I finally talked to the caseworker (I called her) and she explained that a "consideration visit" is where the kid spends a week there to see if she is a good fit before they commit to placement. A week will be a good test, but unfortunately, may reveal behaviors that they are not willing to tolerate. :( Hopefully not. Hopefully she will be so excited to have all these new people (what we like to call 'fresh meat') available to her. And sharing the living quarters with seven other girls in the cottage could be like a slumber party! We won't tell her until we are driving there, and I will pitch it like summer camp (which it will be like in the summer, unless she has to go to summer school because of the two classes she's decided to quit doing the work for, and is failing). I will let her know that if she blows it here, her next stop is a residential treatment center---and she knows what that is like.
This place is pretty nice and has a great set-up. While there are no beds available now, they anticipate one or two opening when school lets out. We have a tentative meeting scheduled for June 6th. Hopefully that date will stick. The cottage they intend for her has a house couple that lives there for several weeks in a row, in an attached appartment. Then for one week, they lock their attached door and the respite apartment opens to the cottage and another couple takes it on for a week. The long-term couple have been there almost 30 years, so they know their stuff and apparently run a tight ship. I was told she only needed some clothes, and then a couple of nice outfits for church every Sunday. No expensive electronics or such. Should be interesting.
Since she wears the same 5-7 shirts every week and this week wore her new pair of jeans all five days, having a limited number of outfits in an institution should not be a big deal.
A friend of mine who is about to become a licensed foster respite parent had no plans for the weekend and offered to take DD for Friday night and most of Saturday--sort of a practice session for my friend. I hesitated to say yes, not wanting to jeopardize our relationship, but she insisted. So, over the long weekend, we will get a little break from the drama. Yeah!
Still counting down, but not getting too excited. At a minimum we should get a week long break from DD in June, but we really hope and pray that she sticks, and stays longer. They have a 9-12 month program with some kids staying longer. In that time we will work with LSS to get the state to take back partial custody so they can provide long-term care until she is 18.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Gosh I am tired
So yesterday we get a call from the junior high. DD got into a fist fight with another girl in CLASS!! Sounds like she got her tail kicked and while the other girl was making contact with a lot of her punches, DD was busy digging her nails into the other girl. IN THE CLASSROOM! Both girls got 3-days of in-school detention and were put on behavior contracts. This kind of behavior might immediately disqualify her from the local children's home we are trying to get her into. Nice timing! Another proud moment for us.
So today I learned that the home DID accept her, but need to do a "consideration visit" with us. What that exactly means, no one has explained yet, but apparently they assigned her an internal case worker and are holding a bed for her. However, they want to wait until school is out to avoid any confusion. So twenty more days until we do our "visit" and then hopefully she is in! This is only the first step, and while it does give us some hope, we are cautious about relaxing just yet. We have experienced too many other false starts to believe this one just yet. Hopefully we can keep yesterday's fight on the down-low, but you never know what she will choose to brag about in an interview. I just hope they don't ask...
Oh yeah -- looks like she shaved her eyebrows again, too! That will help her blend with the other children, I'm sure!
So today I learned that the home DID accept her, but need to do a "consideration visit" with us. What that exactly means, no one has explained yet, but apparently they assigned her an internal case worker and are holding a bed for her. However, they want to wait until school is out to avoid any confusion. So twenty more days until we do our "visit" and then hopefully she is in! This is only the first step, and while it does give us some hope, we are cautious about relaxing just yet. We have experienced too many other false starts to believe this one just yet. Hopefully we can keep yesterday's fight on the down-low, but you never know what she will choose to brag about in an interview. I just hope they don't ask...
Oh yeah -- looks like she shaved her eyebrows again, too! That will help her blend with the other children, I'm sure!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
They lost it...
So, last week we worked with Lutheran Social Services to complete and submit an application to a local children's home. The home reviews applicants on Thursdays. Last time, when they rejected her, they got back to us on Monday. This time, Monday came and went without a word, so today I called Lutheran to see it they heard anything, but I only got voicemail. DH & I went to see TT again today. It was a bizarre, rather useless session except for one thing. He called Lutheran and got through. The case worker agreed to call and find out what is going on. She soon called back saying that the intake manager "believed" that she was accepted, but wanted to confirm and would let us know before the end of the day.
When I got back to the office, I got a call from Lutheran's saying that the home can't seem to find her application. Doesn't think they DID review her app last week, and asked that Lutheran's resubmit it. So, now we wait for another Thursday review. Don't know if their mistake will maybe make them a little more open to receiving her or not, but this is just more of the same disappointment from these agencies that are so often inept.
