How-To Guides

Every one of these started as a question somebody could not get answered on the phone.

This is the practical side of the site: applications, appeals, FOIA requests, eligibility paperwork, getting paid as a family caregiver, and what to do when a program closes with no notice. Step by step, with the forms named and the deadlines stated. Nothing here promises an outcome. It tells you what the process is and where families most often lose.

Menstruation and Reproductive Health Management for Autistic Women and Girls

Advocacy Resources How-To Guides Level 2/3 Autism

Menstruation and Reproductive Health Management for Autistic Women and Girls Caregivers ask about this constantly in every support group that exists. Published guidance almost never answers them, because almost everything...

Advocacy Resources How-To Guides Level 2/3 Autism

Sexuality, Relationships, and Sex Education for Autistic Adults with High Support Needs Adults with high support needs are sexual beings with the same developmental drives as anyone else. Silence on...

Documentation Strategies How-To Guides Level 2/3 Autism

Pain Assessment in Nonverbal Autistic Adults: When Behavior IS the Symptom A broken bone, a kidney stone, an abscessed tooth. None of them announce themselves with words in an adult...

Data & Research How-To Guides Level 2/3 Autism Medicaid

Dental Care for Autistic Adults: The Crisis Nobody Talks About A toothache doesn’t announce itself politely in an adult who can’t easily say where it hurts. It shows up as...

Caregiver Economics Comparison Tools How-To Guides

Disabled Adult Child (DAC) Benefits: The Social Security Upgrade Most Families Miss Your adult child may be entitled to Social Security benefits based on your earnings record, not theirs, the...

Advocacy Resources How-To Guides Michigan-Specific

Organizing locally (support groups, coalitions, mutual aid) When the formal system lags, four or five families who trust each other can build something the state hasn’t. A shared ride, a...

Advocacy Resources How-To Guides Legal Developments Michigan-Specific

The Waskul settlement and what it means in meetings A 2013 class action settlement already tells your CMH exactly how services are supposed to be decided. Most families have never...

Documentation Strategies How-To Guides Medicaid Michigan-Specific

Appeals, grievances, and fair hearings (MDHHS/PIHP denials) A denial letter looks final. It isn’t. Michigan gives you a real, structured path to challenge it, with a clock that starts the...

Advocacy Resources How-To Guides Medicaid Michigan-Specific

Transportation barriers (paratransit, NEMT, brokerages, and workarounds) A missed pickup doesn’t just cost a ride. It costs the appointment, the day program slot, the job shift, and sometimes the entire...

Advocacy Resources How-To Guides Michigan-Specific

Influencing your local CMH board (who’s who and how to testify) Somewhere in your county, twelve people you’ve never met vote on the policies and budgets that shape your family...