In programming, the word “accessibility” is often shortened to “a11y.” This is known as a neuronym, with the “11” representing the eleven characters between the letters a and y. It also looks like the word “ally,” which I think is appropriate for what happened today.
We’ve written before about the CLTS — Children’s Long Term Support — which is a program that exists in every county in Wisconsin to assist families with medical needs. With their help, we’ve already received Namine’s bicycle (although I suppose it’s technically a tricycle). For the first time, since we now have a house, they’re helping us out with structural accessibility changes.
Our CLTS case worker put us in touch with another organization, one Access to Independence , to assess the changes we want. They won’t be the ones to actually make the changes, but rather they determine for what changes the state will pay. That’s step one.
Step two will be getting bids from remodeling contractors. We will then take those bids back to CLTS, and they (or some other department of the state, I’m a little fuzzy on this part) will decide which bid — and which contractor — they will pay to do the work.
As far as what the bathroom needs, it’s pretty comprehensive. It requires electrical rework, replacing the floor, and completely gutting the bathtub to make room for a roll-in shower. We’re fortunate that the bathroom is still usable in its current state by Namine, because we have a feeling that this will be a lengthy process.
An addendum: you might be wondering why we’re writing about this now. Obviously, no work has begun. (We haven’t even committed to a contractor yet!) The answer is simple: we’re not the only family with accessibility needs, and we hope to pass on what we’ve learned to others. This is a brand new process to us, so much of our communication with CLTS thus far has been to make sure we understand the sequence of events that have yet to happen. If another family has a similar need, perhaps they can save themselves some time by understanding the process as we’ve learned it.
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