Desperate Choices: Giving Up Custody For Care

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Ten years have gone by, but Lisa Vincent and her son, Jose, flash back to their goodbye with fresh anguish and faltering voices.

He is 21 now, but the 11-year-old boy he was back then easily re-surfaces, all anger and confusion.

“I didn’t understand. I was under the assumption I was going back to her,” Jose says. “For a long time, I felt that whole ‘she gave up on me like everyone else did.’ Now, I realize it wasn’t her. It was the system.”

After she turned him over to state custody, Lisa lost track of him until he turned 18 and found her.

“Now, I realize it wasn’t her. It was the system.”

“They tell you, ‘Just sign the piece of paper.’ Like if you sign it, your child will be OK,” says Vincent, who had adopted Jose through the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) when he was 5, and agreed to give up her parental rights after failing to access treatment to stop his violent aggression. “They’re not OK. They’re the furthest thing from OK.”

Vincent, a Torrington lawyer, is among two dozen parents and children’s advocates across the state who have formed a grassroots network that is challenging DCF’s handling of cases involving children with complex trauma-related disorders, many of them adopted. They cite case after case of parents being forced into a situation they call “trading custody for care” – coerced into letting DCF deem their children “uncared for” or neglected and to take over custody, in order to get them into intensive mental health treatment programs.

The parents charge that DCF has left them to manage violent, unstable children on their own, with only limited in-home counseling, and will not provide specialized congregate care or residential treatment. When they cannot access or afford high-level mental health care, or when they refuse to take their children home from hospital emergency rooms because they fear for the safety of their families, they end up in a situation they say is untenable: Relinquishing custody to DCF, which means losing control over treatment decisions and, in some cases, losing track of their children entirely.

Even then, they say, their children often don’t get the help they need; some are simply “re-homed” with other families.

The group, which came together in the past year, is talking to legislators about tightening state rules to eliminate custody relinquishment as an option for accessing intensive mental health services. The group met with DCF officials recently to air their concerns and is considering a class-action lawsuit against the state to contest the practice of using so-called “uncared for” petitions for children with complex behavioral needs who need residential care.

The parents and lawyers allege that financial considerations are prompting the custody-for-care pressure by DCF workers, as the agency reduces funding for children not legally in its care and limits residential placements.

State Child Advocate Sarah Eagan said her office has fielded complaints from families in recent months about DCF employees telling parents of children with highly specialized needs that the only way to access out-of-home treatment is to give up custody. She has spoken to DCF officials about those issues, she said.

DCF officials deny that financial considerations factor into decision-making about custody, and insist that the only instances where “uncared for” petitions would be used to remove children are when the child’s welfare is in jeopardy. The notion that giving up custody is “a requirement or expectation or a norm for accessing congregate care or residential treatment is not in fact” a practice or policy of DCF, said Kristina Stevens, the agency’s administrator for clinical and community consultation and support.

“There may be families who say, ‘I don’t want any of the services being offered.’ (But) our goal is to work with those families.”

“When you’re facing a crisis, it can be very hard to get through what feels like a very daunting system,” Stevens said. “There may be families who say, ‘I don’t want any of the services being offered.’ (But) our goal is to work with those families,” not to remove children.

The custody-for-care issue is not new. In 2003, the investigative arm of Congress issued a report on the practice of parents placing their children in the custody of the child welfare system solely to obtain mental health services. Of the 19 states that responded to queries from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Connecticut reported the second-highest number of such cases — 738, or 20 percent of the total.

Child welfare advocates say the practice subsided in 2004, after former DCF Commissioner Darlene Dunbar directed agency staff not to file “uncared for” petitions or otherwise seek custody of children with mental health problems “for the sole purpose of accessing services for the child.”

But in recent years, as budget cuts and a reorientation by DCF have brought reductions in group and institutional care, advocates say the practice has re-emerged.

“They just do not want to pay for intensive out-of-home treatment,” said Bet Gailor, an attorney with Connecticut Legal Services who is working with the parents’ group. “It’s beyond belief what they are doing to families of kids with severe behavioral needs.”

