Just saw this post. My daughter has special needs (brain injury that caused severe speech problems, epilepsy, auditory problems, and other issues), and we live in California.
“California mandates that all special education students have mental health counseling through the public health system (they put them on ritalin). “
We have never, ever recieved any mental health counseling from California, and my daughter needs it. She’s been to a private psychiatrist and psychologist.
“They also provide respite service for the parents.”
They have never provided any respite services for us.
“all day pre-school for the handicapped.”
They did provide pre-school, but there were 2 choices: 1 was an afternoon class that we tried, but it was during my daughter’s nap time, and she needed to take a nap.
There was a morning class provided, but it was at a school where that is primarily Spanish and the class would have been taught in Spanish.
It was very hard to get any good services for my daughter.
We have always had to provide private services for her in order to get her needs met.
I don’t know where you live, but in Orange County, the schools contact Orange County Public Health and Orange County mental health. If the school hasn’t done that for you, you need to call them yourself as well as make a complaint to the school district, special needs dept. I’m surprised that your pediatrician didn’t put you in contact with the public health dept. If the services are there, you may as well take advantage of them. You are paying for them.
I had to contact a private speech therapist to get speech therapy for my daughter’s language deficit. The California schools are way behind in identifying specific learning disabilities and want to lump them all under low IQ, which is sometimes indeterminable, when it’s hidden beneath several layers of disability.