FYI ( If you know someone who might be interested please forward email. Thanks)

[Lena Mansah Barnes]

Valerie Herskowitz walkm...@aol.com via lists.apana.org	10:22 PM (9 hours ago)
to wwjustsayitnow, autism

Can you hook this parent up with Desiree

Sent from my iPhone 

Valerie

Begin forwarded message:

From: Anthony Karydakis <akary...@yahoo.com>
Date: May 10, 2013, 7:04:24 PM EDT
To: "aut...@lists.apana.org" <aut...@lists.apana.org>
Subject: [Autism] Looking to connect with parents of autistic young adults
Reply-To: "International general autism support and information." <aut...@lists.apana.org>

I am the father of a 25-year old autistic son living in New York and looking to connect with parents of other autistic youngsters who may be interesting in planning for future residential arrangements. 

With the NY State's OPWDD funding model for people with disabilities already in the process of changing, it will soon be standard practice for all individuals to be allocated a certain budget (depending on their assessed needs) that can be allocated more flexibly between residential cost, day programs and other services. What this means is that a small group of parents (3 or 4) can get together and set up their own residence for their sons and manage it directly as opposed to having private agencies of often dubious quality offering services with all of the restrictions they impose. This way, we can have direct control over our children's quality of life and make decisions about how their residence will be run. My own objective and time horizon for setting this up is 12 to 24 months.

If you are interested in communicating with me to discuss these issues further, please reply to this email address and, if you leave me a phone number, I can call you to talk directly.

Thank you.

Anthony