A MadMother In Pro Per

"pro per" adj. short for "propria persona," which is Latin for "for oneself," usually applied to a person who represents himself/herself in a lawsuit rather than have an attorney.

This is the report I wrote and served upon The State of Washington in Dependency Court in Yakima County Superior Court.  I was pleading for my son's release from Child Study and Treatment Center; a place I had been misinformed was a hospital; it is in fact a research facility. CSTC staff had documented that my son Isaac no longer needed to be at CSTC; but there had been no effort to move him.  I also served the state with a copy of the Home Care Plan I had developed based on what hospital staff recommended; even though I did not agree with the recommendations.  For one thing, staff insisted that 24 hour awake supervision was necessary; my first thought was, "how in the hell would I be able to sleep?  What the heck would a paid staff person do while everyone was sleeping?!" For this, and many other reasons, I believed the CSTC staff's recommendations were unrealistic, ill-informed, and cost prohibitive. I later discovered none of these professionals had ever sent a child disabled by iatrogenic injuries; i.e. physician caused drug-induced neurological and cognitive impairments.Prior to my son being released from CSTC to come home as the State's permanency plan always stated, CSTC had not ever discharged a seriously cognitively impaired kid home to live with their family. Why CSTC staff pretended to know how to do ssoemthing they had never done, remains a mystery.

CSTC's staff claimed that the recommendations were based upon their professional experience. The only thing staff knew to do, is the only thing staff had done in the past; that is, discharge patients to a residential care facility. In the little over a year between my having the below petition served on the state, on my own attorney, the GAL, and the court, and Isaac finally returning home, I found he Washington State Legislature had commissioned a literature review study to determine what setting and services were in the best interest of children and adolescents with serious behavioral difficulties like my son Isaac experienced. Specifically the study was to determine what kind of treatment services gave children, youth and their families the necessary support to succeed. The conclusion was children and youth were best served by assisting their families to take care of them in their family home since it is cost effective, i.e. less expensive, kids and families have better outcomes. Incredibly, the study concluded, the kids had fewer relapses and required fewer inpatient hospitalizations.  The study was done at the request of Washington State Legislature and cost $50,000.  The work itself was conducted on the same campus where  CSTC is located in Lakewood, Washington.  The study was staff claimed, unknown to them entirely; and never used by the professionals who insisted institutional, residential care was required for Isaac's care upon release from the state's pediatric psychiatric research facility.

When I asked why the research relevant to the discussion was not used, I learned CSTC staff were unaware of the study.  I then asked what studies, or standards the recommendation was based on? The answer: none. Not one staff member could provide any supporting evidence for it's professional recommendation for Isaac's post-discharge care. Adding insult to injury, CSTC staff claimed staff member's professional opinions had no bearing or any potential to influence the state's decision on placement of my son as a state ward. Truthfully, it was CSTC staff who first questioned the permanency plan that had been on every single Court Order from the time Washington State wrested custody away from me falsely claiming placing Isaac in  state custody was required for Medicaid to continue to pay for his medical care...I found out years later this claim was not true, the only benefit of making my son a state ward was that once he was a state ward, the State was able to defraud federal child welfare and Medicaid programs by claiming he had no family. It is against Federal Law to make a child a state ward to compel federal programs to reimburse states for a larger percentage of a child's medical care, residential care costs, it is fraud. CSTC staff were insistent that their recommendation of discharging my son to a Residential Care facility was the only option. Not once in the four plus years Isaac's was at CSTC had the staff tried to alter the state's permanency plan. It was only when I personally forced CSTC into putting in writing my son no longer needed to be at CSTC that staff members attempted to offer it's "professional opinion" on Isaac's custody. The fact is, CSTC staff had been aware throughout Isaac's incarceration at CSTC, the permanent plan on every single dependency Court Order was for Isaac to return home. This permanency plan was only disputed because CSTC staff balked at the idea of Isaac returning home to live. CSTC staff insisted that discharge to a residential care facility was the only viable option---I discovered staff recommended Residential Care since discharging brain damaged kids to such facilities was the only thing CSTC staff had experience doing in real world practice; not because staff had thoroughly investigated what may best serve Isaac's needs, nor did staff include either Isaac or myself in developing their professional recommendation for meeting Isaac's ongoing care requirements.

I wrote the report below and shad it served upon the State in February of 2004. Everyone, including my court-appointed attorney were served by a Process Server.  I was later told, "they never saw you coming."  My son finally came home on January 5, 2005.  At 660.90 a day, the year and a half my son was incarcerated at CSTC when he no longer needed to be, cost the taxpayers $361,842. There were kids waiting to be admitted the entire time; there always is.  Kids waiting to be admitted, just like my son waited---for over a year---from the time his psychiatrist informed Yakima County's children's resource manger Isaac needed long-term psychiatric inpatient treatment. The children's resource manager did nothing to facilitate my son's admission to CSTC for six months.

Isaac was admitted to CSTC when he was twelve and a half year old boy...

I brought him home a couple months before he turned seventeen.

