Need advice - goals being ignored

sunxstone

New Member
Hi again! My boyfriend just joined and tried to post this but wasn't approved yet so I'm posting it for him.

Hello,
Our child has been diagnosed with Asperger's, BiPolar, ODD, ADHD, Encopresis, and now they are looking into Conduct Disorder. Our main issue is the school (day treatment facility) has been reporting that he's doing just fine there, and even though he has yet to meet his goals, they keep talking about sending him to mainstream school in the next few months. One of the main issues we have been having is that his behavior at home has become much worse. He's been making threats, hurting the animals, stealing, as well as destroying property. For home services we have WRAP, as well as TBS working with us and him. Both have been saying that he is in need of residential care, but the school is having no part of it. After the last threat he made towards me, I had a sit down with him and explained that this behavior can not continue. We had spoken with the school and that if his home behavior did not improve, he would be going to residential. He then spoke with his school's therapist the next day who now is telling him & us that there is no way he would be going residential because he's doing "so well" in school.
At the moment I'm very frustrated & working on having documents ready for our meeting at the school tomorrow, but really could use some advice, or ideas on how to handle this. One of the things I'm going to bring up is with the threats daily on my life getting ignored by the school, when everyone else takes them serious, including my family whom has very little to do with him these days. That I'm letting my family know if he does end up hurting myself or him mother, that I do consider them dragging their feet makes them responsible.
Any help and advice is most welcome!

Chris Honey
 
T

TeDo

Guest
What do you do when he makes threats? Have you called the police or any other "authority"? I hope you went into the meeting with everything you had. If calling the authorities every time he makes a threat is what is needed to "prove" there are problems, so be it. I guess I also don't understand how a day treatment program dictates where a child lives. Isn't that for the parents and other professionals to decide?

Let us know what happened at the meeting. Sorry I'm so late getting here but I haven't been on for a couple days. Since this involves more than just SpEd, you might want to post on the General Forum. You will get more responses there.
 

Chris Honey

New Member
We've called P.E.R.T. several times when he's made threats, and they have talked to him about the threats. Since he manages to calm down, and didn't try to cause physical harm they do nothing but give hime warnings. The school has had to call them as well in the past, and that time they actually did take him in for a 72 watch. By the time we got to the hospital to drop off clothes he had calmed down and they released him. We're stuck in a situation where we can't send him out for more help due to the contract we signed with the day treatment facility, but they don't want to work on specific behavior issues that are huge red flags for us as well as TBS. I have now started to give him chores for each threat, and had the therapist try to tell me that was wrong. Even though this was advice given to me by our WRAP team. Instead she was telling me I should take away something of his choosing for several days. The bad part was I was just told by his therapist a few weeks prior that taking things away for days doesn't sink in. Very frustrating!
 

seriously

New Member
Do all these resources/programs ever sit down all together at once in the same room at the same time with you and talk about this situation?

If not, THAT is what I would be pushing for I think.

The school needs to hear directly from the professionals working with you in your home. There is no reason that I know of for the school to refuse to work on specific behaviors. They need to be held accountable for that or explain to everyone why they can't/won't do it. Especially if they want to "mainstream" this kid next year - that sounds like it will be a train wreck.

And since when does the school counselor decide that a kid does or doesn't need residential placement?

If you don't already have an educational advocate I think you need to get one.

In case you don't know, the Area Boards are a free service providing advocates to families of children who are or may be eligible for Special Education. If you don't have an advocate already, I would call them first thing tomorrow for an appointment.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Why did you sign a contract with the day treatment school? Your son is entitled to a Free Appropriate Public Education -- you do not have to sign a contract to access that.
 

Chris Honey

New Member
The day treatment program is thru the city's school system, the city is paying for everything. This paticular school has in school therapist that have been addressing the issues keeping him out of mainstream education. They don't wish for difficult child to have multiple therapist working, and not in synk with each other. From our meeting today, he will be out of the day treatment school come august, and the school will decide where to send him then. After pushing back on them today on the home issues not getting addresses, and this treatment not working, they did pull difficult child into the meeting and let him know we have the power to make final call on the decision, and if needed, we could go thru CPS to find placement in a residential setting.

Our goal isn't to get difficult child out of our home & lives, we are working with several groups to get tools and resources in place. We would love to find treatment & probably a new medication balance to bring as much harmony in a home a home can have with a special needs teenager. Unfortunatly it's becoming more & more clear that our home isn't the proper place for difficult child's needs.
 
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