MHMR and cps

[shelleyils]

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I'll try and be as brief as I can. I have an 11 year old totally non verbal severly autistic son. He is currently taking 7.5ml of abilify and 3ml of procentra. He had a horrible year last year at school with throwing epic meltdowns. This year, he was doing so much better. The only times he was having a meltdown was when he was in sever pain from ear infections. He got ear tubes put in back on nov 15. He seemed to be ok afterwards, but took a nose dive as far as behavior goes around the second week of dec. He is having horrible fits of rage at home and at school. His MHMR coordinator was here a few month ago just to go over the tx home living waiver program my son got. He is on the wait list for the other one that does pay for behavior therapy. She said the only way to get him to the top of the wait list is for us to put him in the hospital and I don't think that would do any good. She also said for me to call 911 when he's having a fit of rage. I didn't think too much about it until my son's speech therapist was here last fri. She asked me if cps contacted me because they called her asking a whole lot of questions about his behavior and why I just let him attack me when he's having fits or rage. Cps never came out to the house, she just called tues. They said the reporter said that we are not doing enough to help with his behavior issues, our house looks like a junkyard, the inside of our house has dirt and feces smeared all over the walls, our house is dirty, and I don't supervise him. We ended up taking him to his psychiatric dr on tues just to see if maybe we need to adjust his medications. The cps worker wanted to talk to the psychiatric dr and I had to sign a release form. The dr. does not recommend putting him in the hospital. Since he is autistic and does not go good with any change to his schelule, she said it is going to do him more harm than good. Our house does not have feces smeared all over the walls, we don't have trash piled outside in the yard. He is in a special needs classroom that just deals with kids who have behavioral issues, he gets in home parent support training through the school, and in home speech therapy. I don't understand why she said we are not doing enough? The psychiatric dr. doubled his abilify. Instead of taking 7.5mls in the am, she wants him to take 10mls in the am and 5ml in the afternoon. Does that seem like too much? We started doing that, but have not seen any change in behavior. The teacher said he is just being so aggressive at school acting like something hurts him. I can't figure out what. Just to be on the safe side, I made him an appointment. with a differnt dr. just to see if maybe the NP didn't get a good look at his ears. Can cps force us to put him in the hospital? Sorry this was so long.

 

[BusynMember]

Hi. Wow, so sorry for you and your son. I have had unfortunately bad experiences with CPS. When you do foster care, and we did, and if the kids are of different races from you (and ours always were), then the people who tend to be bigoted and think you married out of your race call CPS all the time. Most of our workers would take one look at us and just leave. But we had a few, especially the very young ones, who also put in puzzling reports saying things that were not true. My suggestion is to play the game and do whatever they tell you to do.

Like you, I am against putting a child who is so obviously Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in a hospital. What can a hospital do? He has a neurological difference, not a mental illness. I would be afraid that the hospitaliztion would terrify him. I am not sure if they can force you. I sure hope not. I can not imagine how it would help since hospitals take people for a few days only for stabilization and then just release them.

On the other hand, you have a chance to turn CPS on your side in helping your son navigate through the up until eighteen years old timespan and then they can be very helpful in getting your son adult services when he needs them. I don't recommend arguing with CPS. Sadly, they can and sometimes do retaliate. Instead, I suggest trying to get them to pay for some supports that you don't yet have but want.

I am sorry you are going through this. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is so difficult. Many people do not understand that it isn't a mental illness nad that the out-of-control behavior often stems from serious frustration that the person is not able to communicate well. In your son's case, he can't speak at all.

Do all of you know sign language? If he can communicate better, in any way, the should make him feel more empowered. Apologies if you are already doing that.

