Purpose, Patience and Perseverance, The Three P’s of This Process: A fellow parent from my daughter’s school emailed yesterday with questions regarding the aging out process. Her daughter is a fellow schoolmate of our daughter, one year her junior and from a different state.

As I responded to her email a bunch of memories flowed in. In fact, we actually started this process over twelve months ago after our school’s “transition weekend” programming which offers information on how to best navigate this chapter. A group of Connecticut parents with similar interests joined together to visit a service agency, meeting with different specialists in residential and vocational, as well as a visit to a condominium complex in a town with sidewalks and easy access to shopping, movies, library, and transportation. We added a visit to an attorney in the area as well as a real estate expert.

The hope was to find a match in funding allocations, geography and personality. It all failed. A combination of variables resulted in mission unaccomplished.

Twelve months and seventeen years of preparation to this point, I am still learning, meeting great people and sharing bright and bitter moments. Are we there yet? Nope, but a lot closer.

Today’s Homework: Finding out more than one would ever chose to know regarding “rent subsidy”, HUD, including reams of forms adding more unfinished patches to the crazy quilt of a future for our “special” gal.

©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011