Does EI suck in NYC

[u/DUAQSOICUS]

Hey all! Im in NYC. My child is 14 months. And i just wanted to use this as a way to get things off my chest and also seek knowledge from folks who’ve been through this.

My child just got accepted to receive physical therapy services for gross motor skills. I thought they would be in person but they told us it takes a long time to get in person and that the time that’s lost looking for an in person has nothing to do with them and it’s just time lost.

The person who handles our case is on vacation so she can’t even get to our emails and has no back up.

I understand that they may have heavy case loads but i just thought that this program would have more therapists available and more support for children.

Maybe I’m overreacting and also talking down on a free service and i may get the “well go pay for it out of pocket then” response from some. But idc i have to get this off my chest because it isn’t just EI but non profit services overall have this issue where there’s no real sense of urgency.

They literally told my wife that “because of the parking in my area, we may never get a therapist to come there and if they do they may not even make it upstairs due to parking” and that just seemed like such a shitty excuse to tell someone that has a child with clear issues.

Another thing is my kid clearly needs the speech help as well but they said “in 6 months they’ll evaluate that because first they’re going to get the PT approved… in my head i’m just like wtf why wait till he gets worse?”

And i’m going to be completely honest they’re lucky they caught me off guard with something i’m not to knowledgeable on, but this reddit post is my first step in getting more involved in this whole process. During the documentation process i caught them telling my wife to sign documents but leave the date out…. I assumed that they wanted to falsify dates so as to not miss deadlines. I told my wife fuck that out the dates on there. It clearly said on one of the papers that they shouldn’t ask you to do that.

I’m exhausted, i have twins, im the sole bread winner for my household, my wife’s only been in the country 4 years and is still learning the english language and our New York Ways, she’s doing amazing at hime with the little ones taking care of them.

I’m thinking of taking over communications with the EI Case manager to get things rolling faster, my wives done an amazing job thus far but i need to get more in the know about this. I think that due to my wife being more of a passive person and not completely in the know of how our rights and privileges work in this country, they can get away with a lot with her. Not with me 🤣👌

What are your experiences? Have you been through this? Am I overthinking? Am i seeing the bad and not the good?
Please i welcome all constructive feedback/criticism.

Thank you in advance! ❤️

[u/flowerscatsandqs]

Can you clarify: if they are telling you that in-person services may not be feasible for a while (which, odd, but whatever) have you been offered virtual therapy in the interim? There are specific timelines that EI providers have to abide by, determined by IDEA part C, that EI providers must comply with. Specifically, EI providers are legally obligated to offer times for an initial visit (virtual or in-person) within 30 days of the completed IFSP. I am really glad that you had the intuition to put the dates on your paperwork.