Termination by Provider - am I still required to pay?

[mrcamer]

LadyJbug

First, to all, I'm in alberta....

And I appreciate your comments and thoughts. I want to reassure you that 'threatening' my provider with termination was never my intention - but I would and will not place other children at risk. I know my son and while I need care, it would never be at the expense of others. As for the behaviors, your points are dead on, I nannied for almost 10 years and, in my experience, children never 'test' their caregivers like they do their parents - I was given credit by grateful parents when in reality, it was really because I wasn't mum, but hey, it made me quite in demand . And I wasn't sure where the behaviours were coming from - but I had worked with my son at home for 4 weeks and things weren't getting any better - the only way to truly test where the issues lie was to implement a few things at the daycare and see if there was improvement. And the strategies I wanted her to try were quite simple (in my opinion) and had been used successfully both at school and by other providers. The first thing I had asked was if my son could have his tent in the playroom - it is very small, goes up in a single motion and has three meshed windows at the top so that while he can curl up with his stuffy, you can still monitor him through the windows. My son is 9 and has been diagnosed for almost 4 and 1/2 years. The school has been very active in getting him to realize when he is overstimulated and to ask/take a quiet time on his own. He was perfectly capable of doing that, it's just that he had no place to go (when my provider became licensed, she moved the dayhome to her basement - one big room). My son is very visual so my provider (with extra children) was going to the park more often (her yard is small and unfinished). Running, jumping, movement stimulates my son, but swinging, blowing, playing in sand all calm him. So a couple of strategies I had offered were, when they went to the park, was to have him finish the session with swinging (he only needs 5 mins) or if a sandbox, let him play there. If none of these are available, have him blow bubbles, feathers, etc (I even bought a case of bubbles and a package of feathers to give to her - this is also a group activity so everyone could participate). Also, she had become more busy, taking field trips. I asked if she could give me advance warning so that I could take the day off and remove him for the day (my boss needs at least a week's notice).
And my son needs a more quiet atmosphere, that is one of the reason why I had him with a private provider, so that the ratio would be lower. When my provider decided to become licensed and go with the agency, I said nothing, as it is her business and it is not my right to question her decisions. The same with the strategies, I can offer them but if they do not work for her and her program, then perhaps the best is for me to leave and find another provider and with no hard feelings on my part. My son is very hard to place and I am well aware of that. He also commands more time and attention and I have always compensated my providers for that as well (the dayhome rate was $36 per day, I pay $50 a day when my son is full time; $75 per day when he is part time; he is on a special diet so I provide all his food and, once a week, provide all snacks/treats for the dayhome so that he can participate with the other children and not feel so different),
As for the red flag, if I did not trust my provider to look after my son properly, I would never have left him in a care situation where I thought he was not being taken care of. That was not the issue here, I had no problems with the provider's level of care, the fact that he had yet to escalate in the dayhome was proof of the quality of her care but, what I was doing at home was not working and, if the dayhome environment was what was behind the escalation, then eventually, the behaviors would happen there. Unfortunately, the only way to determine if the changes were at the root of the problem was to offer him calming strategies in the dayhome and see if that helped....perhaps I was being too cautious but I will not place other children at risk.
On a more positive note, I took my son out of care for 10 days (to give him time to calm down), I was lucky to find another provider who has experience with both autistic and FASD children. In the two weeks that my son has been there, all the behaviors have stopped. And I want to stress, I don't think that my provider was doing anything wrong, it's just the transitioning from a private dayhome to the agency brought about so many changes that my son was no longer able to cope without some supports in place.....