For Jose, who spent his adolescence in group homes, foster homes and residential treatment programs after he was removed from Vincent’s family, the sense of loss is never far away. One day he was part of a family, with birthday celebrations and sibling squabbles; the next, he wasn’t. Sometimes he blames himself for the episodes of rage and violence that led his mother to turn to DCF for help – which ultimately led her to sign away her parental rights, in hopes he would get higher-level care.

He has been in trouble with the police, but says he is working hard to control his anger and depression.

“If somebody had just helped us when I was little, so I could have stayed with my Mom, things could have been so different,” he said.

“I love that kid,” Lisa Vincent said. “None of it was his fault in the least.”

“I Did Them A Favor”

Like other parents who have adopted troubled children through DCF, Susan Russell assumed the state would assist her in getting her son the help he needed for what she was told was attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The Barkhamsted single mother, who works in the health insurance industry, adopted five-year-old Kevin and his older sister eight years ago, unaware at the time that Kevin had been abused in a former foster family.

As soon as she met the children, she recalled, “I just fell in love with them.”

But as the years went on, her son’s tantrums turned into violent outbursts; he set fires, stole money and destroyed their house. Russell’s legs were covered with bruises from his kicks, each time she tried to hold and comfort him. He was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, a complex psychiatric illness that affects some children who have been neglected, abused or traumatized at an early age.

Russell reached out to DCF for help, through a program known as Voluntary Services, which is intended for children with serious emotional disturbances who are in families not found to be abusive or neglectful. The program rules say DCF “may provide, on a voluntary basis (at the request of the family), casework, community referrals and treatment services for children who are not committed to the Department.” The rules make clear that parents “do not have to relinquish custody or guardianship” under the program.

Russell said Kevin received a number of DCF-sanctioned services, but most were limited in scope and lasted only four to six months. He underwent five rounds of a program dubbed “IICAPS” (Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services), which provides a few hours a week of in-home counseling, she said.

After especially violent episodes, when he landed in hospital ERs, Russell would push for intensive specialized care, armed with recommendations that he receive residential treatment. Instead, he was referred to short-term sub-acute programs or sent home.

His behavior continued to deteriorate.

In April 2015, after Kevin had two violent outbursts and hospitalizations, DCF workers talked to Russell about either taking him home or giving up custody, she said. She rejected both options, concerned about the safety of her two other children – her older daughter and a five-year-old girl she had adopted as a baby.

After Kevin was placed in a short-term treatment program in Hamden, she told him that he couldn’t come home.

“It was the hardest day of my life,” Russell said, tears welling in her eyes. “He just sat there emotionless. I was rubbing his back and asked him for a hug … and he just held onto me for 20 minutes.”

For the next few months, she resisted agreeing to an “uncared for” petition and giving up custody, despite warnings from her lawyer that she could be charged with neglect. She remained hopeful that DCF would help her to access specialized residential treatment.

“When I look into those brown eyes, I can’t walk away,” Russell said in June. “I vowed when I signed my name and made him a full-blown Russell, that I was going to care for him and follow him through this journey.”

On August 24, Russell stood in front of a judge in Torrington, crying as she did the unthinkable:

She gave Kevin back.

“I am his mom. I will always be his mom,” she said. “I have done nothing wrong. I have tried to put this child back together.

“I did them a favor – I took one of their children. And they failed him.”

“A Hobson’s Choice”

State officials do not keep a count of how many parents allow DCF to take custody of their children in an effort to secure mental health care.

Often, parents in Russell’s position are reluctant to speak out because of the “shame and blame” they face from the child welfare system, said Maureen O’Neill-Davis, a Torrington parent advocate who organized the network, which has grown to include families and lawyers from across the state.

Susan Russell on caring for Kevin.

Children in stable adoptive or biological families come to DCF’s attention in a variety of ways. Among the most common: Parents reach out for help from Voluntary Services, often when their insurance does not cover the high costs of residential care; or hospitals summon DCF when a parent does not want to take a child back home.