When my son returned home in January 2005, the in-home services were provided by Catholic Community Services out of Pierce County which is across the State; the local mental health clinic CWCMH, refused to provide the services.  The services were much appreciated and were provided by wonderful people.  They were more than what was needed; as I had predicted.  We used the in-home care services for six months---before we determined that tolerating inappropriate, unnecessary services in order to have needed respite available, was too stressful.  The fact is, as I had maintained all along: respite care and appropriate therapeutic rehabilitation services are all we needed; these are still what we need.

The director of Yakima County Human Services, Steve Hill, and the DSHS Region II Children's Administrator, Ken Nichols, failed to do their jobs in an ethical manner. These two public servants failed to perform their ethical duties as public servants; their failure cost the people of the State of Washington over $300,000.; and unnecessarily deprived my son of his liberty for nearly two additional years.  A civil penalty of $1,000. a day is attached to such egregious deprivations of an individual's liberty. The penalty upon the individual, regardless of employment status, including publicly funded work for a government entity; it is a civil penalty that applies to every individual whose actions and/or whose failures to act cause a person to be deprived of their liberty in any locked facility. for those who are incarcerated, individuals are deprived of liberty if they remain incarcerated after serving their sentence. In the case of a people in locked psychiatric facilities, once staff have determined the person no longer requires treatment only available at a psychiatric inpatient hospital or in the case of Child Study and Treatment Center, a psychiatric research facility.  

CSTC had unethically obtained a Court Order in Pierce County Superior Court to Involuntarily Commit my son while simultaneously issuing bi-monthly progress reports to the Yakima County Children's Administration, Yakima County Human Services, GCBH RSN, and Yakima County Superior Court at dependency review hearings that Isaac would be better served in the community, i.e. he no longer needed to be hospitalized. I believe the court order for Involuntary Commitment was sought in Pierce County to prevent me following through with my statement that I could take him home since he was a voluntary patient. This appeared to be perceived as a threat by CSTC staff, particularly by Leah Landis, the psychologist for the unit Isaac was on. The woman actually referred to the kids as "our children" as if the kids belonged to CSTC, in her attempts to persuade me to not actively advocate for my son's release, asking that I at least wait until  "the studies" were completed.  When I asked for clarification, i.e.what studies Ms. Landis was referring to, I was told that because Isaac was a ward of the state, I didn't have the right to know what studies he was enrolled in, my consent, informed or otherwise was not asked for or needed I was repeatedly told by the Medical Director, Jon McClellan.

The fact of the matter is, until Pierce County Superior Court granted the Court Order which allowed CSTC to involuntarily treat my son, I was the only person besides Isaac, who had any legal authority to provide Informed Consent for his treatment at CSTC according to Washington State Law and federal Medicaid guidelines and protection for Human subjects research. In spite of this, the medical director of CSTC, Jon McClellan, a psychiatrist and federally funded psychiatric researcher, repeatedly told me I had no say in treatment decisions. In fact, Jon McClellan maintained he did not need my consent for my son's psychiatric treatment the entire time my son was an inpatient at CSTC; the research facility I had been led to believe was a hospital...

Conflicting claims about Isaac's need for inpatient treatment were maintained for months by CSTC staff in Washington State Superior Courts in two counties. Yakima County was informed that Isaac as ready to be discharged, while Pierce County granted a Court Order for extended involuntary treatment. Obviously, it's not possible he met the legal requirement for a involuntary inpatient treatment and that he was also  ready for discharge from inpatient treatment...The Pierce County Court Order in effect, "legally" deprived me of my parental rights to make decisions about his treatment, although I had effectively been deprived from the beginning of Isaac's stay at CSTC by Jon McClellan. I believe the Court Order was sought to prevent me from following through on my stated intention, take my son home. The court order made taking him home a felony crime. The court order was illegal---evidence of the order's illegality is contained in the written reports that CSTC staff issued every two months stating Isaac no longer needed inpatient psychiatric care, the entire time the court order was in effect...

9-15-2013

Post script: The report I submitted to the court in 2004 states that Isaac got the "recommended treatment;" more accurately, he was hospitalized, as his psychiatrist recommended. The years between Isaac aging out of the ATTACH day treatment program at age six in 1994, and going to CSTC in 2000, he went without day treatment and intensive in home services which were consistently the recommended treatment, but the method of treatment was never actually prioritized; or even available. Day treatment is a priority according to RCW 71.24.035 section 5b; it is a "priority" that is required to participate in the Federal Medicaid program. The mental health services required by the Early Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment for a child's emotional and behavioral difficulties are clearly prioritized within the Revised Code of Washington and Washington State's Administrative Code; and required by numerous contracts between the Federal Medicaid program, the State Medicaid program, the Greater Columbia Behavioral Health Regional Support Network; Yakima County Department of Human Services, and the community mental health service providers, but never available for children and youth. Day treatment, and other EPSDT services for children are still unavailable to this day...  

I first posted my report on December 29, 2010

judge graphic credit Legal Juice