How to contact and create an application with the MDPH
The MDPH can help you if your child has difficulties because of a disability : if you need a home service, if you need to live in an accommodation facility, if you need help/accompaniment with schooling or if you need help/arrangements at work. To be able to acces state-funded benefits, you must open a file at the MPDH of your department. Here is a simple guide on what to do and what to expect.
Contacting the MDPH and creating your file
You must contact the MDPH of your department by sending them an application made up of a complete file concerning your child. (Find your department's MDPH here).
To compile this file, you can get help from the referent teacher, the head teacher, a professional from the MDPH, the educational team or the care service/professionnal that follows your child. This application can be completed by a school component informed by the educational team.
Be aware, the MDPHs have an enormous number of files to process, and the processing times are often quite long. Our advice to avoid additional waiting time is to make sure your file is complete when you first send it off.
The non-exhaustive list of documents you will be asked to send :
This main document, duly completed with as much information as possible (20 pages long). If the link does not work, you can also find the model of this document on the internet by searching “cerfa 15692-01”.
a specific medical certificate signed by your doctor. Your doctor explains in this document the difficulties related to your child’s disability and their health problems. Here is the model of medical certificate that must be used and given to your doctor. If the link does not work, you can also find the model of this medical certificate on the internet by searching “cerfa 15695-01”.
a photocopy of your identity card if you are French or from a country of the European Union, or a photocopy of your “titre de séjour” if otherwise. You must give proof of identity of both the child and his legal representative.
a proof of address, for example : an electricity bill, copy of water, electricity, gas or telephone bill, rent receipt, or income tax receipt.
Depending on the initial demand (CAF funding, AVS school aid, ULIS inclusion school orientation, SESSAD or IME medico-social institution orientation, MPA adapted teaching material, etc), you can also be asked to provide :
evaluations from different medical professionals (ophthalmologist, psychologist, speech therapist, psychomotor therapist...)
reports from recent places of schooling
copy of receipts, specifications and invoices for expenses related to the child's disability
a Geva-Sco form filled in by the educative team working with your child (a tool for dialogue between the different actors involved in the situation of a disabled student, it is part of a process of harmonizing the procedures for assessing situations in the field of schooling).
You can also give any other facultative documents if they can be useful to the MDPH to understand the difficulties you/your child has because of the handicap.
All the information on the exact documents you will be needed to provide are listed on the main document itself, the cerfa_15692-01.
2. Waiting for and understanding their answer
Once you have sent off this file to the MDPH of you department, you will have to wait for their answer.
Professionnals will study your file at the MDPH. Sometimes, you will be contacted for a telephone or physical meeting if they need additionnal information. Once the MDPH has decided what they think will be needed in your specific case, they give their results to the CDAPH.
The CDAPH is the Committee on the Rights and Independence of People with Disabilities. This commission is made up of persons from the State, persons from the Department, persons from the Social Security Funds (Health Insurance and CAF) and persons from associations of disabled persons and families.
This committee will meet at the MDPH to make an independant decision on your application. You can be present the day they host this committee if you wish to, but it is not obligatory. After the presentation of your application, the CDAPH can decide to give you the help proposed by the professionals of the MDPH or not.
If you were present or not at the committee, you will in both cases receive the results by post.
Once you have received your notification, you officially have the right to have the help that is written on the letter. If you are allowed funding, the CAF will be notified of this, and will contact you for additional information to start your payment.
3. How to contest their descision
If all or some of your requests for help by the MDPH were refused, you can contest this descision and make an appeal for your application to be reviewed. To do this, you can either : ask for a conciliation, make a graceful recourse, or make a contentious appeal.
To request a conciliation, you must write a letter to the Director of the MDPH. Requesting a conciliation allows you to have an appointment with a person different to the committee who said no to your request. During this appointment, you can give more explanations about your situation. After the appointment, the person writes a report for the MDPH.
To make a gracious appeal you must write a letter to CDAPH, where a different committee will look at your application a second time.
To make a contentious appeal, only in the case that your gracious appeal was refused, you must write a letter to the court. The affair will then be decided upon by a judge.