trying to get psychological treatment for children in foster care

I fully believed at one time my son had RAD and only RAD. Part of the problem is the mental health system is also not so much about helping people but in many ways about making money. He has been diagnosed everything from ADHD, Mentally Retarded, OCD, Autistic, Bipolar, Learning Disabled, Slow Learner, Dissociative Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, RAD, PTSD, and Depression. He has real licensed psychologist say he does not have each of those as well.

My son was placed with me for straight adoption in Aug 2001.  He was almost 9 years old.  He had lived with his birth mom until a month after his 7th birthday where he and his biolgical sister were removed because a man was having sex with them in the living room of the apartment they were living in while the mom had people over for Thanksgiving.  The people called police.  Social services had been out to their birth mom's home 40 some times during the 7 year my son had lived with her.  He has and older biological sister who was removed as an infant.  (that is another odd aside, when I fostered all of the children placed in my home were brought in by police, nary a 1 did social services think was in bad enough of a situtation to be removed.)

My son is not Mentally retarded.  when in good settings he functions well.  He can read, write, do some math.  He knows how to play people.  His IQ has tested 87, his non-verbal 98. 

The mental health treatment he has been given has consisted of drugs and many saying he is too dumb to participate in therapy.  I was required at placement to take him to thereapy until the adoption was final.  He asked to play with a school bus or used the restroom the entire time therapy sessions went on.  This therapist also dx him RAD and I was told I had to get RAD therapy before community services board or social services would help more.  This my fall into the RAD cult.

My girls in stark contrast have faired much better yet had just as dismal predictions.  I was their one and only foster parent.  They were not in therapy long, just enough to get clear statments made to be used in court about the sexual abuse they went through.  I was not really made to be in therapy with them (well we did have to go again for 3 months to get letter for court saying adoption was appropriate for the then 6 and 3 year old children.)  They do well in school for the most part.  No mental health dx. 

My son was either placed in classes at school where he was the only potty trained talking student; or dumped where he was bullied to the point of trying to kill himself.  He was treated like dog shit by the one agency, public schools, which is given most of the federal money to help children like him. 

My son was in RTC for 5 months last year due to him being arrested for being in a neighbors home 1:00 am in the morning....  a long story.  the RTC sucked...  the drug they had him on was damaging his liver... he walked around nasty dirty... (if he walked around like that in my community, with his disability, especially when he was younger, you know what they would do?  call social services on me; but the same system pays a high profit RTC $18,000 per month to house him, drug him, and neglect him)

Last night, drug free, we sat through dinner at a Japanese steak house... his behavior was getting a little off, we switched around chairs and the rest of the evening was FINE. 

some little thing, change the environment, is just too hard for the federal funded government systems to do. 

what was my point in this blog.... 

my heart goes out to all the poor kids stuck in the RAD cult and then the subsequent public mental health system when the RAD cult fails them....  can't anyone just see the problem and let the kid sit somewhere else?