Forest Ridge — July 2008

Forest Ridge Youth Services, in Estherville, Iowa was one of best group homes Mary was placed in and I always wondered why she hadn't been placed there sooner. It was an attractive place where the kids lived in little cottages on a lake a few miles outside of the town. From there they would be bused to their school which was closer to town. And even though Mary was now in Iowa, she was much closer to home than when she was at North Homes in Grand Rapids, Minnesota; and because of this, I was able to visit her more often.

North Homes 35-Day Assessment

After spending four days at the New Ulm Detention Center, Mary's corrections officer next placed her in a group home in Northern Minnesota — North Homes, in Grand Rapids, close to the Canadian border. The County seemed to like North Homes. They also seemed to like places that were far away. North Homes seemed like a pretty good place for Mary even though it was roughly five hours from her home. Mary liked the staff at this place and they liked her. She was at North Homes for about two months for her 35-day assessment.

Woodland Hills Four-Day Debacle

Mary kept moving from one group home to the next, and after a year into her placement, with 13 moves already, she still hadn't had an assessment — at least one we could use to help place her. During one of her 60-day-review court hearings, her lawyer brought this up and told the judge Mary needed to be evaluated thoroughly so we could start making more informed decisions about her placements rather than random ones like it seemed we were doing. She pointed out how this could most likely prevent her from being moved so often.

A Revealing Meeting

Mary's social worker and corrections officer asked Mary's mother and me to meet them at their office to talk about a new group home they were considering for Mary. But before we got to any discussion about a new group home, I wanted to talk about some obvious problems with Mary's placements. I mentioned how frustrating it was for her to have to move every couple of months and how frustrating it was that she still hadn't had any therapy — especially therapy to help her deal with her sexual assault. I was worried about Mary and I had good reason to be.

First Signs of Trouble – October 2007

Both her mom and I were concerned after her second move in less than three months. It wasn't clear if her workers were. By the end of her first year she had moved in and out of a detention center in New Ulm three different times, to a group home in Owatonna, to one in Hutchinson, to a girls ranch near Benson, to another detention center in Willmar, back to the detention center in New Ulm, and finally to a big kid-jail in Willmar — the Prairie Lakes Youth Program.

PART 2: MARY AND THE GROUP HOMES

 

The Decision to Place Mary

 

My ex-wife and I have a daughter who has had severe behavior problems all her life. We now know that this was mostly due to her being born with white matter damage to the right hemisphere of her brain, but we didn't know this until she was sixteen years old. We never knew why Mary's life had been so difficult for her, but we were fairly certain that a five-year old who bites her dentist and demands to be "bossy" all day on her sixth birthday was going to be a handful during her teen years. And we were right.

Mary is a great girl and is very intelligent. She was always the top reader in her elementary school and has always performed above average in nearly all her school classes. But she's also had unmanageable behavioral problems. In addition to this, she's the middle child in a family with both a younger and an older sister who seemed to sail through life easily with few behavioral problems to speak of. Living in the shadows of her sisters didn't make life any easier for Mary and was most likely an on-going reminder that something was wrong with her.

I Lose Mary

I didn't quit, and something did happen to my daughter. For the first time in years my daughter, Mary, had not been in a group home or in a foster home. From 2007 to 2009, while in out-of-home placement through our County, she had been moved over twenty times and had unspeakable things done to her. That is, until I got her out and brought her home.