Would you consider moving house to obtain ABA funding?

[Laurajay84]

We are currently in a state of confusion as to what to do. Our house has been up for sale for about 4 months. However, due to DS about to get a diagnosis of ASD, we may have decided to stay put for the time being and invest the money into providing DS with as much help as possible.

However, the city we currently live in is apparently not ABA friendly and we would struggle to obtain funding here. Does this mean that we should stick with the original plan and move to the neighbouring city instead where they are ABA friendly.

Confused but really don't want to move house unless we absolutely HAVE to.

[cansu]

I think I would be careful about the ABA friendly label. Most LA do not pay for it unless forced to via tribunal. Many parents fund themselves or do so initially.

[Laurajay84]

Thanks, Cansu. Yes, I am aware that we will be funding it initially and most likely will have to take it to tribunal. However. is it the case that some LA still refuse even with tribunal?

[bialystockandbloom]

I don't think any LAs would ever proclaim themselves ABA "friendly" tbh! Ours (a London borough) was apparently completely anti-ABA - we were told they had never funded a programme.

It turned out - we found out, after we got ours funded - they had indeed funded many a programme, but just not ones that were called ABA e.g. being creative in description could help, so terming it "positive behaviour therapy" or something can help.

(Though tbf we didn't get a home programme funded - just funding for school TA (25 hours pw) who was trained in ABA by our tutors, followed home programme, etc, but was officially employed by the LA/school, so wasn't deemed an official ABA programme. I doubt we'd have got funding for a home programme.)

I think in your position I'd go ahead with the move if you wanted to for every other reason. Or, if you didn't want to move anyway, don't move just for the possible off chance the new LA will be more ABA-friendly. As cansu says, there's no guarantee your LA will fund a programme whichever borough you're in - and I think it is certain that you'll have to fund yourself initially anyway, to prove how effective the therapy is.

Not sure of figures, but anecdotally many people win with tribunals, but obv not all. In our case we appealed, but settled before tribunal itself. I think we were lucky to even escape tribunal - it seems the norm that every LA will refuse initially.

Would be worth joining the ABA Yahoo group if you haven't already.

[Sausagepickle123]

Hi Laura. I am in a borough where the LA is not ABA friendly and there are very few funded programmes. My understanding is that even in more ABA friendly areas there will be hoops to jump through to show best therapy for your child and no guarantees. Tribunal may or may not order ABA.
We have no thoughts of moving to a more ABA friendly area despite my son having some ABA. Can you find some more local forums (MN local, Facebook, other forums) that might be able to give you some other local viewpoints? If you google the "what do they know" site someone has published freedom of information requests as to how many ABA programmes the LA is aware of/funded/got through tribunal in that LA which might help inform you. Good luck!

[PandasRock]

We moved to chase ABA funding. Several times.

We were in a very ABA-unfriendly area, and during Statementing it became clear that we would not achieve anything near the amount of support dd1 would need (ABA or not), and so we cut our losses and moved.

It took a further 2 years to get what we wanted (an ABA school placement), but we did get there eventually.

We funded our home programme initially, and also funded the school placement for 6 months. The move did work, in that there were no suitable school places where we moved to, which lead to approval for out of county provision, which then lead onto approval of the ABA placement (eventually). We would not have won the provision we did if we had stayed in our original area.

We have had funded ABA (in two different schools) for over 6 years now, and dd1 has successfully transitioned to secondary, so fingers crossed we will continue to have funding while she remains at school.