Emmilou’s Education Access Experience
Preparing for school with your first child is daunting. But preparing for school for your first child with different abilities can be doubly stressful…
So many emotions are at play: anxiety about being apart from them, stress towards the level of support and honesty the school will provide, and the guilt for worrying so much that you might just cave and let yourself hold them back “one more year…”.
I know. I am dealing with this challenge right now. It is Emmilou’s first year at school in 2021. She goes to kindy- it feels like yesterday she was born. Kirsty (my wife) and I are totally emotionally unprepared- despite doing everything we can to ensure she gets the support and opportunities she requires and deserves. We initially reached out to schools in the first term of 2020 (yes, almost an entire year prior). We started by doing a recon of the school in our catchment area; we asked friends with school-aged children; we wrote a post on social media asking for some guidance and lived experience; and we went from school to school talking to their family liaison officer. The first school we choose met all our criteria but was not in our catchment zone.
We were rejected.
At first, we were super bummed about it, because we had high hopes that she would have fit in better, but it forced us to look in our own back yard. Which was almost literally in our back yard- we live across the road from a school. I had an informative and reassuring conversation on the phone with the Principal who booked us in for a face-to-face and instructed me to bring everything related to Emmilou’s diagnosis/additional needs along with me. He assured me that his school would cater to her every need, and he would do his utmost to provide the confidence Kirsty and I needed to send her to school with them.
Our first meeting included the principal, deputy principal, school nurse and school phycologist. It went okay. There was a lot of information sharing and a couple of gems of advice. Emmilou had never been apart from us, outside the occasional one-nighter at her grandparents’ house, or a few hours with family here and there. Nothing substantial. The psychologist suggested putting her in daycare or sending her regularly to families for some deliberate ‘separation-anxiety-busting-therapy'. This was as much about her anxiety being apart from us, as it was for our anxieties of giving up control and vigilance for her. Because family was out of the question we decided to give daycare a spin. We sent her in for a few half days once a week for a few weeks running. We decided on the daycare because it had the capacity to cater for her needs, and it was also the place where her best friend went- so at least there was a familiar face to spend her time with.
It was kind of a disaster- but please don’t let our experience put you off. Emmilou went half a dozen times, for which twice she did about a 3-5 days stint as an inpatient at hospital- but remember her immune system is compromised. They neglected to give appropriate hand over’s to staff so her medication was forgotten once and her food requirements ignored. Both of which made me furious and led to some firm conversations with the manager. Despite all this, it did give us a pretty good indication of how school next year might be and what we needed to work on to make her feel more comfortable and for us to feel more confident.
Meanwhile, the months went by and 2021 crept ever nearer. I contacted the school a couple of times and requested a follow-up meeting to track the progress of Emmilou’s application for an Education Assistance Support. It wasn’t until the last few weeks of term 4, following a face-to-face reminder by me at the kindy induction meeting, that anything was arranged. If you haven’t picked this up yet here is a hot tip: PERSISTENCE IS KEY. The day prior to this set meeting I got an email from the deputy, saying Emmilou’s EA access had been denied. (INTERNAL SCREAMING!)
In true bureaucratic form, the education department wanted to make me jump through additional hoops. Although Emmilou’s medical records (that, mind you, I had previously supplied almost a year earlier) clearly stated the lifelong nature of her disability- the Education Department wants everything to be dated no greater than 6 months before application. Did I also mention that this process needs to be repeated every single year thereafter also...GAH! So despite my best efforts to be efficient, I am now two months off my daughter starting school and one EA short. It is time to do the run around again. I have booked in to see my daughter’s general practitioner and apply under the “Severe medical health condition” criteria- as it would be far easier and more time-efficient to try this route first before seeking an appointment with her hospital paediatrician.
Wish me luck!
Love and Success to you, Monique x
