The answer should be yes. Not "how can I get my loved one help?"

Monthly Archives: November 2011

>Thanksgiving Holiday

>I give thanks.

My family was together for the holiday.  Our youngest came home from the residential facility for the weekend.  He was home from Wednesday to Sunday, and I am very proud to say that no major issues occurred.  It was a great weekend.  There were a few times when he wanted something his way, and we were able to handle it without a meltdown.  I think the only “major” issue was when he was caught playing with a screwdriver around an outlet.  He has been known to strip all of the outlet covers from a room.

There was a brief moment where he was sneaking around, but I think that was a test of his boundaries.  All in all it was a good weekend.

On a side note, my health has been kind of strange.  I lost my appetite last Wednesday and it just never really recovered.  It has been declining for a couple of weeks. I eat because I don’t want to worry my family.  So tomorrow will put in a call to my doctor and see what she thinks.  But since I am scheduled to see her in two weeks, she may want to run labs now and then wait.

That is all for now faithful readers.  Hope you all had a great weekend.

>IEP Meeting

>Had an IEP meeting for our son.  Why do we continue to struggle with the school district?  This time, we brought the superintendents name into it.  I had talked to him late last week about the hesitation that we felt from the principal at the elementary school in accepting our son into the school, as well as including staff in meetings about our son.

It just seems crazy to me that what should be common sense when working with a child, they seem to lack.  If a child is in a residential facility for kids with special mental health needs, and the staff there has experience with that child, wouldn’t it be beneficial to hear how those people work with the child to ensure that the child is as successful as he can be?  It would seem obvious to me.

So now, we are having a staffing in two weeks for our son, a staffing is a meeting of all of the people who participate in his care, and the school has been invited to participate in that meeting so that they can hear positive things about our son.  Even the staff at the residential facility thinks that would be a good idea.  We will see if they do actually participate.

I find myself excited at the possibilities for our son if his teacher is the person who participated in the meeting today.  She worked with two of our kids previously, and was very good in working with their strengths and weaknesses.

On another note, the plan is to bring our son into a public school in the city for an hour a day to see how he does in that setting.  If he is successful, the time will gradually increase. This will be communicated to his parents and the school district so that they can see how he is fairing.  A staff member from the residential facility will be touring the school that our son will go to after discharge, this will enable the staff to make recommendations about how they should do things when our son comes back.

Still not happy with the school district, seems to be unnecessary posturing on their part, but time will tell.

>Appeal results

>We received notice of our appeal determination today.  Evidently the only people who can appeal the decision is the person found to have committed the abuse or neglect.  Our appeal was denied because we weren’t the ones who had been accused of the abuse of neglect.  

So evidently, in the state of North Dakota, it is acceptable practice to lock a child with special needs in a room all by himself as a means of restraint or control.  
For some reason, I have a huge problem with that.
1.  the room was on the second floor, and by the school’s own admission, our son was banging on the windows with a chair.  what would have happened if the window had broke out, and he had gone through the window?
2.  in the room there was a desk, in that desk our son found two pairs of scissors, and by the school’s own admission, he threatened to use them. Granted the principal later qualified her statement and said that our son just wanted to cut some paper. But still, he had access to what could have been a dangerous weapon.  
3.  If our son had developed a medical emergency of some kind while locked in that room, would they have been able to get the room unlocked fast enough to save him?