looking for a therapeutic school for 14 year old

[MrsD]

Hi.  This is my first post.  I am the mom of a 14 year old who is non binary: we raised a girl and at age 13 she told us she was a boy.  We dove into the transgender world and were 100% supportive (thinking we had finally figured out why our child was so unhappy and difficult).  That was last year.  Now our child is non binary.  We use he/him pronouns but he dresses feminine.  Anyhow, turns out gender identity was not the solution to our problem.  He has continued to be unhappy and put us through the ringer.  He steals, lies, often gets violent, manipulates, etc.  He has been in treatment since age 5 (a difficult child, for sure) but the last year we have tried everything to keep him home (he got kicked out of a very expensive 30 day residential program in Malibu, and then got kicked out of IOP).  We are now looking for a therapeutic boarding school/facility, one that hopefully takes insurance and does not cause any further damage.  It is heart breaking to think that a 14 year old has a bleak future, but we are rapidly losing hope.  We are in California.  Any recommendations will help.  Thank you!

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Bright Day Mom]

I want to welcome you to the BPD fam  and am so sorry for what brings you here.  Sounds like you have been on quite the roller coaster ride.

Are you aware of educational law?   Each child is to be provided a  "free and appropriate education" in the US.  I would recommend contacting the school district for which you live and speak with the special services department.  Does your child have an IEP, Individual Educational Plan?  If not, there is a process to get one in place. Request a meeting in writing.  The district will arrange for different meetings/interviews to collect necessary data and then meet collectively with you and your representatives to determine best placement for the situation.

Our family needed to hire an educational atty. as my district was dragging their feet and were not cooperating with me, MOM, as they should have.  It all comes down to $$ and my DD17's school costs our district over $50k/yr.  She is placed in an out of district private therapeutic high school that specializes with kids like ours.  They offer small class sizes, social work, psychiatrists for med monitoring and most importantly understanding loving staff. 

Your child is still young and can improve, it does take time, patience and lots of empathy.

Good luck and keep posting. 

[MrsD]

My s14 has an IEP.  I am a teacher, so thankfully, I have been able to navigate the district policies pretty well.  Right now, the school pays for a non-public school about ten miles from home and they cover the transportation, too.
I feel awful saying this, but we need to send him away to a residential school.  His behavior is becoming more violent and manipulative and it is hell to live with him.  I have tried psychologists, psychiatrists, acupuncture, energy healing, hypnosis, breathing classes, TMS, you name it, I have explored it.  He got kicked out of a 30 day residential after 4 days, and later got kicked out of IOP.  Both times for attacking the counselor. 
The district has suggested it may pay for a place in Chicago called the Orthogenic School, or a place in Colorado.   But I have no idea how to choose a place.  All the reviews of everywhere are terrible!

[Bright Day Mom]

You are fortunate to have a teaching background and were able to atleast work that realm fairly well. 

I have not gone the boarding school route, but enroll my D in a residential program last year, which took 8 months to complete.  The process was similar to taking college tours.  Each program/location had different offerings and some were better than others.  Do you have a CMO (care manager)? We had one thru the county we live and she spearheaded the search and helped us thru discharge and beyond

Choosing a facility is a difficult choice, I think the hardest part was coming to terms with the fact that our family was at this point. NAMI may be able to assist you or at least point you in the right direction in terms of options. 

Your son is lucky to have you!

[MovingtoSupport]

We sent our daughter to a therapeutic boarding school and I'm convinced it saved her life (and our sanity). This was 10 years ago. There are some excellent schools and some terrible ones. There is a national accreditation agency (can't remember it's name) that set high standards for these places. We needed to use an educational consultant and wilderness experience to get daughter accepted into the school of our choice. I only joined this Forum yesterday and am unclear on how much I can say in public about the specific placements. Our daughter was in an Az school for 2 and 1/2 years (almost set a school record for time) and was able to stay safe, sober, and finish high school. She received excellent therapy. Unfortunately, she relapsed badly about a month after finishing that program. She has serious mental illness and addiction recovery challenges... .but, she is doing much better 10 years later. I have no regrets about sending her to this school even though it was very expensive (with a psychiatrist saying this treatment was needed before going there, we were able to use this as a deductible medical expense and paid almost no taxes for 3 years).