Help keeping child safe..

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We have had a hard time finding help and keeping my 7 year old safe. She is Autistic, OCD, and psychotic. Due to therapy not helping, her psychologist placed her in residential treatment August 1st. She did well for a while, but in October she started really acting out. She was telling me they were restraining her, but they denied it. Then they started telling me they were having to restrain her. I ended up taking her out AMA on October 18th. I took her straight to the hospital were they documented 27 bruises and fingernail marks. There is no other residential programs that she qualifies for.

We have been working with her therapist to try to keep her stable, and she is going to be going into a short term program to get her off her meds and get evaluated when they get a spot. Here is the problem, she is in regular schooling. The district does not have programs available to her. For the past few weeks she has been coming home saying that everyone is mean to her. She has been trying to run away from school and is hiding. Last week she came home and said her teacher swatted her butt. I spoke with her therapist in the school, and he said he was going to deal with it. Yesterday, she came home and said her teacher spanked her again. I called them again, and her dad went up there. Today, she came home and said the teacher was calling her a cry baby in front on the class. I work full time to provide for our family, and just can't take off any time to spend at school with her. I have talked to them several times.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for cheap concealed cameras or anything that might help in this situation. I wish it was as easy and just quitting everything to take care of her, but I can't. I already had to take off so much work to deal with the previous experience. I had to buy her all new clothes and everything because they kept everything. We are bad struggling. I haven't thought about it being the holidays. The school is not going to do anything. DHS is already working on the case with the previous facility. I know her teacher is getting really aggravated with her behavior, but if she can't handle it, then there should be another option. This has consumed our lives. I am hoping that there are other parents that have been through something similar that can guide me... please!

I am sorry you and your daughter are having such a hard time. I am afraid I can't give you much advice, but I saw a story a few months ago about a father who suspected his autistic son was being mistreated at school and sent him to school with wire, through which he recorded the teachers verbally abusing his son.
Here is a link to the article: http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/stuart-chaifetz-secretly-tapes-autistic-son-school-discovers-220500111.html

Document everything. Take photos. Write about her behavior changes. Since she is autistic and presumably has a hard time communicating, her behavior is one way she communicates most clearly.

Restraint is not illegal, but abusive treatment is, and not telling you what's going on with your own daughter is.

She says her teacher spanked her and that she was called a crybaby. How well can she communicate in general? Does she have to be asked direct questions, or can she volunteer information? How good is she at figuring out if someone's behavior is hurting her?

She's leaving school and she's hiding. Those are both evidence that she feels uncomfortable there. Sometimes autistic people leave the situation they are in because they are uncomfortable for sensory reasons, but they may also leave because they are being mistreated, and they feel unsafe. I think your daughter is being amazingly strong and mature. I couldn't have done that at her age. I wouldn't have known to report that kind of behavior to my parents. It says a lot that she trusts you enough to tell you about these things.

I think you need to take her out of this school somehow, no matter what you do in legal terms. She's not being treated well. Spanking may be non-abusive in some contexts, but in this particular situation it's being done to a possibly hypersensitive autistic child and without the parents' permission. This is unacceptable. Your first priority would be to find a way to get her out of that school. Proving that she's being mistreated wouldn't help because this problem seems systemic--it's not just one bad-apple teacher. The school seems to be protecting the teacher rather than supporting your daughter.

Since she's in a residential program, presumably she needs supervision round the clock. Can she get that at home? Can you hire an aide to care for her at night, so that you can sleep and she can go to a day school instead?

I'm always hoping that the amount of abuse schools inflict upon their students will be reduced sooner or later.

When I was in elementary school, we had a trip to the park one time for the entire class (that is, everyone in my grade). I was about 10 or 11 at the time.

One of the events of the trip was that the principal put me and another student in boxing gloves and had us fight each other in the park in front of all the other students in an effort to humiliate me.

None of us had any idea what the principal was up to until we got there. He obviously had to have planned it ahead of time because he had the boxing gloves with him.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback. It seems so sad to me that people are so abrasive towards an illness they don't understand. I got a call first thing this morning that they were thinking about putting her in a resource class, and they were going to have a meeting on it. Then later today, I got a call from the diagnostic clinic saying that they now have a spot for her. She will be gone until February, but it is fully parental involved. I can even stay the night! It is so hard to let her go.. especially during Christmas. She really has no emotion about it. They said Santa will see her there, so the rest of the being away part didn't matter. She is suppose to leave with a full plan of what steps that everyone needs to take in her life(including education). She leaves Monday. .. trying to think positively!!

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Parents' Discussion]

I'm deleting my original response because I've realized the situation is more complicated than I have any knowledge of.

