We have so many guardrails in place that I often feel our children are in child protective services instead of Medicaid. We have a county caseworker and a private caseworker both seeing our children in person and on a regular basis. Reviewing goals constantly. Evaluations every couple years. When my husband passed away suddenly a few months ago, I spent the week after his death doing Medicaid paperwork and meetings. 2 of my 3 kids have special needs. My friends in Medicaid asked me how will you do Medicaid now that you’ve lost your only income from husband because the paperwork is a part time job. We have background checks as parents. Our aids have background checks. How many guardrails need to be in place? Multiple agencies discuss our hours on an ongoing basis. My kids need care every moment they are home from school including holidays weekends school days off. People don’t want to deal with children over 6 foot tall with behaviors and Diapers. I can’t even take 3 of them out alone without an aid so I’m still struggling in my free time to find aids. I can’t live off 40 hours. I don’t know how you think with kids on multiple school schedules and closures, we can work. Just because one leaves at 7, 2 go at 830, one comes homes at 2, two come home at 330, our children often come home or are sick or we are in school meetings or at therapies. My friend is now my eor since my spouse died and it’s fine but you should consider doing a stipend. It’s work for eors. 40 hours is so far beneath what my kids require and it’s fine as a second income but my spouse died. Apparently this was all about saving money and not about the kids needs. This is why we didn’t want agency directed with hours caps and more paperwork. I’ve never seen so much paperwork and we are dealing with life threatening medical issues and school ieps and behaviors. If I was wealthy, I would have left this program but it is all my kids will have in the future.