Alright – so, I am sure you are thinking, Idil defending the Minnesota State Medicaid agency. What the heck, has hell frozen? No, calm down. I think I found another entity that I despise more – Minnesota Reformer. This wanna be news outlet, has been reporting negative and negative about Somali autism community. They are insulting us, making up things, using unverified sources, and just talking nonsense.
They said an anonymous source, so they sell it to us has complained to the state Medicaid agency (DHS) about a Somali autism therapy agency and apparently nothing was done. How primitive.
Let me explain something to you hillbilly writers – there is something called disgruntled employees who fabricate stories out of thin air. If DHS or any agency for that matter investigated every allegation that would be all they do and still would not cover all of it. DHS nor any agency has the resources or the staff to investigate fictional reports from fired or mad employees. That is simply insane and not possible.
The notion that DHS has the resources to do endless investigations is toddler reporting. I suggest you grow up and come to realville. Furthermore, if you did honest and thoughtful reporting, you could ask DHS how many anonymous complaints they get annually, of those what percentage is investigated and of that what percentage is found to be credible complaints. Instead, you find again someone who does not have the guts to come out, somehow and as usual tie to the Somali community who in your hillbilly eyes is bad to the bone then blame DHS for it. How un-journalistic of you.
In my humble opinion, what DHS can do is put a moratorium on approving new EIDBI agencies. Trian the current ones on policies and procedures in a manner that is culturally responsive. This means do not write things to an oral society, they won’t get it. Audit more and provide better quality oversight in all areas of EIDBI agencies to ensure children are learning. Hire and train auditors that reflect the people being served about autism and EIDBI so that they know and understand it better. Get the licensure thing going faster and include CTSS autism therapy agencies to ensure fairness and equity. There is always room for improvement and while I am usually never a fan of DHS, I defend them against the racially profiling and islamophobia MN Reformer. I don’t wanna start saying “DHS is doing a heck of a job” as I do not have access to their internal process but again there is always room for improvement for all of us and if anyone is doing autism therapy for the right reasons – then I support you and stand by and with you.
As usual, the above words do not represent any candidate, agency, or committee.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Retired Advocate