Saturday, October 15, 2011

More About the Potential Placement

In response to Sharon's comment, I'll share more about Daughter's potential placement. This company runs several homes in our area and offers different levels of care. If Daughter does well, eventually she could move to an apartment that would offer more freedom. It took me about 15 minutes to get there from the church, and it was interstate most of the way.
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She won't be able to continue in her current program long-term, but after the way she acted out during her period of rapid cycling, that might be good. My hope is that we can ease her out of the current program, maybe having her attend several days a week as she transitions into a new program.
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There is still much I have to learn about the way this program works. The building backs up to the interstate, and is at the end of a dead end road that has a number of higher end apartment complexes. There are lots of trees around it. Next door is an identical residential facility for men owned by the same company. There is visiting between the homes, but no overnights. The residents go to a variety of programs during the day.
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There is a nurse, nutritionist, and case manager assigned to the home, and they will work with us to set up a program for Daughter. Currently, the kitchen isn't locked, but we hope that there will be enough staff supervision to prevent problems. Daughter's case manager was going to change anyway, because her current one is going to a different job. The new case manager is described to me as less nurturing and more abrupt. That could be good, as it will be harder for Daughter to manipulate her.
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We still have to figure out a timeline and plan for the transition-- but first we need to make sure that the placement will go through. I understand there are several case managers who would like to place people there, but the residential manager referred us there before the possibility of an opening was announced, so I'm pretty confident we'll get the placement. I will share more as I know more.

2 comments:

maeve said...

This sounds as close to perfect as there is anywhere. We can only hope that she thinks so as well, but her behavior is telling you that she's ready to go. Recently someone told me that "neurotypical" kids have their most difficult times with their parents just before they go off to college because anger is easier to deal with than sadness at leaving. Ours are far from neurotypical but I think the same behavior happens.

Maybe I'll fantasize that Miss K has gone to a "placement". Come to think of it, I guess she has.

Reverend Mom said...

I think viewing Miss K's new home as a placement is a good way to cope. It will be interesting to see what she learns in this placement....