I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (29 page)

“Actually, I can’t say that she is. In fact, she’s a destructive influence and we don’t want her infecting others who have more potential to be helped.”

“Where will she go next?”

“Don’t know. She’s burned almost every bridge.”

“So has Rich.” I thought rapidly. “Is she dangerous to herself or others?”

“At times, yes. That’s why she was in the suicide unit.”

“How can we permit two unstable kids to go off together with no money, no support, no therapy? Both have violent tendencies. One’s smart, one’s without empathy. It could be Bonnie and Clyde all over again.”

“Might I suggest you request an HRS staff consultation to consider those issues?” the doctor offered. “It’s your only chance.”

Lillian helped me organize everyone involved in Rich’s case for a summit meeting. Present were Mitzi Keller, Rich’s caseworker; Garth Clay from Horizons Unlimited; the directors of the regional children’s and psychiatric programs; two mental health workers; the case manager for the special assessment team; as well as a few others, whom I never identified.

We met in the oak-paneled boardroom of the university hospital. The first discussion revolved around whether Horizons Unlimited could be an appropriate placement for Rich. Garth said that they would accept Rich if he would agree to sever his relationship with Janet, for only then will he be able to commit to treatment. The case manager from the special assessment team suggested that Rich required a more secure setting than Horizons Unlimited could provide.

“Is Rich a candidate for evaluation in a locked facility under the terms of the Baker Act?” I asked. The Baker Act is a 1970 Florida ruling that may be used to involuntarily place someone in a locked facility for psychiatric evaluation. In order to qualify, there must be reason to believe a person is mentally ill, and because of this he has refused voluntary examination and is unable to determine whether an examination is necessary. Also the person must show that without immediate care he poses a real and present threat of substantial harm to his well-being, or that he will cause serious bodily harm to himself or others in the near future as evidenced by recent behavior.

Mitzi spoke up. “I’ve already been told Rich does not meet the Baker Act’s legal stipulations.”

I read from a recent psychological report stating that Rich was at risk for aggressive behavior, and told about his rage and vandalism at Garrison House, but nobody seemed especially concerned.

One of the mental health specialists listed the costs for various beds from $55 a day for Garrison House, $120 a day at Horizons Unlimited, to psychiatric beds that ranged from $195 to $350 a day, and up. She felt a community-based program was more in the range of HRS resources.

After mentioning the programs that—depending on your point of view—either Rich had failed or had failed Rich, I argued for intensive therapy to give him one last chance.

The director of psychiatric services said, “Mrs. Courier, while I respect your advocacy for this child, the state has spent a great deal on Rich Stevenson to no avail. A cost-benefit analysis dictates that my limited budget must be spent on the youngest and sickest children in the system.”

Finally everyone was asked to summarize his or her position. Mitzi wanted to allow Rich and Janet a chance to get married, which would free up two places in the system. Horizons Unlimited was pressured by several of the specialists to try to work with Rich a little longer, since he had been relatively compliant there and had formed a tentative bond with Garth.

I stated that Rich needed to be in a locked facility with intensive treatment. “To allow him to be released with Janet without any money, housing, or support, seems like a prescription for them to commit a crime.”

The director removed his glasses and gave me a benevolent smile. “Mrs. Courter, wandering around the streets of this city today we have two hundred dysfunctional people exactly like Rich and Janet.”

“Are they all potentially violent?” I asked challengingly. “Are they all a danger to themselves and the community?”

The director half closed his heavy-lidded eyes. “Unfortunately we have neither the funds nor the legal right to hold any of them.”

Two hundred Richs! Myopia had allowed me to focus on my guardian child alone. Until that moment I had fought for him vigorously, but now I felt deflated. If they would allow hundreds of demented people loose, I had no hope of winning any services for Rich.

The meeting adjourned with the decision not to spend any more of the state’s funds on Rich.