In the session, TT voiced concern for DD since we don't really engage her. I told him that is not at all what I would call a healthy relationship, but that THIS was OUR survival mode now. So while everyone is so concerned with the best interests of the child, but not concerned at all on the impact she has on our family that we had to take measures to protect ourselves. Trying to have a simple conversation with her quickly becomes a painful exercise--and what would we talk about? What she plotted Friday while my mom babysat? Why she likes to dress like a ragged orphan everyday? Why she insists on breaking every rule, every chance she gets?
She has taught me that nothing I say matters or changes anything. The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I'm done with that cycle.
So anyway - once again -- cross your fingers and send good thoughts. It almost sounded like we were in today, so maybe that is an indication of things to come...
When I got back to the office, I got a call from Lutheran's saying that the home can't seem to find her application. Doesn't think they DID review her app last week, and asked that Lutheran's resubmit it. So, now we wait for another Thursday review. Don't know if their mistake will maybe make them a little more open to receiving her or not, but this is just more of the same disappointment from these agencies that are so often inept.
In the session, TT voiced concern for DD since we don't really engage her. I told him that is not at all what I would call a healthy relationship, but that THIS was OUR survival mode now. So while everyone is so concerned with the best interests of the child, but not concerned at all on the impact she has on our family that we had to take measures to protect ourselves. Trying to have a simple conversation with her quickly becomes a painful exercise--and what would we talk about? What she plotted Friday while my mom babysat? Why she likes to dress like a ragged orphan everyday? Why she insists on breaking every rule, every chance she gets?
She has taught me that nothing I say matters or changes anything. The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I'm done with that cycle.
So anyway - once again -- cross your fingers and send good thoughts. It almost sounded like we were in today, so maybe that is an indication of things to come...
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Happy Birthday to Me
So yesterday we went to see TT -- just DH and I. A completely different mood this time. He wrote me last week saying that he heard that we did not immediately place DD in a facilty and wanted to talk to us about continuing therapy in the interim. TT wanted to know what our plan was and how he could help. We told him that we should know by Monday if DD is accepted into a local, long-term children's home. If she is not, we would pursue a residential treatment center again. He is now our mentor, our coach to help get her into a long term facility and keep her there until she is 18. He advised us on what to do and not do, what to say and not say, and offered that if we ever had any questions to call or email him and he would be happy to counsel us.
He told us to not get in the way...here is what he meant.
When the facility calls to get permission to medicate her, I planned to say, "no--get to know her for 30 days before you medicate her." He told me to do no such thing. Said that would show that we were still invested in her and the facility would interpret that as a need to get her back into the house. He said to let them drug her--and commented that of course they wouldn't give her a lethal dosage, so let go.
I told him that I wanted some kind of assurance that this would be a long-term placement -- a year at a minimum-- because I don't want to get her back in 30 days all drugged up and with new, ganster behaviors. He said to let her go to any place she is accepted for as long as they will take her--even if it is only 24 hours. He said that we are trying to build a case and even if she is only in for a few hours, showing that, for example, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital seven times in one year only helped our case.
Again - he told me to not get in the way of the plan. He said we had done the hard part of making a decision and now we needed to stick with it. Told us to not go visit her other than the mandated family therapy sessions. Told us to just flat out say NO to including DS in the sessions. I told him that I did that last time and that is what started all the problems. He said they cannot force the issue, but as I recall it was our insurance saying that everyone in the home had to be in the sessions, so we may have a battle at hand.
He offered to continue seeing us -- just us--to help us through this process and to help us with the grieving process; and there is definitely some grief here. I think I have already grieved a lot, but there is still something really powerful, just under the surface, that caused me to burst into tears just upon hearing him offering to help us through the grief.
It seems that once we made this decision, he changed positions. He is no longer attempting to help us unite with DD, he is now attempting to help us survive all of this. He seems to now be the advocate that we were told we would have 9 months ago--only not to help dissolve the adoption, just to get her out of our house permanently.
The way this works, supposedly, is if she gets into this local facility, they will accept the minimal payment, and we are OK with that. The local program is set up for 9 - 12 months. During those 9 months, Lutheran Social Services will start the paperwork to apply for the state of Texas to take back "temporary custody" of DD, allowing the State to then pay for a much longer solution -- basically a girls home until she is 18.