Although DCF is primarily a child protection agency, in Connecticut, the department also is charged with providing “a comprehensive and integrated” statewide program of services for children and youth with mental illness.

State law makes clear that “commitment to . . . the department shall not be a condition for receipt of services or benefits delivered or funded by the department.”

But in recent years, O’Neill-Davis and others say, as DCF under Commissioner Joette Katz has moved away from residential treatment programs, reports of parents being pressured to give up custody have surfaced, for what the advocates believe are financial and practical reasons.

When states take custody of children, they are able to access federal funds to provide mental health services, the advocates say — and the state no longer has to heed parents’ demands for expensive residential treatment.

Eagan, the child advocate, said DCF policy is “very clear that parents who have children with complex and unmet needs and who meet eligibility for Voluntary Services may receive help to access any public or private community services ‘as needed’ to carry out the case service plan.” She said DCF regulations “contemplate that the child may need out-of-home treatment as part of the service plan.”

Russell, Vincent and other families in O’Neill-Davis’ group describe a patchwork of ER visits, short-term hospitalizations and failed in-home counseling as the mainstays of their children’s mental health care. While they understand DCF’s move away from residential care, they say children with severe trauma-related disorders need specialized settings.

“There is no ‘higher level of care’ in Connecticut, so parents are told to take their children home and are given IICAPS,” a few hours a week of in-home counseling, O’Neill-Davis said.

A June 2016 report from DCF shows 226 children were receiving Voluntary Services, with IICAPS as the most common service. None had primary or secondary diagnoses of reactive attachment disorder.

Stevens said the number of children receiving help through Voluntary Services has declined sharply – down from 992 in July 2004 – largely because of expanded access to community mental health services. She acknowledged that the department’s priority is to “maintain children in their homes and communities,” rather than residential programs, and she recommended that parents who are “struggling at the (social) worker level” to access appropriate treatment bring their concerns to a DCF supervisor or regional administrator.

“Rarely do I hear families say, ‘Give me the high-end institutional setting,’” she said.

Stevens said the department has made strides recently in expanding community treatment options for children with trauma-related disorders.

The parents and lawyers cite a number of cases in which hospitals have called in DCF on allegations of neglect when parents dispute a discharge recommendation and seek residential care. They said DCF or judicial officials present the option of an “uncared for” petition as a way of helping a child access specialized residential treatment.

Some parents have resisted giving up custody. Eileen Bronko of Naugatuck, a former DCF social worker herself, took in her sister’s two young sons seven years ago, after raising her own four children. The younger boy needed intensive behavioral therapy for reactive attachment disorder, she said. Instead, after he received multiple rounds of IICAPS, her request to Voluntary Services for specialized treatment was denied.

After the boy was arrested for assault last winter, Bronko continued to push for intensive treatment. The guardian ad litem assigned to the case told her the way to access residential treatment was to agree to an “uncared for” petition, she said.

She refused.

“We are good parents. We don’t deserve to be treated as anything less than good parents,” she said. “What kind of a world is this where you cannot access intensive therapy without giving up custody of your children?”

“What kind of a world is this where you cannot access intensive therapy without giving up custody of your children?”

Mickey Kramer, the state’s associate child advocate, said some families have resorted to hiring lawyers, calling the governor’s office and applying other pressure to secure residential treatment.

“If we make parents scrounge and beg for highly-skilled services, what does that do to these families?” she asked.

Gailor, the legal services lawyer, said DCF has reduced funding for Voluntary Services and has “badly curtailed its continuum of placements.” She said the dual roles of Connecticut’s DCF — as the state’s child protection agency and its child mental health overseer — are “problematic.” Some families who turn to Voluntary Services become subject to intrusive and unwarranted child-protection oversight, she and O’Neill-Davis said.

