BOISE, Idaho — Idaho’s Family Personal Care Services program once allowed parents to be paid caregivers for their children with severe disabilities. The program ended last year, leaving many families struggling to balance jobs and caring for their kids.
Jessica Godsill is one of those parents.
“The one crazy thing about my son is, he’s actually the first in the world with his diagnosis,” she said.
WATCH | Meet Jessica and Liam and learn about a proposed bill to help families like theirs
Godsill spent her days caring for her son Liam while benefiting from the FPCS program.
“It was a great program that we had that allowed parents to go ahead and stay at home and care for their children who needed around-the-clock care,” she said of the FPCS program.
The program allowed her to provide for Liam financially while helping him navigate his disability daily.
“Nobody is going to come in and look after your child the way a loving mother would,” added Godsill.
But last year, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare ended the program — citing fraud and abuse.
“And now they’re up the creek because the state is not paying enough," said Rep. Ilana Rubel (D). "The families can’t leave the house to go get jobs in many cases, and they are just wondering what to do."
So she wrote a bill to reinstate the program with new guardrails. The proposal would limit eligibility to 1,000 families and cap paid caretaker hours at 25 per week. But Rubel says she’s been having trouble getting the bill scheduled for a hearing.
RELATED | Medicaid bill aimed at supporting Idahoans working with disabilities will not advance
“The bill is ready to go, and it is desperately needed, and I think it would garner quite a bit of support because I think a lot of people have been hearing from these families,” Rubel added. “But the chairman is basically saying he doesn’t want to hear any bill that will cost money because the state has no money.”
Currently, Idaho offers about $24/hour to outside providers to care for children with disabilities. But Rubel says that realistically isn’t enough for trained nurses and caretakers to accept.
“I think at some point, probably the state’s gonna get sued because I suspect what we’re doing is illegal. We are legally required to provide help to these people, which to me means real help — real help as in paid at a level to get someone to show up," said Rubel.
The situation leaves parents like Jessica in a tough spot.
“It’s actually been very hard. I have actually been taking on two late-night jobs on top of being his full-time caregiver during the day. It’s been very taxing. It’s been a level of exhaustion that I have never experienced before, to be honest," added Godsill.
The proposed bill has still not yet been scheduled for a reading. Nonetheless, Rubel says she will keep advocating for it to be heard.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been, in part, converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
