Before I ask my questions, let me tell you what I’m doing. I supervise a team of 12 people who do intensive home-based therapy. We treat SED kids who are at immediate risk of alternative placement, or are so sick that they can’t function at home, school or in the community.
Here’s what we’ve found: many of these kids are so sick that their parent(s) don’t want them anymore. Some of them are a huge threat to themselves and others. All of them are on at least two psychotropic drugs. They wind up on probation because of their behaviors…and spend much of their time in the detention center due to probation violations.
They need NOT to be in jail. They can’t function at home. They need residential placement. But there are no facilities that take really sick kids. I’m treating a kid with Conversion Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Conduct Disorder and traits of Borderline and Histrionic Disorders. She’s on six medications…totally out of control….violent…self-injurious. And she’s been turned down by every residential facility in the northeastern part of our state. Everyone is afraid of a lawsuit because she’s so unpredictable.
So, get this…all of our local service providers expect her parents to care for her in their home. They won’t chemically restrain her, because that’s not ethical. What? The other day she beat the crap out of her mother and got charged with DV; a fourth degree felony. Now she might go to prison. Is that what she needs? Absolutely not!
Another teen of ours is a constant runner. She spent 180 days in detention last year. Then, guess what. Everyone cut her loose. She can’t be controlled so all involved agencies have given up on her. She’ll be 18 in a year, and, my guess?…she’ll be selling it on the streets for drugs. Why couldn’t we put her someplace from which she couldn’t run, and would have to face her illness? Because there is no place, and there is no money. A “boot camp” out west…350 miles from humanity, costs $16,000. a month, and no agency in our community is willing to “send good money after a bad kid”.
What can we do? What do you do in your communities with these kids? Why can’t we have long-term residential facilities for kids who just can’t make it at home?
I need some input here. Thanks for reading…and, if you’re one of the fortunate professionals who have to try to help these kids…thanks for all you do to make a difference!
Peace.