From the earliest months of his life Rich had suffered a classic syndrome that led from the deprivation of security in infancy to a low self-esteem and seriously diminished sense of himself as a person by the time he started school. His educational failures resulted in further feelings of worthlessness, and soon he was unable to make realistic judgments or good choices. The more he flopped in program after program, the more he turned inward and reproached himself for being unable to function normally, and this brought him into an early onset of depressions. Over and over he was rejected. His father did not want him, nor did most of the mothers who moved swiftly through his life. Overwhelmed by feelings of grief and loneliness, his unresolved anger seethed beneath the surface. Hence his self-destructive and suicidal tendencies. Studies on these syndromes were made part of ongoing guardian training courses. I turned to a chart titled Results of Failure to Mourn Successfully Following Separation and ticked off every stage as one Rich had suffered through. While the recipe to create an antisocial person capable of psychopathic behaviors was well known, the remedy was more elusive.

A few days later I sat on the screen porch of Horizons Unlimited with this product of an unattached childhood, this rejected, dejected person with sapphire eyes and a crooked grin trying to figure out what might happen next.

Rich couldn’t remain still. He tapped his foot on the floor while patting his knee with his hand. His head jerked as he spoke and every noise sent him spinning around. “The way they want Janet and me to get together could be a trick. They say I can walk away from here and get on a bus, but I’ve been around long enough to know that puts me on runaway status, and the police can pick me up.”

“How will you get a bus ticket?”

“Janet’s Mom is sending me one, then once Janet gets out of the hospital, she’ll take us to get married.” He had the permission from his father, or so he claimed. “This is my one chance to get me a family.”

“You mean have your own baby?”

“No, to have a mother again. You know, Janet’s mother will be mine too. She told me to call her ‘mom’ and I will.”

“You know you also have a real mother.”

Rich ignored this. “They’re jacking me around,” he said in an angry tone.

“Who is?”

“Mitzi and Clay and everyone.” Rich crossed his arms and sulked. “If they don’t let me get on that bus, I’m not going to be around this time next week.”

“Where would you go?”

“If they screw me about this, I’ll put an end to my life, and anyone in my way is going where I’m going—even if it is straight to hell.”

There it was! Rich had made a direct threat to kill himself and harm others. I had enough to Baker Act him on those words alone.

I went to Garth Clay’s office to see if Red Stevenson had actually sent a form saying Rich could marry. The file was shown to me and the paperwork was there. With Rich lingering in the doorway, Garth confirmed that he had spoken to Janet’s mother, who had stated that she was sending a bus ticket and would take the children to be married. I told Garth I would call him later about something important, then left and phoned Lillian.

I repeated Rich’s threats. “May I break confidentiality on what Rich said to me?” I asked.

“You are required to report it.”

“Whom shall I call?”

“You’ve spoken about it to me and you should call Mr. Clay.”

“Gay, you know Rich runs off at the mouth all the time,” Garth said when I told him.

I repeated Rich’s exact words. Garth exhaled loudly and said he would observe Rich more carefully.

“Rich thinks that if he leaves, you’ll call the cops.”

“We’re merely giving him this chance to do what he claims he wants to do.”

“What about the Baker Act?”

“I don’t think he’s going to hurt himself or anyone else, so that isn’t the answer.”

“He’d get a new psychiatric evaluation and that might qualify him for some help.”

As a last ditch effort I managed to get Janet’s mother on the phone that night. When I questioned the wisdom of assisting in this scheme, she said, “Janet has always done whatever she wants anyway.”

Monday I called Mr. Clay. He was out, but his assistant, Kurt, told me that Rich had left on Friday morning, and they had not heard from him since. I tried Janet’s mother. The phone was answered by a male voice, who said he was a friend of the family. I explained who I was. “I suppose Janet married Rich this weekend,” I said.

“Actually, it didn’t work out. When they went to the courthouse, the clerk said Rich’s form from his father was invalid.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re in a foster home.”

“Together?”

“Yes, but it is temporary. Janet lived there before entering Garrison House, and they agreed to take her back until the paperwork could be straightened out.”

