So – after that second email letter, and a phone call yesterday, and another phone call today, Tim will finally see a psychiatrist that, amazingly, not only works for the RTC but has her office on the grounds of the RTC Saturday at 1 PM. This doctor will be able to monitor him until they have a new staff pediatric pdoc. This one is not, but since Tim is nearly 18, she has agreed to see him and, more importantly, monitor him and his med regimen.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that, as of now, they do not have visibility into having a spot available for Tim in the 18+ group home. They seemed perplexed as to why we wanted to know now, six months before Tim’s 18th birthday. It takes months of sending his packet to other RTC’s, having them review if Tim is a candidate for their program, us and Tim visiting them to see the program, and them coordinating a move to get it accomplished. I told his current RTC today – it took us five months to get him into ODTC. There was also some semi-snide comment about there not being another RTC in Illinois or Wisconsin, to which I politely replied that there were three 18+ facilities within a 20 minute drive from our home, but thanks for the concern. So, our SASS worker – who is a godsend, by the way – is sending packets out, and we will start the process of finding a new program for Tim come the end of the school year in May.
I’m frustrated and sad by the events of the past week or so with the RTC. We have had much praise for them and their staff over the past two and a half years, save for some earlier caseworkers that were difficult to get a hold of . Tim has made progress there, and it has never been our desire to move him. But I was told before Thanksgiving that they had a new psychiatrist starting in a few weeks – and when that didn’t happen (she didn’t accept the position), I was never informed. Trust me – I would have had him see his old psychiatrist who has a history with him down here over Christmas if I knew that!
What further frustrates me is that the supervisors I talked to today were very terse in informing me of the solution. Not that I am concerned if their feelings were hurt by my directness in asking questions and, when receiving no reply, escalating. I’m not even concerned about the two nasty comments left on my last blog post, interestingly from readers in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Yes, I can tell. Did you forget what I do for a living??
And no, the comments won’t be posted because, as I’ve said before, my blog is not a Democracy, and I don’t post comments that are nothing but nasty to me. If you have an opposing view about my blog, share it in a respectful way if you want to debate. And, if you want to call me to task for escalating the fact that you haven’t had a psychiatrist on staff for five months to The Illinois Collaborative, might I remind you that you should use this as a procedural learning experience. And that if you want me to recommend your facility in the future, you might not want to burn this bridge.