If she is not accepted to the local place, we will then apply to the same residential treatment center (RTC) she was in last time. Why the same one? Well, because the battle is the same -- she has too many issues for this local place, but not enough issues for a RTC. The catch -- the stupid place she was in last time, the place that fought me so hard while I was trying to get her admitted, upon our removing her from that facility, made us sign a medical release form stating that we were removing her against their medical advice and in the exit evaluation they did on DD they gave her a GAF score of 38 (out of 100) which is barely functioning and they were basically medicating her for Bi-polar disorder. They would have a lot of explaining to do if they now said that she did not qualify--but I suppose it is always possible that they still could not accept her. Nothing surprises me anymore with these places. So - she would go in under our insurance, until it maxed out. Then Lutheran would pay for another 3 months, and in all that time Lutheran would be working on that same application to get the state to take temporary custody so they can then be responsible for her care.
Then, until she is 18, we could be the "Disney Parent" usually described in divorces. We could be the ones doing the monthly visit of taking her out to eat or getting her a gift and since we would no longer be her authority figure, she just might like us then. She might actually thrive in an institution with no familial expectations, or love expectations. She would just have to take care of herself and not think about anybody else--and she is pretty good at that.
So, send lots of good vibes tomorrow while DDs application goes through the review process. This local facility would be the best for multiple reasons, but this is the same place that rejected her back in September for having too many issues. This would be the best for her and for us, so while I have no high hopes or expectations, it sure would make life easier and I will calmly wait for their decision.
He told us to not get in the way...here is what he meant.
When the facility calls to get permission to medicate her, I planned to say, "no--get to know her for 30 days before you medicate her." He told me to do no such thing. Said that would show that we were still invested in her and the facility would interpret that as a need to get her back into the house. He said to let them drug her--and commented that of course they wouldn't give her a lethal dosage, so let go.
I told him that I wanted some kind of assurance that this would be a long-term placement -- a year at a minimum-- because I don't want to get her back in 30 days all drugged up and with new, ganster behaviors. He said to let her go to any place she is accepted for as long as they will take her--even if it is only 24 hours. He said that we are trying to build a case and even if she is only in for a few hours, showing that, for example, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital seven times in one year only helped our case.
Again - he told me to not get in the way of the plan. He said we had done the hard part of making a decision and now we needed to stick with it. Told us to not go visit her other than the mandated family therapy sessions. Told us to just flat out say NO to including DS in the sessions. I told him that I did that last time and that is what started all the problems. He said they cannot force the issue, but as I recall it was our insurance saying that everyone in the home had to be in the sessions, so we may have a battle at hand.
He offered to continue seeing us -- just us--to help us through this process and to help us with the grieving process; and there is definitely some grief here. I think I have already grieved a lot, but there is still something really powerful, just under the surface, that caused me to burst into tears just upon hearing him offering to help us through the grief.
It seems that once we made this decision, he changed positions. He is no longer attempting to help us unite with DD, he is now attempting to help us survive all of this. He seems to now be the advocate that we were told we would have 9 months ago--only not to help dissolve the adoption, just to get her out of our house permanently.
The way this works, supposedly, is if she gets into this local facility, they will accept the minimal payment, and we are OK with that. The local program is set up for 9 - 12 months. During those 9 months, Lutheran Social Services will start the paperwork to apply for the state of Texas to take back "temporary custody" of DD, allowing the State to then pay for a much longer solution -- basically a girls home until she is 18.
If she is not accepted to the local place, we will then apply to the same residential treatment center (RTC) she was in last time. Why the same one? Well, because the battle is the same -- she has too many issues for this local place, but not enough issues for a RTC. The catch -- the stupid place she was in last time, the place that fought me so hard while I was trying to get her admitted, upon our removing her from that facility, made us sign a medical release form stating that we were removing her against their medical advice and in the exit evaluation they did on DD they gave her a GAF score of 38 (out of 100) which is barely functioning and they were basically medicating her for Bi-polar disorder. They would have a lot of explaining to do if they now said that she did not qualify--but I suppose it is always possible that they still could not accept her. Nothing surprises me anymore with these places. So - she would go in under our insurance, until it maxed out. Then Lutheran would pay for another 3 months, and in all that time Lutheran would be working on that same application to get the state to take temporary custody so they can then be responsible for her care.
Then, until she is 18, we could be the "Disney Parent" usually described in divorces. We could be the ones doing the monthly visit of taking her out to eat or getting her a gift and since we would no longer be her authority figure, she just might like us then. She might actually thrive in an institution with no familial expectations, or love expectations. She would just have to take care of herself and not think about anybody else--and she is pretty good at that.
So, send lots of good vibes tomorrow while DDs application goes through the review process. This local facility would be the best for multiple reasons, but this is the same place that rejected her back in September for having too many issues. This would be the best for her and for us, so while I have no high hopes or expectations, it sure would make life easier and I will calmly wait for their decision.
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