Sunday, February 27, 2011

Being A Good Influence

Sometimes the different agencies that work with my daughters and myself amuse me. As I might have mentioned before the oldest daughter gets services through my state's Home and Community Based Waiver. The younger daughter does not qualify.

It has been more of a challenge to find services for her, particularly at 17 years and now as an adult. Fortunately some of the qualities of Aspergers has been helpful in getting what in our state is called Mental Health Rehabilitation Services or MHRS.

The amusing part has been a series of questions I have gotten from the case worker and the therapist. We get both with MHRS in our state. It seemed they were trying to decide if I was a good influence or not. At one point I told a fairly new therapist to call the case worker and ask her.

I believe from the therapist questions my daughter must have been telling him how mean I was. It took serveral conversations to get him to understand that she believes I am mean because I expect my youngest daughter to do what she is supposed to do.

I had to explain she took off for Michigan. She called me cold and crying. She took the money I sent her and went to Arizona. While on the way to Arizona they hit a snow storm and she was afraid she was going to freeze to death in the back of a moving van.

When I called her one day I figured out they were panhandling. I sent her money to bring her, the boyfriend, and the boyfriend's family back here. I told him about her dropping out. I also mentioned how with her we set up adult GED classes. She went twice. The lady even offered to work with her one on one and she wouldn't.

I supposed the therapist finally called the case worker too. We are all on the same page again. I suppose part of the problem is that in roughly 8 months we have had a multitude of case workers and therapists. I have to do this with each one.

Maybe they could read the file though, ya think?

2 comments:

  1. Goodness, woman!! You have a lot going on with your daughters. I think a lot of it does have to do with the age of the girls. Moms and daughters just don't get on that well when the daughters are around that age. Add autism in the mix and you have quite a lot going on. I don't know how you sort the autism from the teen/young adult stuff...

    It's a different kind of worry when they are this age. You sound so confident in how you are handling all of this. I hope they see their mom has their best interests at heart. And I hope you are getting the support you need! Very interesting posts. I'll be back.

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  2. Thank you for dropping by and the kind words. I also believe that the people working with my daughters have the right mind set and heart. It's just everyonce in a while I'm surprised and amused when one of the providers is trying to decide if I AM the problem. lol

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