I'm back!! I signed the paper. It is a form saying what conditions will be in place upon difficult child's release, although these can change if state Department of Juvenile Justice feels they need to before difficult child he is released. It specifies that while difficult child is incarcerated, I will maintain contact difficult child, the parole oofficer, and difficult child's counselor. (I initailly thought that meant a therapist- now I think it just means the Department of Juvenile Justice cm).
difficult child's estimated time on parole is 6-9 mos. That is good. Intensive in home services was not checked (that means no one is requiring mst at this point). He said difficult child will have to continue mental health treatment but we would work out detailed requirements closer toward his release. We'll both have to meet with parole officer once a mo in his office. There will be 2 contacts made with difficult child per mo besides that. difficult child will have a mentor- I don't have to have any involvement with him. difficult child will have the typical random drug tests, a curfew, and 30 days of house arrest initially. I will be supportive of this.
now, here's the good and the bad. First the good. The guy seemed happy to discuss my cooncerns and seems more open to discussing things with me than the PO was. He said two phrases that I really liked. the first- "I am not the one on parole." The second was after we discussed the possibility of difficult child going to a group home and he was talking about there being 2 ways to get that and one being a parental palcement so I explained what I already tried too get Residential Treatment Center (RTC) that way but no one would do a certificate of need, his response was- "well if they wouldn't cooperate with you we would have to try a different route if difficult child needed that." He also said that I could try for family therapy while difficult child was incarcerated and it shouldn't be a problem but that it would have to be worked out with the facility difficult child goes to.
Now, the bad side. After looking at ALL the wording on this form at home, there was a place to indicate transitional placement and conidtions. There was also a place where family therapy while difficult child is in could have been written. He said we would meet (him, me and the counselor from the facility) about 30-90 days prior to difficult child's release to determine if difficult child should go to a group home. He said since DSS had not done a certificate of need allowing me to do a parental placement into Residential Treatment Center (RTC) that the only other option would be for Department of Juvenile Justice to place difficult child iin one of their 3. (Well, according to info online, those are only for boys 16yo or older.) He didn't mention that he could recommend it to the county team for funding and I didn't bring up that the reason no one would do a certificate of need is because the PO wouldn't recommend it and she was the one in authority of it.
So now I'm thinking that while it's good that he seems a lot easier to get along with than PO and hopefully, that wasn't just an act to get me to sign this thing and hopefully if we do have a unified front as he said he wanted to work toward that things will go smoother at home, I should have realized that this was the form that would have specified family therapy prior to release as a requirement or a transitional placement. I'm not so sure I trust his statement that we'll discuss that in a few months and adjust it as necessary. Especially after he said that there are a lot of kids who do worse at home and still about 80-90% are released directly to home with no more than this in place. I'm not so sure I trust the statement that I can discuss family therapy with the facility difficult child is sent to and try to get them to give it, either. It seems to me that they are going to say "well, it isn't written in this form you signed". He said if I wasn't comfortable that enough had been done at the time of difficult child's release, that I could give difficult child up to dss. Well, duh. The form says this "plan" was developed by parole officer and parent. I really should not have signed without it listing a transitional plan of family therpay before difficult child comes home. It would do no good to call or make issue of this now- he said he was faxing it to the people for the staffing meeting tomorrow as soon as I left. I guess when those "staffing people" call me tomorrow, I can tell them what I was told but that family therapy is something I am going to require before difficult child comes home. If we can get that resolved, there would be no need for a group home- which would be a great thing since they don't really have one for him.
Then, he said where he thought difficult child would go and his LOS would probably be 12-18mos with a possible early release of 10 1/2 mos if he did real well. His 2 mos incarcerated since court will come off of that. He gave some pointers about the gang kids that I can relay to difficult child and he said he would be meeting with in the next week or so and would see him periodically while he's in.