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

Category Archives: residential facility

David and his irrational beliefs

David.

Fixates on things.

So when he asked about discharge from the facility he is in, I explained that before he could be discharged, a facility needed to be identified and either restructured or added on to, in order to house a child with Autism.

Evidently he is under the belief that he is being discharged.   And discharged to a specific place.

Since I listed a number of facilities that could potentially be adapted for the needs of kids with Autism, he decided the one he is going to.

Bubble Murder Pentalogy - Episode 1Hate to burst his bubble, but unless things have drastically changed in the state of North Dakota’s mental health institutions, he isn’t coming home soon.

Much as I want him home, it would likely be a huge step back for him to come straight home from his current facility.  How do I know this?  Simple history.  It has happened before.  He does great for a while, and gradually his behaviors deteriorate.  So there needs to be some type of step-down or transition facility between there and home.  Sadly he won’t be able to see beyond his belief that he is getting discharged.

bingo, we have a winner – update from the hospital

Well yesterday, we took our youngest to the hospital and admitted him to the psych unit.  

Today I got a call from the doctor in the ward.  He asked me why we had not been giving David his medicines.

When I explained that we had been giving them to him four times a day, and watching him take them, the doctor began to see things a little more clearly.  Evidently David has not been swallowing his medicine. The blood work doesn’t show any rittalin or zyprexa in his blood which means he hasn’t swallowed any for at least three days.

So now we are going to get him back on his medicines, and work on getting some compliance issues taken care of that will ensure that he takes his medicine like he is supposed to.

Dimor2mg

Image via Wikipedia ~ Medicine

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Day 9 ~ more fun than you can shake a taco at.

So I had to stop at our high school to sign some papers for one of my kids special education teachers, and the Superintendent happened to hear my voice.

He came out, asked me if I had a few minutes so he could give me the paperwork for home schooling. Now, if you are following my blog, you already know this.. we are in spirited discussions with our district regarding the return of our youngest to public school. He was in a residential behavior modification program for 7 months. And once he completed their program they discharged him. Now the school doesn’t want him back, they want us to bus him 40 miles one way to another day treatment program. They will pay all expenses.

Our argument is that our son deserves a chance to at least try to be successful in the public school setting. Least Restrictive Environment it is called. Well, they aren’t wanting to do that. So my wife and I toured the facility. It is a nice enough facility, and if our son isn’t successful in public school we would put him there, but we don’t want that to be the only option available to him.

At the conclusion of the tour, we met with the administration of the facility, as well as our superintendent, the reps form the local special education district and a secretary. I asked our superintendent, “If our son completes this program successfully, will the district take him back?”

His response was, “I can’t say that we would.”

I have a huge problem with that. Alarms are going off in my head, my wife is steaming mad. So we told them that we weren’t going to put our son there. So until the school comes to an agreement with us about our son’s education we are home schooling him. My wife is a special education teacher in another district and more than qualified to be our supervising teacher.

Today when I was at the high school the superintendent wanted to talk to me about an email my wife had sent to the elementary school principal telling her how unprofessional she was for trying to schedule an IEP meeting without first contacting either parent, our advocate, or the facility that he was discharged from to determine which dates would work.

The prior written notice (pwn) was delivered via fax and email. A day later I received a copy in the mail. It was handwritten, which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but have your ever tried to read a handwritten fax? Next to impossible. Only half of the IEP team was included in the notice. So my wife sent a note talking about professionalism, and how we had other obligations the morning in question and wouldn’t be able to make it.

There are a number of options on the pwn that can be chosen from. The one that we received was marked for “permanent placement in a home school setting.”

The only reason we are home schooling him at all is because the district refuses to educate him.

So we are requesting a facilitated IEP.

I apologise for the length of my post tonight. I am just a little angry. This spirited discussion, this polarised communication between us the district, has been going on for over 3 years. It is beyond time for it to end.

I should post a copy of the email my wife sent. 🙂 it was well written.