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...
The ‘Age 26 rule’ for extended transition services Most states cut special education off at 22. Michigan doesn’t, if your family member has a cognitive impairment eligibility and was already...
The age-21 cliff when the Medicaid Autism Benefit ends Michigan’s Medicaid Autism Benefit does not send a warning letter before it ends. It simply stops on a birthday, and what...
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...
Special education funding reform and the MI Blueprint School funding sounds like someone else’s fight once your child ages out. It isn’t. Every dollar Michigan fails to invest in special...
Michigan’s Habilitation Supports Waiver, step by step The HSW is the funding source behind most adult autism services in Michigan, and almost nobody explains it in order. Here is the...
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...
Project SEARCH and other Michigan employment pathways A year spent training entirely inside a real workplace, not a classroom simulation, changes what employers see and what students believe about themselves....
Self-determination and self-directed budgets Hiring your own staff and controlling your own budget sounds like freedom, and it is, right up until you realize you’ve become an unlicensed small employer....
Michigan Rehabilitation Services: the employment resource nobody mentions Michigan Rehabilitation Services is federally mandated to provide free employment services to people with disabilities, autism included, starting years before graduation. Most...
