(Dore Frances has been assisting parents in finding residential and wilderness placements for their
struggling and troubled adolescents, teens and young adults for almost seventeen years. She is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) and Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA).
Be careful when doing this on your own
With the sour economy has come a class of ambitious do-it-yourselfers tackling solutions and support for their at-risk teen or young adult that before the days of rampant penny-pinching might have been left to experienced paid professionals.
An unlucky few have learned that being thrifty sometimes comes at a high price.
For some, saving money never cost quite so much
When Megan refused to attend counseling sessions any longer with her adopted parents, her parents went on the Internet searching for an intervention. Megan had begun skipping classes at school and her grades were rapidly dropping to the point she may not graduate middle school. Her parents lived in Alaska and there was a program in Colorado that they found that was advertised in a major magazine. Initially things looked good, but after 2 weeks and $10,000 their daughter refused to participate. The program asked her to leave.
From there the parents enrolled their daughter in a ranch style program in Utah that stated on their website that they “treated teens with Reactive Attachment Disorders”.
Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is described in clinical literature as a severe and relatively uncommon attachment disorder that can affect children.
RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts. Children with RAD are presumed to have grossly disturbed internal working models of relationships which may lead to interpersonal and behavioral difficulties in later life. There is as yet no universally accepted diagnostic protocol for reactive attachment disorder.
Often a range of measures is used in research and diagnosis.
However, this information was not shared with the parents.
At the tuition rate of nearly $6,000 per month the parents were assured that they had a therapist that specialized in this area. After a 2 month stay the parents begun to see no progress and were having difficulty getting the credentials of the therapist regarding their specialized training with RAD.
Also, their daughter was just now getting enrolled in the school classes. She had been on Level 0 because of “bad behavior” and was not allowed to attend school until she settled down.
The parents again went to the Internet and found a school in Arizona.
“It just kept getting worse”, her father said.
Just one week before they moved her there they found Horizon Family Solutions. Their daughter attended an outdoor program to allow her to benefit from some breathing room and then attended a program that truly is set up and run by clinical therapists who have training in RAD and have other children such as Megan who can relate to this difficult situation. This young lady is now graduating high school this year, at home, and will be going to college next year.
While there is no national database that tracks parents who do not use a therapeutic consultant and instead become do-it-yourselfers, experts in this industry do say there does seem to be an increase in this kind of emotionally and financially costly situation in recessions. Experts say these kinds of situations where parents have had to move their child from one program to another, oftentimes at great expense financially, let alone the emotional turmoil this causes for everyone, does seem to be increasing. When this happens there is a loss of connection between the child and their parents, they are gone from home longer, and oftentimes the outcome is not beneficial or long lasting.
Horizon Family Solutions has seen an increase in multiple placements by families before they come to us.
In general, parents feel it will be less expensive to make this life changing decision on their own. On the average parents have spent $20,000 in failed placements by the time they come to us for assistance with their child. There is a lot that goes into choosing a placement for a child other than what a parent reads on the Internet website. Parents are not accustomed to asking the kids of questions needed when they are emotionally attached to the situation. Failed placements happen all the time when parents get to emotional in their decision making process.
Many parents then have “buyer’s remorse”, because they hoped to save on the services of an ethical professional.
Parents are not accustomed to making these kinds of decisions.
Hoping to save on services of a professional can cost not only money, but on the average their child ends up spending anywhere from 8 to 14 months more away from home.
Bill and Jane from Delaware were raising their grandchild Chris.
Hoping to save on the expense of a therapeutic consultant and avoid any additional costs, they spent three months searching the Internet before placing their grandson into a program in Utah.
They accepted what was written on the website and what was sent in the brochure as factual, including the pictures. Their grandson was there two weeks when they felt the need to go see him and drop by the program. Because the program had suggested he be transported rather than them bringing, they had not see the program.
They even sent their own staff out to pick him up and charge the family only $700 plus airfare. Much less expensive than hiring a professional teen transport company that is bonded and trained in this type of situation. Being trusting people, they jumped at the chance to save some money. They traveled out to the program and four hours later had their grandson with them in their car returning home.
“It was completely horrible,” said Jane. “It was not like the website at all. It was dirty and the beds only had sheets and no blankets, and it was winter.”
The grandparents were mortified at what they saw.
They honestly felt they had taken every precautionary measure possible.
Their grandson also had to be taken to the doctor for lice.
They had paid four months tuition at $5400 per month plus a $1200 admission fee.
It took them two months to get even a partial amount of that money back. Fortunately they were referred to me by a former client and we had their grandson in a new program within the month, which they took him to, and he graduated a year later.
However, he ran twice while he was there in the very beginning. He was so scared.
Gerry from San Francisco is among those who decided to skip using the services of a therapeutic educational consultant. For six months his son Joe bounced in and out of three programs.
It cost him more than $26,000.
It seemed like a good decision at the time, as he is a manager at a large well known company where he makes financial decisions for others all the time. Often though, the wounds that are happening in the family are not recognized when making these emotional decisions.
Alice and Richard of Texas, who are legal professionals working in a non-profit organization, thought they were saving money on their son’s residential placement after he was arrested for selling marijuana at school.
Their son was ion placement for almost a year before they were allowed to visit him, although they had weekly phone calls. He had to earn the privilege. When they went to visit their son they cringed at the site of the buildings on the grounds. They were in horrible condition.
Both parents asked their son why he had never mentioned anything, and he said he was told this is what they wanted for him because of the bad choices he had made the bad behavior he had displayed.
The kitchen was a mess and there were dogs running all around the food that was being served to the kids.
Their son also had has his head shaved.
No one mentioned that either.
Both parents kept telling him how sorry they were, and yet knew they had to make another attempt to help their son, as their family was even more fractured now than before. Their son also went to an outdoor adventure program where he could regain his self-esteem and know he was not being punished.
He then went onto a residential step-down program and graduated high school just before returning home.
He starts college in the fall. The cost to this family was $50,000.
There are other parents, and some I cannot even write what their reactions were to the situation they encountered. It is heartbreaking when this happens.
“Oh God, what do we do know?” is what I often hear.
“You so not need to be alone anymore,” is what I say.
About Dore Frances, M.A., Educational Consultant
For the first half hour of the meeting with the parents, it was hardly surprising to see Dad fiddling with his iPhone. At an hour, it seemed a bit much. After an hour and a half, his wife wondered what he could possibly be doing with his phone for so long when we were sitting there discussing addiction treatment and intervention for their 16 year old daughter. The wife peeked over his shoulder.
