Therapy for RAD

Yes, although his sympyoms are not as drama-like as our older daughter, there is no question. He was initially diagnosed as Adjustment Disorder until the therapist had a better chance to meet with him and speak to us. I failed to mention we dropped the Medicaid route for services as the agencies that see kids are they themselves like a revolving door of therapists and we figured kids with abandonment issues surely didn't need to feel abandoned every three or four months when it was time for change of the guard at the agency. Our only other option was to use our insurance. I jumped through all the hoops to get him approved for services, but we are required to use their list of providers. What's new?? Anyway, I contacted each of the providers listed and did phone interviews with them. There were none that could claim they were AT trained, so I was left choosing one whose practice centers around teens. I have checked online, but can't find one within our area either. I do not believe our insurance allows out of county services either. So, with that in mind any suggestions?

I am pretty certain my youngest son (adopted at 3 years of age) has a mild case of RAD. I am having a hard time finding a specialist in attachment therapy near my home. I live right outside of Houston but the only place I did find was an hour away. Anyone know how to search for a good therapist?

Post in special needs adoption. Im sure someone there has a resource for locating an attachment therapist.

email Kelly@radzebra.org She has a list of therapists in different areas and may be able to help you locate one.

Any of you guys using AT therapy, find success with an older child, say 16? With years of fostercare and adopted for a number of year? It seems like most of the posts I read refer to younger children, who were placed at a much younger age.

YES!! BUT..he has to be aware of his difficulties and motiavted to change. My A. wants me in all his therapy and has made great progress. The beautiful, beautiful thing that I see is that his attachment work with ME has made him able to have better, healthier relationships with OTHER people as well. Less likely to form fast "fake" attachments to superficial people, and motivated to work really hard on relationships with the people he SHOULD have attachments to. That is the big goal with a kid this age...they are going to be out on their own so soon -dating, maybe having children - and are really in danger of messing up a lot of lives if they can't make the changes now. BUT -you can't make a kid this old WANT it.

My daughter is only 12 and we are already running into issues about age. We had one psychiatrist pretty much write her off as too late to help and said she was a "budding borderline." He said most of this in front of her and told her that she needed to be prepared for the RTC we are trying to get her into--compared any RTC to prison. He told a 12 year old girl she would be going to a prison-like facility!!! What an arrogant jerk. I've read the statistics, and yes, it does appear that AT therapy is more successful with toddlers, but I still can't give up. I've posted elsewhere that if an RTC can improve her behaviors even 25-50% that is a 25-50% chance she has at a more productive adult life. We seem to be getting through to her lately, just bluntly telling her that while we understand why she behaves the way she does, that is it still dysfunctional behavior and that she needs help. She is actually starting to look forward to the help (and to getting away from us--the family she hasn't bonded with after two years). Age 16 is probably exponentionally more challenging, but push your insurance company more, to find a RAD-specialized therapist or treatment center. Push to get a case manager within the insurance company, if you can. Demand for a listing of their Level of Care guidelines so you can know what symptoms/behaviors/diagnosis they are expecting before they will allow you to see a specialist. Your insurance company really may not offer anything more that what you currently ask, but sometimes they just don't advertise what they can provide and you need to prod and pry. Good luck!

OK We went yesterday for the first appointment. The therapist has suggested we look into a wilderness camp. Any thoughts? Anyone utilized this form of treatment? Did insurance help with the costs? The therapist also lent me a manual she received from the last training she attended on RAD. One of the suggestions was to have a list of about five natural consequences for each offense. The idea was to keep the child from controling or manipulating the outcome. Have any of you tried this technique? My husband and I had a lengthy talk with T(our son) last night as we have found he has a 'secret' cell phone, just like his sister. Of course his explanation was all lies. We have actually considered what it would take to disrupt the adoption and the recourses we may face. We have a bio d left at home who is the same age as T and for the past four(4) years she has received very little attention because of T and his C, his sister whom we've adopted. Our bio d and T are the same age and I am beginning to recognize we only have two(2) years left to share her teen life before she graduates and we are concerned we are throwing it away while we continue to focus on T and recover from C's assault on our family. Any thoughts? Anyone successfully reverse an adoption after this many years of having the kids?