 

[shelleyils]

Actually he uses pics to tell us what he wants. I know the one waiver program he's on the wait list for pays for lot of things that the tx home living won't. He does not start gettng services through that one until feb. They have very few things that he could benefit from. Most of it is for day hab, wheel chairs and a few adaptive aids. His Occupational Therapist (OT) recommended an indoor swing to help ease with aggression, but those are like 1k and up. Our tx home living provider said that is not considered an adaptive aid. Maybe the cps worker can help us get that. Last night he brought be the choice board and keeps pointing to the one that has a picture of dr. visit. I really hate to say this, but I do hope it's his ears that are bothering him. That could really explain a lot. If not, I wonder if it will take a few days to see a difference in his medication adjustment?

 

[shelleyils]

I was going to say with the abilify and procentra, it made a huge difference at school. The teacher said he was doing so good, that he didn't need to go to summer school. That's why I'm wondering why all of the sudden the abilify stopped being as effective? She said she has not seen this much aggression since the beginning of last year.

 

[shelleyils]

by the way, he has had 4 different mhmr coordinators since he's been with them and none of them called cps on us!

 

[helpangel]

Shelley wow you do have your hands full, will he answer ?s (head nod to signal yes/no?) I would wonder if he feels need to go back to the doctor or wants to say something about past doctor visit that doesn't have words to express (like they looked at ears but its my knee that is "killing" me). The problems Angel had with blockages I would recommend charting bowel movements on the calendar, a child like yours could get into a real situation.

I'm sorry about CPS they truly can be a real PITA, they got called on me more times then I can count. I would write date & time on their business card pull rubberband off the stack of them and put new one on top reband and invite them in offer coffee, tea then sit down and wait for ?s. Find out what accusation was then answered ?s openly & honestly but avoided machine gunning them with too much information. I was the one being abused but the accusations were against me, all coming from the school.

You're lucky the complaint that was called in was that he was hurting you not the other way around. If CPS feels a child is in danger they will place them in protective custody, when they tried that with me - my lawyer, the psychologist & I were at the courthouse within a hour of them snagging my kids. Grabbed them when left house to catch school bus one morning, luckily I had gotten a heads up it was coming so had lawyer & therapist on stand by & available I was lucky had my kids home that afternoon.

I have had clients I advocated for that have fought for years to get kids back, usually if parents not guilty of abuse or neglect they get them back within a week. The thing that makes me so mad is they have incentives for CPS workers to steal peoples children; they get a cash bonus for removing a kid and another if parental rights are terminated and that is just wrong.

On that note it is best to play nice with them and try to keep the stovetop, sink & refrigerator as clean as possible at all times; though the people I know sighted for "filthy living conditions" were told to clean their house they didn't snag the kids except in one case of bedbugs.

Nancy

 

[shelleyils]

Well, we found out what was making him so aggitated and fussy these last few weeks. We took him to a different dr. to get a second opinion and lo and behold, it's his ears! The clinic kept saying his ears looked good! He just had tube surgery in nov and the dr. said she didn't see the tubes in his ears so now he's got to go back to the ent.

 

[helpangel]

glad you figured it out a kid like that you would almost need a crystal ball to figure out what's going on.

I pray you never have to deal with CPS again they are an aggravation you could do without.

Nancy

 

[DammitJanet]

I dont have experience with severely Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) kids but one thing that struck me in your post was that the swing was so expensive. Im not sure how big your son is but I have seen indoor swings that two kids can get on at once. Other than that, you can screw big eye hooks into a strong beam in the ceiling and hand a swing from them. Sort of like those Johnny Jumpers people used for babies.

 

[shelleyils]

CPS never called back. They actually gave his case back to a MHMR sevice coordinator he had years ago. She thinks this whole cps thing was silly. My son weighs 115lbs. The swing the Occupational Therapist (OT) recommended was one that does not hang up, it comes on a swing stand. You order from an Occupational Therapist (OT) catalog. I guess that's why it was so expensive.

 

[dstc_99]

Have you considered purchasing a used swing. When kids outgrow them they get sold. I'll ask my friends if they know anyone who has one.


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