Jay Sicklick, deputy director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, said persuading parents to give up custody for care is “a patent violation of the statute that was enacted to prevent this,” referring to the law ensuring that parents can access appropriate services without committing a child to DCF.

Sicklick questioned Katz’ 2014 directive that she must personally approve requests for children to be placed in congregate or residential facilities. DCF has saved millions of dollars in the last five years by reducing congregate-care placements by 66 percent and out-of-state placements by a full 98 percent.

“It’s disconcerting that someone would paint these children’s situations with such a broad brush,” Sicklick said. “It creates a desperate situation for families of kids with the most severe acuity. If you’re told, ‘We won’t approve an acute-level program,’ what do you do? It’s a Hobson’s choice.”

Eileen Bronko talks about her efforts to get care for her son.

Revolving Doors of Foster Care

In early September, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy accompanied Katz at a news conference in Middletown to laud DCF for a record number of “kinship” placements — placing children with either direct relatives or those who have pre-existing relationships with them.

While experts say such placements are preferable to foster homes, they may matter little to children with severe behavioral health problems who need specialized services.

The Bronkos took in their two nephews through a kinship placement. O’Neill-Davis and her husband took in their two nieces, ages 2 and 3, after her husband’s sister was murdered.

Both faced giving up custody in exchange for care, they said.

O’Neill-Davis’ younger daughter, now 12, was diagnosed with attachment disorder at age 3 and increasingly became destructive and violent, she said. O’Neill-Davis said she reached out to DCF’s Voluntary Services program in 2011 in hopes of accessing an inpatient program, but was denied services. In 2012, after a series of incidents including her daughter slapping another student on a school bus, DCF removed the girl from her home through a “neglect” petition, citing parenting flaws. The child was placed in multiple foster homes in the first 90 days, O’Neill-Davis said.

“It was anguishing,” she said. “We were blamed. She got no treatment. She was told we didn’t love her or want her.”

O’Neill-Davis hired a lawyer to get her daughter back – an effort that she said forced her family into bankruptcy. After the girl returned home in 2014, her aggressive behavior continued. In September 2015, after a string of ER visits and brief stays in the Institute of Living, O’Neill-Davis gave up custody to DCF, fearing for her family’s safety and hoping to get her daughter into intensive specialized treatment, she said.

Instead, the girl spent 10 months in a foster home.

“We have her back now, but we still don’t have appropriate treatment,” she said.

She noted that, if her daughter had medical needs, state custody never would have become an issue.

”Can you imagine telling parents of a child with cancer that they have to give up custody so they can get the care they need?” she asked.

Bronko tells a similar story – years of pushing for appropriate care for her nephews, now 15 and 16, that were met with resistance. When she first took in the boys as a “kinship” foster parent, they received counseling through DCF. But it was not tailored to the boys’ trauma-related attachment problems, she said.

“We had every service they offered, and none worked,” she said. “It’s like giving seizure medication to a kid with diabetes.”

“You’re on your own.”

Once she and her husband adopted the boys, “We were dropped. You’re on your own,” she said.

In the last few years, the younger boy threatened one of Bronko’s older children, who was home visiting: “I’m going to slit your throat ear- to-ear while you’re sleeping and watch you bleed to death,” Bronko recounted. Another time, he slammed her husband into a wall.

Bronko, an evaluation coordinator at a regional mental health agency, has scrambled to find therapists and keep both boys at home. She describes her home as an “inpatient jail”; there are cameras and a lock on her bedroom door.

“I do believe children should be at home with their parents,” she said. “But this has consumed my life. It eats you up . . .

“I thought it would be easier for me, because of my background and ability to work with mental health services. It isn’t.”

With DCF laying off workers this year and touting reductions in out-of-state placements – including programs that specialize in reactive attachment disorder – O’Neill-Davis and the other parents are not optimistic that new funding will be coming for higher-level care.

The group is talking to lawmakers about legislation modeled after Illinois’ “custody relinquishment prevention act, ” which requires state agencies to “intercept” a child at risk of custody transfer and provide the family with appropriate services to stabilize the child’s mental illness. The group also wants the state to pursue new funding mechanisms for specialized trauma treatment.

