Autism services.. how does it work

WestOzpara

Hi all,

I'm an Aussie and I have an Irish wife and kids. We are thinking of moving over to Ireland in the future. We have a 7 yr old who has level 2 ASD. As it stands I have no idea how it works over there in regards to therapy. My son currently gets speech, OT and psych.

I guess the main questions are does everyone get the DCA and CARERS payment for ASD children and if so does amount cover private therapy that is sufficient enough.

I know some of you will probably say stay where you are and I get why you say that but we have no family and no support here and We feel like if we come to Ireland we will have family support and the kids will have someone around when we are no longer around....

So thats the main points.. do you use DCA and CARERS payments to pay for private therapy? Is there enough therapists around to cope with demand? Are there extremely long wait-list?

Planning to move to Galway

Thanks all.. stay safe

fits

It varies very much by area

I’m in a different county.

My boy has an intellectual disability - diagnosed at two. He attends a special preschool. We feel we got ok physio and OT services through HSE. The speech therapy was a much longer wait so we go privately and the DCA more than covers that. We also get carers support grant of 1800 every year in June. There is also a tax allowance of 3500 which helps too. We have never qualified for carers allowance as it is means tested. I’d say try to connect with other parents in area sand find out what’s available.

JustAThought

there is such a problem with accessing basic services that one local area in an obscure part of north countt dublin has started a charity to help people try to find their way through the ‘system’ and help they fight for the services they are so called ‘entitled’ to. It seems to be an endless nightmare - I’ve known a few people affected and it consumes them - kafquaesque seems to sum it up.

Why not go onto sites such as rollercoaster.ie or google Autism after schools group in Castleknock (a club run by volunteers & catering for teenagers - one of few in the city) or get in contact with BERNIE in friends of autism and ADHD in skerries. Their situation had got so bad in relation to access to the psych tests for vulnerable children to gain access to the evaluation system for basic help that they started fundraising for the 1k professional fees to have the childs evaluation to get access to the services themselves. Thats not tombe given the services - just put on an official list to wait for them and be considered for a school in your area - if they can or will cater fir you. The waiting list for special needs assesments used to be years.

You seem to have a bit of a utopian vision of health services in Ireland - long waits to be put on a waitlist for evaluation, followed by further months or years waiting to see a specialist, followed by further waits to be placed in a list for the appropriate service seem the norm. As are key opportunities lost, years of frustration and a dysfunctional russian roulette school ‘system’. Not for the fain hearted. I’d also be asking if all the turmoil and trauma of moving here and putting up with what we have to deal with in every aspect of life is worth disrupting your life and that of your other healthy children.

Have a look on the state benefit site or better on the citizens information site for carers allowance & other benefits you think you might get. For me, a physio costs e100 a visit privately - thats private. I personally would not want a life in this country living in poverty, not working and having a family member relying on state ‘care’ or the HSE or aiming to live in poverty to get a few crumbs from their table.

fits

As I said - It depends on area. Parts of Dublin aren’t great. I don’t know what it’s like in Galway where OP is moving to. I also don’t know what services and supports are like in comparison to Australia (that has a great healthcare system ) but services in Ireland are not the worst. We have had an ok experience so far with our son. He’s four. I’d rather be here close to family rather than abroad away from them.

antgal23

Can't answer all your questions but Ill tell you what I know

I work in ASD, teens with complex behavior

1/ SLT told me the other day that government plans to centralize OT, SLT and Psych in one building , access to this will be according to where you live and not like it is now where these services come to your school

2/ SLT visits our place every week, Psych never and OT once a year

3/ depending on the county places at special schools are at a premium

4/ similarly, places at mainstream schools with ASD classes have long waiting lists


If you and family are moving to Ireland maybe best register for schools a year or two beforehand, maybe give the address of an in law. Top priority would be your ASD son starts school upon arrival, otherwise he'll get lost in the system

fits

antgal23 wrote: »

Can't answer all your questions but Ill tell you what I know

I work in ASD, teens with complex behavior

1/ SLT told me the other day that government plans to centralize OT, SLT and Psych in one building , access to this will be according to where you live and not like it is now where these services come to your school

Yes services are being completely reorganised at present. Apparently our son will be linked with all the services he needs at once. I don’t know how it’s going to play out in reality. Speech therapy is his biggest need and we go privately for that. ( he was linked in to hse speech therapist for a while and she was very good but she’s in different location now after the reorganisation. We kept our OT though. ).

snoopy84

First of all get in touch with the Galway autism partnership. I don't know what we would have done without them, they explained things to us we didn't understand they guided us and they counselled us. They have held a few support and guidance groups specifically for applying for benefits over zoom, so you could start with these immediately. We have been searching for a private slt for nearly two years now and still haven't managed to get an appointment.

snoopy84

WestOzpara wrote:

I'm an Aussie and I have an Irish wife and kids. We are thinking of moving over to Ireland in the future. We have a 7 yr old who has level 2 ASD. As it stands I have no idea how it works over there in regards to therapy. My son currently gets speech, OT and psych.

Have also sent you a pm

snoopy84

fits wrote:

My boy has an intellectual disability - diagnosed at two. He attends a special preschool. We feel we got ok physio and OT services through HSE. The speech therapy was a much longer wait so we go privately and the DCA more than covers that. We also get carers support grant of 1800 every year in June. There is also a tax allowance of 3500 which helps too. We have never qualified for carers allowance as it is means tested. I’d say try to connect with other parents in area sand find out what’s available.

Have you looked into vhi health insurance? They give 75% back on therapy. After they reimburse us OT is working out at €20 for us

fits

snoopy84 wrote: »

Have you looked into vhi health insurance? They give 75% back on therapy. After they reimburse us OT is working out at €20 for us

Thanks yeah someone else mentioned that on here also. He has a basic VHI policy that doesnt cover SLT. I should really look into it at renewal. Whats the name of the policy you use?

We dont really need it for OT or physio at the moment.

snoopy84

fits wrote:

Thanks yeah someone else mentioned that on here also. He has a basic VHI policy that doesnt cover SLT. I should really look into it at renewal. Whats the name of the policy you use?

Oh if he's already with them then you should absolutely upgrade his policy, it's a great policy. The husband thankfully gets a basic plan through work we then added our son to his policy but on a bells and whistles policy. We put him on the "company plan extra level 1" it cost €324 for 12 months. We've already got that back since only February. We are looking for an SLT also but no luck yet after 2 yrs searching