My name is Laury Dean. I raised 3 children with difficult diagnoses (autism, severe Bi-polar, ODD/Conduct Disorder), as a single parent. They all were too high functioning to qualify for assistance services (yet not fully functional to be considered ‘normal’) so I became their advocate, OT/PT, counselor, and case worker.
I was involved with and worked with several Gov’t agencies – Foster Care, Juvenile Courts, Social Security, Housing Assistance, Low-Income assistance, Disability Case Management, and now Guardianship Management. God used my tribulations with these agencies to enact massive changes in many of them.
Through the years, I furthered my job skills by working at Disability Facilities as a Direct Support Care Professional, and with private clients, and then got College accreditation as a Developmental Disability Specialist [for Life experience] when the College Course was offered (20+ years after I had lived it).
When I realized that the government funding in these Disability Facilities was deliberately structured to keep the Disabled Person in a perpetual Need-State in order to keep the fund level up (the more they improve and need less services- the less funds they qualify for), which put the catch-22 scenario into play. If the person cant keep the services at a stable level to gain a solid foothold on the improvements – they eventually backslide. And once the benefits are reduced or cancelled, you have to start all over again with a fresh investigation and new application for benefits and services.
(For example: I had one incident where Social Security reduced the monthly Disability benefits amount for one of my children on the claim that implementing an educational teaching module for the determination of task/job values was “providing him assistance” and they needed to be reimbursed – — – and they did cut his benefits check for almost 2 years until they were fully “reimbursed”. I was absolutely GOB-SMACKED! Teaching a math module was forbidden assistance??)
I was always working to improve the situation.
In the meantime, the wait list for Assistance Services in Facilities for those who qualify for IDD services is a 4-10 year wait list.
And not to mention all the High-functioning people that don’t even qualify for government assistance, yet still need help with daily activities and independent living skills.
Early on, when my children were younger, I created 10+ fun/educational teaching games for Learning Disabled students and adults, and a workshop booklet for self empowerment. I ran 3 meetup groups, worked temp job assignments and took the 3rd job, the odd scheduled jobs, and several side gigs, and worked towards an associates degree (2x) before I decided that there should be a better way. A lot of my time was scheduled with gov’t agency requirements, and for the goal of finding a way to get off of the disability merry-go-round… and I knew that a lot of people were in the same situation.
And I realized that there is MORE of a need than what a small handful of teaching aids would help with.
I wanted to start a business/ consulting service and Independent Living Skills guidance for all people who are not able to get assistance services, and for those who are on a wait list. Time does not stand still.
So I launched the Live-ability Coaching service. I made it very affordable – I have 4 service tiers for monthly/1-time coaching meetings, evaluations and tracking, and Support for Persons and their Caregivers, as well as guidance, idea generation methods, access to other products/services and a resources website for Live-ability actions that people can utilize right now, and help prepare for future Work-passion endeavors and improvement goals.
This is a much needed service for the Disabled Community.