Very upsetting morning yesterday | Autism PDD
Micki, I live in North Texas.
I just fired off a letter to the Executive Director of this particular ARC chapter, and told her I hoped she was willing to listen to our feedback, and that I would be contacting the local directors of the United Way and media if necessary.
Yep, when it's organizations that are supposed to help the disabled, it is absolutely inexcusable. OMG what a horrrible experience !!!That's terrible! Unfortunatly I am not surprised. I can't count have many
times I have filled out extensive paperwork that noone seems to read or
care about. And when you complain noone cares about that either.
I'd say find someone higher up in the ladder who listens and has the
power to make those lower in the ladder listen. My best successes have
always been letters that were cc'd to several people in the chain (camp
counselor, director, disability rights group, local autism group,...) because
noone wants to look bad in front of other people involved. Plus their
funding depends on their reputation.
May I ask what state this was - I was just going to apply for a training
through ARC but now I just might write them a letter letting them know
that I have gotten bad feedback on the services they provide.
The enertia that most of society has towards our kids is bad enough but
when this comes from organizations that are supposed to help our kids it
is just unaccusable.
I’m sorry this is long.
In February, I signed my son (he’s 12, with moderate Autism) up for a summer day camp for special needs kids that runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. M-F for two weeks, and it started yesterday. This day camp was organized and run by the local chapter of the ARC, a national organization called the Association for Retarded Citizens. When I registered him and sent in the deposit 5 months ago, I had to fill out a lengthy form about his needs, and what not. I told them as much as I could about my son and what he liked, didn’t like, and what kinds of supports he would need to be able to attend this camp. In fact, one of the questions on their form was, “Will your child require one-on-one monitoring throughout the day?” to which I replied, “Yes, definitely”. That’s what he has at school, and that’s what he would need at a day camp. Their info packet also stated no child would be turned away because of their disability or need. I was so excited to find this camp for my son. He’s never been able to do anything like this. He was excited too…we’ve been talking about it for five months now! The info packet said there would be swimming, field trips, scheduled performers, etc. I also went to a parent meeting about the camp in early June, and left there feeling really good about it.
So yesterday morning finally arrives, and my son is so excited to go to “camp”. He’s been talking about meeting the camp counselors, going swimming, going on field trips, and getting a camp T-shirt. I got him there a little bit before 9 a.m. The camp is held at a gym and two adjoining classrooms at an elementary school in another town (about ½ hour from me), and this school is right across the street from a park and a municipal pool…looked like an okay setup. So we go in, and they have me sign my son in. I had heard at the meeting there would be 25 campers in this particular session. They had already had about several other camp sessions earlier in the summer, so it wasn’t like the staff didn’t know what to do, KWIM?
What I saw when I walked in didn’t leave me with the best feeling, but I tried to push past that. I saw one boy who looked like he possibly had Autism stimming all by himself on a padded mat on the floor. I saw some older kids walking around the gym throwing basketballs. There were a lot of what appeared to be staff members just sort of standing around the sign in table. I assume they were staff members but no one was wearing a name tag. And they weren’t handing out name tags to the campers either. I just sort of stood there for awhile taking everything in, trying to figure out what was going on. I wasn’t about to just walk off and leave my son there until I knew what was going on. I had a staff member find the camp supervisor (who I had seen at the meeting in June), and he came over, and I start asking him about what my son was supposed to do, and he looked at me like I had two heads. He was like, “well, he can play basketball, or he can go in the other room and play on the computers, or maybe he’d like to watch TV….”, and he went on to say how at 10:00 they’d have a music therapist come in, but until then, the kids just hung out. I was like, “What? My son needs to have someone with him at all times to direct him to what he’s supposed to do…he would just walk out the door otherwise”, and he was like, “Well, we don’t have one-on-one here, we have 8 staff members, but there is someone stationed by the door”.
I almost fell over. Everything in their info packet and at the meeting indicated they had a schedule of activities every day, and they also made it sound like my son would have one-on-one assistance while he was there, and what I found when I walked in there was the total opposite! My son started getting upset because I wasn’t leaving, but there was no way in heck I was walking out of there and leaving him alone to just wander around with no direct supervision! A lot of the other campers were really big kids! I was trying to explain to the camp supervisor what my son needed, but I was getting (emotionally) upset because my son was getting very upset, and it just turned into a very bad scene. I was crying, my son was screaming, and the camp director could NOT have been less helpful! He kept saying things like, ‘well if he needs these things YOU have to provide them”, and something about how I was berating him (I wasn’t berating anyone…I was crying because my son was getting out of control and after 5 months of promising him a fun camp experience, I knew he wouldn’t be staying). So Mr. Jerk Camp Supervisor asks me if I want him to get the Camp Director on the phone, which I did, and that was a total joke! She tells me that they don’t provide one-on-one, and well, camp isn’t for everyone, and she’ll refund my deposit. HELLO????? It stated very clearly that they wouldn’t turn away any child due to their disability OR needs, and in fact they asked RIGHT on their FORM if he would need one-on-one monitoring throughout the day, which I said YES to. If they could not provide that, they should have told me that in FEBRUARY when I mailed in the form AND deposit, and they should not have accepted my son for that camp. I told them all about him back in February!!!!!
I was finally able to get my son’s lunchbox and get him out of there (it took them 5 minutes to just find his lunchbox….I wonder how long it would have taken them to find HIM if he went missing…not to mention the thought of sending him to a swimming pool with these people makes me sick to my stomach as he doesn’t swim well, and it’s obvious they weren’t concerned about safety as they advertised they would be). My son cried and cried and cried (as did I…I felt so bad for him), but after promising him a “reward” present for having to miss camp, he calmed down quite a bit (thank goodness for bribery, although it ended up costing me 0 for a new globe he’s had his eye on). I took him to Chuck E. Cheese, which he enjoyed, and by the end of the day, I had convinced him that camp was a stinky camp, and he didn’t really want to go there.
What if you had NEEDED him in care, there for that time due to work or appts., or something??? Let alone, HIS evident disappointment. How rotten!
yes that was a horrible expereince i too know what its like to look forward to something so much and be let down
Im glad hes (your son) is feeling better now definently go to the media so this cant happen to any other kids who need supervision
whos to say what might happen if the next time a kid who needs to be watched gets dropped off and the mom doesnt stick around to survey the place and make sure its safe 
I shudder to think
do what you must maybe you can get this place shut down the "suppossed counclers" appear to know next to nothing and we dont need people like that 
responsible for the safety of special needs kids.
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