Maureen O’Neill-Davis on the difficulty in getting proper treatment for her daughter.

O’Neill-Davis and others also are lobbying for passage of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act, which would allow states to use federal foster-care dollars to pay for mental health services for adopted and biological children.

Advocates say the custody-for-care issue has rarely come before lawmakers, in part because many parents are afraid to speak out. But at a July 2015 hearing convened by the Children’s Behavioral Health Advisory Committee, Katz spoke about services available to parents who voluntary seek mental health care through DCF. She expressed concerns that too many of the parents accessing Voluntary Services were white and too few were African American, and she acknowledged that fear of losing custody could be a factor in some parents staying away.

“I said this at another meeting and am not ashamed to say it here: Frankly, when I was raising my children and I thought I needed DCF’s help, I wasn’t worried that DCF was going to take them away from me,” she said. “And I recognize that that is still a real fear and concern for families in the communities… and we need to do better about that.”

To see the WTNH News8 report on this story go here.

33 thoughts on “Desperate Choices: Giving Up Custody For Care

  1. It is a human rights violation, a threat to the integrity of the family. Care should follow children rgardless of parental status. These disorders should be regarded as neurobiological disorders. They may represent fetal alcohol, drug addiction by biological mothers, vaccine injury, Tourette’s, autism etc

  2. I was also “forced” to agree in court to an “uncared for” petition so that my adopted daughter could receive the services she required. I had agreed to take her home if DCF would provide the services we needed. DCF refused. She has multiple psychiatric diagnoses including Reactive Attachment Disorder. She has assaulted me numerous times as well as other people. She currently has charges pending. I cried in court when I gave DCF custody. They placed her in foster care and she was sexually assaulted. She was placed in a level 2 group home and is currently AWOL. No one knows where she is. She had been communicating on line on dating sites. My fear is that she is being held hostage by a sexual predator or that she is dead.

    I do not want my last name published because I fear for my daughter’s safety.
    Feel free to contact me at any time.

  3. This article describes my life right now. How can I get in contact with this grassroots organization?

  4. My family was destroyed by this process. While mental health is the underlying issue it was DCF that failed our adopted son and our family. Thank you for this story, because until reading this we thought we had failed and were the only ones to have this experience. I wish I could contact this group.

  5. I read this article and cried that I’m not the only one that this is happening to right now. Please how can I get in touch with any of these parents and try to make a difference. I have a very important story to tell that would add to this perfectly and show that DCF does bully parents good parents to give up care when all you want is to see your child get the help they need and strive as best they can with the limits they have mentally.

  6. I just read your comment about what is going on in your family and I feel your pain. Prayers go out to you and your family DCF should be held responsible for not helping you to keep your daughter safe. Just know people are out here that want to help change these laws lets stand together maybe we can make a change we have to these are our kids

  7. I have been practicing in the Juvenile Court for 40 years and as such I have dealt with DCF through every commissioner, the Federal Consent decree, and many disasters. The agency is dysfunctional. Some times an “Uncared for” petition can help get services, but all too often first the Department files flat out neglect petitions and after a time “agrees” to an “Uncared for” petition–the original intent was to provide a “no fault” ground to commit a child. There has to be a better way. I am concerned with the emphasis on relative placements that in the not too distant future because there are so few mental health services in the community to deal with tough kids that we will be seeing more of these cases. The solution–get more people elected to the legislature who will pick up this issue and tackle it.

  8. In New Jersey, we have Dept. of Child Protection and Permancy (your DCF) as well as Children’s System of Care which is the state’s child behavioral health care. Parents do not have to relinquish custody of their children in order to access mental health services. It is still a major problem however, that our state does not connect the dots for children in foster care and their trauma/ mental health needs. I have met with many youth in the foster care system who have never had therapy! And our mental health providers need to be providing the specific therapies for attachment and trauma. All to often I see cognitive behavioral therapy being used on attachment and that is not effective- not until a healthy attachment can be formed. I wish you all the best and please never stop demanding for the right kind of care for your children!

