Therapy and Evaluations

One of the most significant pieces used in the matching process between match and placement is the Psch Eval. Families are given this document to help them decide whether or not they would like to adopt a child. Now, there are many birth kids out there who are diagnosable, but parents often do not take them to a psychologist. They learn their kids from birth, manage their behaviors, and everything is kept within a reasonable space so that they have no need for intervention.

However, children in foster care have to have psych evals. Their diagnoses qualify them for services, get them moved up a level as far as difficulty of care so that their foster parents can be paid more, or get them into a residential setting. Even if a child is doing well later, their prior diagnoses are listed per history.

Psych evaluations (we just had them done for Tony and Dominyk a couple weeks ago and got Tony's results last week and will get Dominyk's today) are based on history provided by care givers and a series of tests. These tests take a couple hours to give. Most pscyh evaluations are done within 30 minutes to 3 hours. In fact, John met with an D.O. once about six years ago. He met with John for 20 minutes and me for 15. He diagnosed him with nothing but attachment issues and stated that he lived in a home with two many children. Interestingly this was the opinion of the workers in our county who had filed a CHIPS because we wouldn't pick him up after he ran away multiple times saying he needed intensive help. ANyway, I digress...

My point is this. The opinion of one person, backed up by the opinions of professionals with an agenda and caregivers with an agenda, that takes 30-120 minuets to spend with a child, shouldn't be the basis for saying no to a child. Add to that the cooperation or lack there of of the child, and the results can be less than accurate. I have placed many children who were diagnosed bi-polar in another state. In MN it is not good practice to diagnose anyone under 18 with Bi-polar. WIthin months these kids have been taken off bipolar meds and function better without them. In fact John, who was on similar medications, has functioned much better since he turned 18 and refused to take anything.

So this morning we are going to head to the psychologist to hear what they have to say about Domniyk. Tony's evaluation was interesting -- most of it I had guessed ahead of time, but he had not taken things seriously and thus some for the tests lacked validity. I can pretty much guess what Dominyk's is going to say as well. But we wanted ot have them done in case we have to seek further services for them -- then we will have documentation.

Feel free to comment if you have had experiences with a child who doesn't look anything like what their psych eval said once they were placed in your home. I'm interested to hear if anyone has similar experiences...