Cheered by this stroke of luck, I called Lillian. The next day there was a prescheduled six-month judicial review of both Rich’s and Alicia’s foster care status. We discussed strategies for getting Rich more help. Lillian was going to speak to Kit Thorndike, the Guardian ad Litem staff attorney, about sending me the Baker Act forms, which as a party with an interest in the case, I could submit. She also told me to give Rich’s current address to the clerk of the courts because if Rich had not married, he was technically a runaway.

In preparation for the court appearance, I had written two separate reports for the judge on each of the children because their needs were so different. In Alicia’s report, I explained the reappearance of the children’s mother and recommended a home study and a trial visit to Spokane before Florida severed responsibility.

The next day, in the corridor of the courthouse, Mitzi Keller showed me a pickup order for Rich.

“Mitzi, this is precisely what Rich was afraid of. You set him up to be a runaway, and now he might make good on his threats.”

“I’ve been hearing that crap from the kid for years. He’s been in the system so long he knows how to push everybody’s buttons, especially yours. Anyway, I spoke to Rich about fifteen minutes ago.” She smiled smugly. “Here’s the deal. Rich already has spoken to his father about the new form and supposedly Red sent it to him.”

“So they’re going to try to get married again?”

“That’s plan A, but he also questioned me about Tammy and asked for her phone number.”

“Do you realize what this means?” I said excitedly. “Until now Rich hasn’t even acknowledged that Tammy exists. Maybe he’s thinking that he doesn’t have to rush to get married to find what he’s looking for.”

Mitzi tossed her curls and gave me one of her skeptical smiles. “Yeah, well, I am not going to lose my job over that little jerk, so I have the pickup order for the judge to sign to cover my rear.”

After we were called into Judge Donovan’s chambers, Mitzi quickly explained that Alicia was in a stable foster home and doing well. Then she brought the judge up-to-date on Rich’s situation.

“Where will you put him when you find him?” the judge asked the caseworker.

“In a foster home,” Mitzi replied.

“What would prevent him from running away the next day?”

When Mitzi didn’t have a response to the judge’s question, I made my plea for a locked facility. I mentioned the phone call to his mother, suggesting that this was a window of opportunity.

The judge asked what I knew about Tammy. I filled him in on her present circumstances. “In any case it will take several months to arrange a reunion and right now I have a duty to inform the court that Rich told me that ‘If they screw me about this, I’ll put an end to my life, and anyone in my way is going where I’m going—even if it is straight to hell.’ “

“Are you willing to Baker Act him?” Judge Donovan asked me.

“Yes, Your Honor. I have the paperwork here.”

“We need three signatures. Will you sign, Ms. Keller?” To my surprise Mitzi nodded. “Who else can you get?”

“I think his counselor at Horizons Unlimited would agree,” I said.

“Okay, pick him up, then Baker Act him. I don’t want to look like a fool if he does make good on those threats.”

When I arrived at my office, there was a message from Tammy in Washington.

“Rich called me!” she said, elated. “I can’t believe I actually talked to my boy. His voice sounds like a man’s. And do you know what he asked me? He said, ‘Mom, if I don’t get married would you want me?’ What was I going to say? I had to say yes to my son.”

Tammy’s voice choked up, then she continued. “He said he had an old birthday card I had sent him and he had hidden so his father wouldn’t throw it out, which made me cry. Then he told me about how his father had beaten him since he was young and he finally couldn’t take it anymore.”

I reached Mitzi to say that Tammy might be more inclined to help out with Rich.

She groaned. “That won’t do anything for his immediate situation.”

“What about the Baker Act?”

“You know the Baker Act will only lock him up for twenty-four hours? Then what?”

I pulled out a copy of the relevant statutes and read from section 394.463. “Actually they have forty-eight hours to examine him to see if he meets the criteria for involuntary examination and then they have seventy-two hours from when the patient arrives at the hospital to when the physician documents that the person has an emergency condition. After that, there is an additional twelve hours when he either must be released or transferred for outpatient treatment or be talked into giving voluntary consent for inpatient care, or the administrator can petition for involuntary placement in the least restrictive treatment facility consistent with the optimum improvement of the patient’s condition.”