WP: Military helps families find care for special-needs kids

[Guest guest]

Military helps families find care for special-needs kids

By Emma Brown

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, December 28, 2009; B01

When her husband, a Marine Corps colonel, was transferred last summer from the

Pentagon to a base in southern California, Driscoll was forced to confront

her autistic child's new school district and the intricacies of federal special

education law.

The Poway Unified School District near San Diego offered Driscoll's 11-year-old,

, the support of an aide for 10 hours a week -- fewer than half the 21 hours

Fairfax County had provided and said he deserved under federal law.

" They slashed his services in half and said, 'We believe this is comparable,' "

Driscoll said.

Until recently, Driscoll would have had to fight the school district alone. But

under a new Marine Corps initiative, she had reinforcements: a caseworker and a

special education attorney, provided by the military, to accompany her to

meetings with school officials and, if need be, to court.

That initiative is part of a larger military effort, led by the Marines and the

Army, to address the medical, educational and emotional challenges faced by

special-needs families.

" The Marine Corps is really standing behind our military families and saying,

'We will take care of you and help you through this process,' " Driscoll said.

With the U.S. military in the room, she said, the Poway school district seemed

more willing to negotiate. Without setting foot in a courtroom, was

assigned a full-time aide.

The Defense Department says that about 220,000 active-duty and reserve service

members have dependents with special needs, but only 90,000 are enrolled in the

military's main program to serve them. For the past two decades, the program has

ensured that families are transferred only to bases that have doctors available

to address their needs. That has prompted concern among service members that it

will interfere with promotions and has caused the program to be underutilized.

But in 2007, the Army began offering as much as 40 hours a month of free respite

care for soldiers who have dependents with disabilities. The Marine Corps

followed suit in 2008 and then went further, creating about 60 new positions at

installations across the country to help Marines and their families make the

transition from place to place more smoothly.

Each Marine Corps family is assigned a caseworker who helps them understand each

state's differing disability regulations and navigate the bewildering process of

accessing special education services. Three staff attorneys have been designated

to help parents with legal issues related to disabilities, including pressing

school districts for those services.

" They needed to do something so that service members could deploy without

worrying, " said Joyce Raezer, executive director of the andria-based

National Military Family Association.

Negotiating with school districts over special education services is

particularly difficult, families said. Federal law guarantees a free,

appropriate public education for students with disabilities, but what that means

is a matter of interpretation and varies widely. When parents want something

other than what the district offers, there's little recourse without going to

court -- a lengthy and expensive proposition for a family that likely will move

again in fewer than three years.

" Special education, the way it's set up right now, it's very hard for parents to

hold school systems accountable, " said Air Force spouse Hilton, who has

moved five times with Kate, his 7-year-old daughter with special medical and

educational needs.

Driscoll said that in her case, Poway agreed to devise a behavior plan and have

a psychiatrist at 's school but offered only the 10 hours per week of direct

service. " I said, 'No, wait a minute. A piece of paper stuck in a file is not a

replacement for direct services,' " she said.

The new measures are encouraging servicemen and women to ask for help addressing

dependents' disabilities rather than hiding them, officials said. Enrollment in

the Marines' program for special-needs families, which is required to access the

new services, is up 40 percent since 2007.

" We are in the midst of a transformation, " said Rhondavena Laporte, a former

Spotsylvania County special-education administrator who now leads the Marine

Corps' efforts to serve special-needs families.

The Army is developing a pilot program to deliver similar individualized

support. It will start at five bases in the next six months, said Sharon Fields,

who is in charge of the program.

The 2010 Defense Authorization Act, which President Obama signed in October,

calls for a new Defense Department office of support for families with special

needs. It will ensure consistency among the military's branches, according to

the legislation, and monitor whether military families have fair access to state

and federal programs.

" Everything for me ties into readiness, " Fields said. " If we can provide that

cushion of support for the family, the soldier is mission-ready to do his job or

her job. "

The changes are partly the result of lobbying by military families who point to

the experiences of spouses such as Kyla Doyle.

Doyle fought a years-long legal battle with a California school district to keep

her autistic daughter, Kate, out of a classroom for severely disabled children,

where she would have been one of the only children able to speak. Legal fees and

the cost of Kate's therapy forced Doyle to move with her children into her

parents' home. In the midst of it all, Doyle's husband, a master sergeant in the

Marine Corps, was shot by a sniper in Iraq.

He recovered and deployed for a fifth overseas tour this summer. Doyle

eventually won her battle with the school district, but managing alone was

overwhelming, she said.

" It relieves so much stress to know that someone hears you and understands you

and is willing to stand up for your child, " Doyle said.

In other branches of the military, parents still shoulder that burden alone.

When Air Force Lt. Col. Schuchs-Gopaul transferred from Alabama's

Maxwell Air Force Base to the Pentagon this summer, she was surprised to

discover that speech therapy for her son, which had been free in Alabama, cost

$100 an hour in Virginia. Federal law gives states wide latitude in determining

eligibility for, and the cost of, disability services.

" I was in a panic, " said Schuchs-Gopaul, whose 2-year-old son, Evan, spent the

first half of his life unable to hear and is just now learning to speak. She

haggled with the military's health insurance for months before receiving

payment. Now Evan needs occupational therapy, and she is again arguing for

coverage.

The Air Force has launched an effort to bolster its services, said Maj. Richelle

Dowdell, a spokeswoman. For Schuchs-Gopaul, whose son said " Mama " for the first

time six weeks ago, at age 2 1/2, that's welcome news.

" I don't expect them to take my hand and do this for me, " she said. " But I would

like some help. "

For more on Education, please see http://washingtonpost.com/education