  9. We put out nearly $100,000 to send our child to an in intensive outdoor treatment facility. We are in debt. I cannot retire. She still has issues , but is better. We cannot do this again. What will happen to her? Crying…

  10. As the Director of Communications at the Institute for Attachment and Child Development, we talk to desperate foster and adoptive parents everyday facing these same issues. They are relieved to finally find us but cannot afford our program. We are a small nonprofit and wish we could help them all but we do have expenses of our own to be able to operate. Unfortunately, their insurance typically won’t cover our unique program and they get minimal to no financial assistance from DHS. It’s heartbreaking for us as well as for them. We need a huge paradigm-shift in our society in this regard.

  11. Thank god for the courage and commitment of these families, finally (!) calling out DCF, their mis-named “Voluntary Services,” and the complete lack of access in CT to appropriate treatment for these suffering children and their families. I became familiar with so-called Voluntary Services 20 years ago in my fight to get desperately-needed residential treatment for my son (after 7 years in-and-out of hospital psych wards, blessings to DMHAS, a very different agency, though now sorely, profoundly, dangerously underfunded). Thank you to Lisa Chedekel for this piece, and a humble bow to these brave families, warriors all. Shame on us.

  12. Illinois does not have a good model. We have several adopted that are diagnosed with RAD,Bipolar, OCD, ODD,PTSD etc.. We paid out of pocket for a program for them. No one has helped. We have called all over looking for help. Several in Illinois have had to give their kids up to get them in residential treatment. We have suffered for over 10 years with our children abusing us.

  13. It is the most wonderful thing to find out that you’re not alone in this struggle to love and care for our children. In the past thirteen years, I have learned so much about the trauma that can be inflicted on our youth. Things I never knew possible, despite having been raised by two orphaned parents, with issues. I joined ATTACh, attended two of their annual conferences, have participated in weekly therapy for up to three hours a session , traveled to specialists in other states, have attended numerous local conferences and seminars, served as a Board Member with CAFAP, attended myriad support groups, sought council, hired counsel, spoke before CT Legislature [including Commissioner Katz], worked with DCF, fought with DCF, and operated a parent support group out of my home for Children & Parents dealing with early developmental trauma.

    The experience, education and contacts I have, along with the unshakable love I have for each of my children, is purposeful. I am searching for the purpose, and believe God has a solid plan and purpose to use me. I am very interested in helping this cause. Heck, my three beautiful CT siblings and I are the cause! DCF needs deep systemic change, as do the organizations who cow-tow to them! I don’t want their job(s), any more than I wish to run for POTUS’ office, but they do need our help and understanding, in much the same way we desperately need theirs. We can be enemies, or we can work together. If a Class Action Suit is necessary, then count me in. If committee work is needed, count me in. If you need support in continuing this great grassroots organization, just let me know when, where & how, and I will do my very best to be there. And my best is pretty darn good.

    Be well!

    The “wrongs” done to my children and our little family are ridiculously numerous and undeniably harmful. DCF will be nowhere around in the years to come, when the full force and effect of their harmful ways continues to be realized. I am uncomfortable sharing details about any of them in this forum.

    If, as parents, you are looking for validation and support, please contact UConn Adoption Assistance Program. They are a great group of folks there to help you and your children. Their website has several Parent Support Groups to choose from, and participating in those are well worth the time and effort.

  14. How does CPS classify these kids ? RAD or do they blame the adoptive families and the lies/ symptoms from these kids?

  15. Same for me too! I want to join over here in the states………a world wide movement! This is not isolated to one country.

  16. Mental health should be valued equally as physical health.
    We have two adopted children ( adopted at birth) and they both have RAD. One is in a high end relationship/ family based treatment center. I have the younger child in an intensive treatment at home . All of this is out of pocket. I also wish I had been made aware of this possibility before the adoption, as we would have parented to this need. “Normal ” parenting doesn’t work. I am angry that my children have been robbed of s childhood.
    When I get though this, I want to do as much as I can to advocate for change.
    It is heartbreaking that families suffer.