You mean like "brat camp"? I'd admit I don't know much about it - but it sure doesn't SOUND like it would be any good for attachment disorder! I just phoned our therapist to set up our appointment for tomorrow, and asked her what she thinks of the wilderness camp idea..and she said that unless the parents are going too she can't imagine what it is supposed to accomplish!As for your other question, about the conequences - THAT makes sense and I agree with it completely.

I think Wilderness Camp would be great for a teen RAD kid. At that age, the chance of healing is slim to none. Wilderness Camp isn't about healing from RAD. These camps require compliance to adults and team work with others. These are skills that the kids are severely lacking and that they desperately need in adult life. I would seriously consider it for my child once she is a teen.

I agree that a Wilderness Camp could do wonders for your boy, and get him a little distance from his sibling and bmom. Insurance may be tricky, but there are probably some that will work with you. Just Google "Wilderness Treatment Camp" and you will get lots of info. Here are a few links you can check out. [url=http://search.camps.com/index.php?tpid=10306&tspid=2&ttid=119&st=wilderness%20therapy&bmst=wilderness%20therapy]Camps.com :: Search results for wilderness therapy[/url] [url=http://www.nationalyouth.com/reactiveattachmentdisorder.html]Reactive Attachment Disorder[/url] [url=http://www.ascent4teens.com/]Ascent Wilderness Program for Troubled Teens[/url] [url]http://www.17thjudicialdistrict.com/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Residential%20Treatment%20Center%20and%20Resid ential%20Child%20Care%20Fa%E2%80%A6.pdf[/url]

Ah, got it! That makes sense - there is a point where I guess you have to stop working on building attachmnents, and switch to basic skills they need as an adult. In that case, I can see where it would be valuable. (compliance to adults - oy! Did I ever mention that my FS has quite 4 part time jobs because in every case the boss was "rude" to him? :grr:

Our now 15 yr. as might be at the same juncture....after a year of great therapy with an AT, he has made great progress, but has hit the wall bigtime in attaching with mom - must be too painful to deal with the birthmom and the many foster moms who also abandoned him. He was removed from the home at age 3 for severe neglect & violence in the home, spent 6 years in the system in twice as many placements, was sexually abused by his sister in the birth home and his first foster placement, came to live with us at age 9. We had him in therapy with an AT as soon as we could, which was age 10. He already had refined his con artist skills enough at that age to buffalo an AT....he told her exactly what she wanted to hear! After a move to another state, we found a much better AT that wouldn't take his BS. So, all of a sudden at that point he is 14 years old..... So, at what point do you say, even though you'd like to give him every chance in the world to heal, this is as good as it gets, now the best I can do is try to teach you (and maybe that's through a RTC - he sure doesn't want to learn them at home!) life skills to make the best of your life? And if he does deal with the mom thing, he's still way behind on social skills....and virtually no time left to develop them before he's on his own. It's an extremely painful spot to be in, especially after the progress our son made this past year. He is very bright - could be an "A" student, college bound, with a great life ahead of him, and right now it seems to be OK with him to throw that all away. My dh says I'm unrealistic, but hey, I'm the mom....of course I see the best potential and want the best for my child. The other bad part of all this is that he's already worked the families to show them what a wonderful child he is.....(not that I care what the neighbors think!!!)

My dd is 16, been in our home since she was 10. We've been in AT for the last year and she has attached very well. We sure wasted a lot of years in talk therapy that did nothing for her except reinforce her unrealistic thinking!

Try this link: [url=http://www.childinfamily.us/]Attachment - Child-in-Family Services[/url] I don't know anything about them but they are near Houston.