Parent/Caregiver-Initiated Treatment for Minors Symposium

WADADS put on a Symposium today that was discussing the deficiencies in the Parent/Caregiver-Initiated Treatment for Minors Symposium.

My presence at the Symposium was as a survivor sharing parts of my story covering pieces of my experiences at Red Cliff Ascent and Mount Bachelor Academy in 1995. A wide variety of other perspectives and experiences were also shared including a mother and daughter who experienced positive things out of their experience which in ways was similar to mine except for my running away from the school and the parent involvement/family counseling afterward which they had and I did not. There were young women speaking about their inpatient experiences as well as parents who have or are dealing with struggles in getting the help they need for their children.

There was a lot of talk about the WRAPAROUND process, a kind of intervention model for helping to develop an individualized care plan and development of a child and family team for families that need help with their adolescents. Experts talked about the research leading to these evidence-based programs and so forth as well.

From what I understand this sounds like a huge improvement in that it gives more personalized case by case support that is taking the whole family into account. Often times I hear about situations where the child seems to be the scape goat for acting in response to the family distress and trouble they are all a part of creating.

I was very pleased when I learned that it was not black and white, the parents present acknowledged the importance of children to be able to seek treatment without their parents consent. Personally I believe the the most important thing is that the whole family is involved and evaluated and that any sort of treatment facility that is overseeing treatment is held to strict standards rather than seducing the families with their cult like tactics and abusing the children.

I’ve been away from the girls all day and am going to go spend some time with them…I’ll log back on and update this later if I’m able to get them to sleep early enough!