  17. I also have an 11 y great nephew. Has been with me since 3 y. He has RAD,ODD,ADD, to name a few. I would be interested in some kind of group for us parents. Does anybody know of any ? I live in the Manchester area

  18. Hi Benita
    Did you receive any helpful responses to your post request? I can assist you. Please confirm you are still seeking a group of parents that understand early developmental trauma.
    Be well, stay regulated, and talk soon,
    Cheri

  19. Dear Benita;

    Thank you for reaching out. Please contact Cheri or I directly. We can both put you in touch with support, either in your area or we can come to you. Please contact us at FamilyForwardACT@gmail.com.

    Maureen

  20. You are an amazing parent to be doing all you are doing to help your kids. If adoption “professionals” told unsuspecting parents about the trauma conditions so many of us see, many would not adopt. At least that is the fear. My son, whom we adopted at birth through a private placement, is well attached and typical in many aspects. Our nieces, whom we adopted in the aftermath of domestic violence tragedy, are another story. Our oldest is much better off than our youngest, who was 13 mo old when she watched her mother die. Most in the therapeutic community here on CT are clueless about how to help. They say do this and do that, but only one modality so far has provided any improvement at all. The Attachment Institute of New England’s model and method of delivery provided benefit. We try to follow that model’s principles as much as possible, but each year we still have a cycle period that can go very badly. So, I understand your situation. If I can be of any support to you when you are ready to advocate for change, just reach out. Our Family Forward Foundation and Family Forward Project will be in full swing by then. Find us on FB @FamilyForwardProject

    Take care,
    Maureen

  21. MD mom: CT blames the adoptive family and the kid’s lies 100%. The trauma symptoms seem to elude them completely when it comes to parents directed to CPS for help. Here in CT, our DCF is the children’s behavioral health system leader. All families that come to the department’s attention are viewed through the CPS lens. If the child is inpatient and does not present with trauma/attachment disruption symptoms while there (which many don’t) and the parent state’s that bringing the child home at discharge is not safe for them and other family members, the parents are processed for abandonment. This despite long histories of inpatient, ER and therapeutic interventions. There is no legally recognized defense for parents either. We are working to change these issues in CT now. To learn ore about our efforts, to provide info on what MD is doing that might be better or to make direct contact, please find us on FB @FamilyForwardProject, or email us in CT at FamilyForwardACT@gmail.com.

    Maureen

  22. Linda;

    If I haven’t connected with you yet, I apologize. I’d like to connect as soon as possible. We are working on legislation here in CT right now. Your experience and ability to articulate could really be an asset to our efforts. Please contact us at FamilyForwardACT@gmail.com or email me directly.

    I am so sorry you have faced what so many of us involved in this effort have faced. Until you’ve walked in the shoes of a warrior, one has no idea the struggle and courage it takes.

    Take care,
    Maureen

  23. Wow, I needed to read this. It is terrible but I’m glad to see I’m not completely alone in the journey through hell.
    It’s so ridiculous to see the services needed and not be able to access them without putting the rest of my family at risk.
    I’ve been told in Florida they don’t just charge you-they arrest you. And as a single mom with no family here-that means ALL my kids will go into the system not just the one in need of services.

  24. Jean;

    Thank you for providing comment. Family Forward Advocacy CT is working with families all across the state to bring the collective voice of parents to the forefront. We are participating in panel discussions, giving interviews, informing legislation and participating as a parent/community member voice on committees, councils and coalitions. If you would like to become part of this effort in any way that you feel comfortable, please contact me directly. I can be reached at FamilyForwardACT@gmail.com. Parents should never have to forfeit their impaired child to the state to access any type of care. Giving up on family integrity, and decision-making authority simply because the child is too unstable, too unsafe to be maintained in their family setting, is wrong.