I'll just say this: when your daughter is getting the right treatment, your instincts should know it, and she should know it. Keep fighting until you find the right answer, and don't be afraid to put your daughter above everything else. Don't cling to your worries about your job so hard that you fail to see or respond to what your daughter needs from you. I know it is a tall order, but it is important. All my parenting regrets come from the moments I let the momentum of adult life and worries keep me from seeing things with my kids clearly and taking the risks required to do right by them.

your daughter has to qualify for a one on one aide if she is diagnosed and has so much difficulty. it is up to you to fight for it, threaten legal action. that may light the fire under their butts. i had issues like this with my son. what a pain. we should not have to fight tooth and nail to get the things our kids need in place, but unfortunately that is how it works. you need to contact the autism society. they will help educate the school. there is funding available for kids that need it, the school will denie it. they are either misinformed or too lazy to do the paper work. they tried to force my son into mainstream classes as well because the claimed they didn't have any of the services he needed available. of course they didn't because they weren't necessary until then...... but they can be put in place. i stopped sending my son to school until they were able to make suitable arrangements and i also went with him until i got to know his ea and trust that she understood him. school boards will always denie us services if we let them. don't take no for an answer. if she must be in this awful teachers class is it your job to protect her. my son was also restrained but i had given them permission to do so until his meds were figured out to protect his class mates and the permission only extended to one adult, the principle who was my teacher in highschool and has several kids of his own and was trained to do it in a way that would not harm my son. i am glad she got a space somewhere hopefully safer. does she have an IEP? she should. you can specify in there who and how things will be handled. there should be someone available to take her for a walk or to blow off steam away from the teacher so the teacher can gather herself back together when she is frustrated rather than escalating the situation. the teacher clearly needs to be replaced or trained properly. are there any other schools that you could send her to? i would probably not send my son back to a place where he was treated like that period. the residual feeling of what has happened there in the past is going to stay with her and cause stress every single time she goes into that classroom.

I hope you find a way to help your child in the short term - in the longer term, I'd suggest finding an advocate to come with you to the next meeting at the school. Google your local Department of Human Services or Department of Health and ask if they offer free advocates for parents of disabled children. If they don't, try Goodwill or your local Autism society.

If you are in the US and your place of business qualifies for it, you can invoke FMLA to be at the school for meetings to advocate for your child. http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/

Meet with your advocate, explain your concerns, call a meeting with the school and make sure the advocate comes with you.

Actually, I might call the Attorney General for your State. In my state, some families were concerned that staff in a nursing home was abusing their loved one and the AG somehow got cameras into the facility. The abuse was documented and people got hauled out in handcuffs. If they'll do it for the elderly, why wouldn't they do it for a kid?

Just a thought. Different states have different laws about hidden cameras, but if you get the involvement of the AG, I doubt that would matter.

Stuff like this infuriates me. If I ever when the lottery, the first thing I am going to do is set up a not-for-profit, staff it with lawyers, and bring these kind of people to their legal knees. This kind of stuff seems way more likely to happen to kids who come from families who do not have the means to hire a lawyer. I'd give them one for free.

Getting off my ranting soap box now. I am really sorry this is happening to your daughter.

It's unusual for such young children to have psychosis. If she has not already, she should have a full medical work up to rule out medical conditions which can cause psychosis.

Also, some of those medications they use in children with "problems" can actually cause behavior to worsen.

She should be in cognitive behavioral therapy for the OCD. And perhaps you can take measures to make her home life more tolerable for her. This includes daily itineraries that you brief her on so there are no suprises for her. Having a schedule will also help you anticipate and form a way to deal with any potential problems that might arise.

Hypersensitivity in children with AS has been known to onset or peak around the age of 6 or 7 and this can be very stressful to them.

A'jalyn has been in the hospital two weeks now. It is a 28 day program. They are in the process of taking her off all her medicine, so they can do a full work up on her. She has been put in seclusion twice for hitting and kicking staff, but overall she is doing better than thought. I have even had the chance to stay the night with her! She is suppose to leave with a plan, and in the weeks after we are suppose to get a full write up of their findings and how to help her. I can't stand entrusting her to others, but I know at this point it is our best option. DHS founded the abuse at the mental facility. No action has been taken at this point that we are aware of. We have hired an atty! I am going to work on her schooling over the next few weeks. I appreciate all the comments. It is a very frustrated feeling when you don't have any answers as to what is going on with your child and you cannot help her.

A'jalyn started with a diagnosis of ODD. Then they diagnosed her with ASD. (at 5) AT the age of 6 she was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. Her diagnosis currently(age 7) is PDD, OCD, and psychotic disorder. The PDD comes from her developmental delay, The OCD comes from her repetitive action and thoughts also she hoards and picks herself.. the psychotic disorder comes from her hallucinations and fits of rage.

This my be me having some nicotine deprivation delusion here, but are you asking the following question? Your daughter was put in residential treatment because of autism, ocd and psychosis, you signed her out AMA and bammo, got her into a regular school and now you want to know what stealth cameras to use to document the fact that her teachers might spank her?

That whole paragraph has bigger issues than what little spy camera you might need to buy.

I'm not falling for this. I got too many real life trolls to feed under real life bridges to jump on that one.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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