I have been asked to participate in a Survey for parents raising children with RAD. This survey is being done by the Children's Service Society, a division of Children's Hospital. The supervisor for the agency that placed Alyssa is now working there and thought of us when the survey came up.
The goal of this survey, is to find out from parents, what needs to improve! How exciting is that? So I am asking all of you:
What are your biggest problems/concerns/issues, in raising your RAD child?
I will try to incorporate your responses in my survey.
Oh, you guys will love this. Children's Service Society said that they thought they would have a hard time getting people to participate in this survey. Not the case! Of all the people they have approached, no one has declined! I said well duh! If we can help educate people about RAD and maybe get programs in place that will help - why would we turn that down?
I'll keep you all posted as I find out more!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
I need your help!
Posted by Alyssa's Mom at 9:46 AM
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6 comments:
The lack of support for parents who have RAD kids is a big issue for me. When my daughter is raging out, I have no one to call for help who will talk to me right away. Someone may call me back a few days later. Or maybe someone who hasn't dealt with RAD will call me back right away and then tell me they can't help me. There is not an adequate respite system in place for parents. I can choose from a list of foster respite providers in my county, only one of whom knows anything about RAD. And I only know it because I know her. Stuff like that :) I don't know if this is stuff you meant but these are the two things that get me. Adequate mental health services and respite care.
Thanks Torina! This is exactly the kind of things I was asking for!
This survey may expand into a possible training/information requirement for Foster Care! WOO HOO!
I'm not sure it applies, but for my area there is NO ONE to turn to. We have not found a therapist in our entire state who have had success with RAD kids. I even had one who specialized in preschool kids with oppositional behavior who still denied taking my RADish as a patient saying is was out of his scope. It most certainly can be that I just haven't found the right place/therapist, yet, but finding out how, or where to get the information is almost impossible. I feel like surely someone has walked this path before me, and yet there still is not a paved path. I'm just scrambling around trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do to help my little girl.
i'd certainly agree with those. we were fortunate to find a great therapist, but only after i did a year of research and diagnosed my own kids and told csb what they had! and our worker just happened to know of this therapist. there was no respite. mostly, i'd like them to tell people about rad. i know they can't explain it all without years of training! but to say it's this and trust the parents because you won't see it! the DIRECTOR of csb has no clue abour rad and told my therapist she was sure i was lying that she recommended i home school my daughter. all the workers think my kids are doing great cause they're so cute!!! they ought to know better. doesn't always end in rad but EVERY child going through social services has had some kind of trauma, so they need to be better prepared and better prepare parents. we had rad mention in our classes, but i think at least a half day would be better!
I agree with PP's. We have found a great therapist, but he is 45 miles away. As for the adoption workers...they have no clue. In our case they are working to set up visitation with ds and his birthmother as if attachment has nothing to do with anything. Very frustrating. The agency we have gone with seems to be so for the open adoptions with visitations with no regards to what RAD actually is. Everything is about making the birthmother happy and cultural awareness (which is fine in a healthy adoption, maybe but when RAD is in the picture there are attachment issues that need to be dealt with first).
I just feel that the adoption agencies are ignorant of RAD issues. And they certainly don't get trained in these issues appropriately. At least according to our experiences. There was no help offered to us with RAD, we had to go our own way. We went to see Nancy Thomas. We found our therapist. We have educated ourselves and our family. All the agency has done is beg us to be all happy with birthmom.
We knew going in that we'd have attachment issues (my SIL is an adoptee with RAD), but the agency just makes everything sound so wonderful.
They actually made us wave our right to applying for special needs adoption assistance.
Sorry, do ya think I had to vent a bit, lol.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
I meet with the person doing the study/survey this Sunday.
I will definitely update everyone on the outcome.
Gerri
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