    I hope to hear from you soon and bring you up to speed on our efforts.

    Maureen O’Neill – Davis

  25. Maybe it would be helpful to have reliable information prior to adopting children. It is interesting no one mentions what part the children have in their own recovery. Destructive teens effect the outcome of children in the household. I give these parents a lot of credit for doing the best they can and wish them the best. Sometimes adolescent facilities should be used with people trained to deal with severe cases involving behavioral issues. Where can children get the best results for the funds available?

  26. Marion;

    Thank you for your comment. The parents profiled in the article all began seeing unstable, unsafe, unmanageable behaviors emerge in their child around the age of 7. It is at that point that early, specialized treatment should be accessible. It is not accessible in CT due to the structure of the behavioral health child serving systems’ structures and the funding models CT utilizes. Engaging in intensive trauma and attachment disruption condition treatment past the age of puperty is often less effective as the child refuses to engage, no longer seeks parent praise and is more adversely influenced by social media &peers. It is early , direct access to provider recommended models, regardless of where those models may exist, that must be made available. Doing so will save systems resources across the lifespan of the child and preserve family integrity and healing connectivity.

    All of the parents profiled are advocating for systems change to achieve optimal benefit for our own troubled kids, others gping through it now as well as those who have yet to experience this journey. Adoptive parents become far more educated about our children’s conditions and needs than the provider many of us are directed to to access care. Adoption services, public and private, do not want to better inform or prepare parents about the impact of early childhoid trauma and attachment disruption conditions as it will scare too many away from adopting. The whole idea of complex & developmental trauma as brain disorder conditions viewed as autism was 20-years ago. At that time it was thought that autism is durivef from questionable parenting pratices. So to is complex trauma in the 21st Century. That must change in order to move systems towards respectful, responsive and responsible treatment early, when it can do the most good.

    Take care,
    Maureen O’Neill-Davis

  27. How about DCF having all the rights and monies and a team to decide things? How about how both parents get charged with neglect..Why am I facing charges too? I’m neglectful because I have mental health issues? I am in therapy. Unchecked power. I don’t want my name used.

  28. Has anyone found a therapist in Connecticut who works with RAD children? Attachment Disorder and RAD is so hard to treat and all the therapists are at their wits ends. This type of treatment takes a very skilled person. Has anyone used a trained therapist in RAD? I would love to know

  29. Dear Maureen,
    I came across this website and posts only a few days ago. I was amazed that there are quite a few parents in Connecticut struggling with RAD. I too am struggling, my husband, and son. My daughters RAD is so out of control and getting “help” seems to be so difficult here in Connecticut. As well as other states too, I will add. We moved to CT almost 5 years ago hoping that The Yale New Haven Child Study Center would be an answer. It was not. We have gone from Yale, to private therapist, to family therapist, to Joshua Center for IOP/PHP, to The Center for Discovery in New Haven 6 months all day program, to 3 more therapists after that. I know that my child needs day to day 24/7 therapy in order for her to get better and there are no places in CT for her to go. I am shocked that CT doesn’t have some kind of a private/state boarding school for RAD children. Please let me know if you have found any centers that are great, any boarding schools that are great, or specifically therapists. We live on the Shoreline.

  30. In the end it’s the same. We have no choice. As a single pareant I counldnt take care of my physically and intellctually disability son. With a little help each day I could have keep him home. But I had know money and he was a full time job. I had no choice but to let the state take him. 20 years later after living in a decent home he was moved to different home where he will most likely die from a tumor in his abdomen. I was never told of his condition by anyone. I found out when it was mentioned in conversation 7 months after it was discovered. I’ve been denied access to his medical and have been treated horribly by county and state workers who are never available . Eight months ago I received a call from a care provider at his home. She told me his wheelchair had become unsafe to use. I spent everything I had to buy him a wheelchair and bed mattress because insurance would take too long. Since then insurance has paid them.
    Time is running out and it feels like I’m running with a net around me.