for over 20 years. We never asked for a dime from Virginia. 

Now my son is an adult, I find myself managing him alone and did seek guidance and help from the state on my son's behalf. 

His 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. 

Help us! 

JMM