Two States, Two Disturbing Examples of Lack of Mental Health Care Options

There were two recent, very disturbing cases that are very different , yet share similarities in lack of resources that could have mitigated the outcome.

One involves a mother who crossed state lines and abandoned her disabled teenager in a heinous way. The other involves a foster child in respite care who killed the respite mother’s puppy.

Tennessee Abandonment

A mother from Algonquin, Illinois claimed that she was unable to care for her 19-year-old child who has cerebral palsy, visual impairment and other disabilities. Locally, there is practically a lynch mob trying to target her husband’s business.

“Eva Cameron said she brought her daughter to Tennessee because it has the “No. 1 health care system in the United States of America” and she wanted the best care. She also said her church directed her there because it is a more Baptist area.
Caryville (Tenn.) Assistant Police Chief Stephanie Smith said police were called June 28 to The Big Orange Bar for a mentally disabled woman who had walked into the bar and didn’t belong there.
“When we found her, she had been at the bar for around 20 minutes and was fine physically,” Smith said.
But police were unable to communicate with her – she couldn’t tell police her name. Eva Cameron said her daughter’s state ID was lost, which was why she wasn’t identified.
Smith said the police department, in an attempt to identify the girl, was flooded with calls from various states. On July 8, authorities received an anonymous tip that the girl was Lynn Cameron. The Algonquin Police Department became involved and Lynn was positively identified.
“This has been disturbingly weird,” Smith said. “Who just drops off their handicapped child and leaves?” [We have heard of many, many cases just like this one, actually. It is a myth that only adoptive parents abandon as inability and/or lack of access to dealing with mental health issues in biological and adoptive children is the cause. ]

Lynn Cameron has been in the custody of Tennessee authorities and is now in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Human Services, local NBC television affiliate WVLT reported. She will be housed at a center for children and adults with developmental disabilities.”

Algonquin mother won’t take disabled teen back

[Northwest Herald 7/10/12 by Sarah Sutschek and Lawrence Synett]

The mother was shockingly callous in her interview about the abandonment.

“Eva Cameron, of Algonquin, Ill., told Caryville Police she did not want her daughter Lynn anymore. So, when she stopped at the Big Orange Bar last month, Eva told her daughter to go to the bathroom and took off. Because Lynn was unable to talk to authorities, officers spent days trying to identify her.

After meeting with authorities Tuesday morning, Eva Cameron was not arrested. On Monday, officials indicated she would face charges, but the District Attorney General’s office determined she did not do anything wrong.

She talked to us on the phone while driving back to her Illinois home and laughed when she told us about the day she left her daughter alone at a Caryville bar.

“Well I didn’t get the help I needed from Illinois. Someone from the church said why don’t you go down to Tennessee, that’s a good health care system. So I went down there and tried to close out my daughters social security bank up north and try to establish it in the south but I detoured and got lost. And then she became a Jane Doe and it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. So it was sort of a glitch and hoopla over nothing.”

We asked her about the decision to leave Lynn there and drive back home to Illinois. “Some people saw that and thought, how could a mother leave her kid at a bar?”

“Well the other one um..well the thing is, we thought it was a, we didn’t know it was a bar. We just thought it was a, she just needed to go to the bathroom so (laughs) we don’t drink. Its all a misunderstanding and a hoopla over nothing.”

Lynn will now be taken to the Michael Dunn Facility in Roane Co. until her final status can be determined, including if she will stay in Tennessee or return to Illinois.”

Mom who abandoned disabled daughter calls it “hoopla over nothing”

[Local 8 7/10/12]

Special needs woman abandoned in Caryville placed in state custody

[WATE 7/11/12]

“On June 28, after her daughter refused to use the bathroom at a Waffle House, Cameron said, she let her out at the The Big Orange Bar in Caryville, Tenn. Cameron told the Northwest Herald she waited in the parking lot until she saw police arrive 20 minutes later. Then she returned to Illinois, considering her adult daughter now “a ward of the state of Tennessee,” the paper said.

But it’s not that simple. Lynn Cameron is in the custody of Tennessee’s Adult Protective Services/Department of Human Services, which says it is “currently investigating” her case.

Generally speaking, said Missy Marshall, director of public affairs for Tennessee’s Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, when an “abandoned” individual is 18 or older, the department prevails upon the state to make sure he or she is safe and getting necessary services. Of Cameron, Marshall could say only that she is “safe and being cared for on a respite basis” and that the state is “exploring our options for holding the mother accountable.”

Although authorities have said Cameron did not break a law, Rep. Dennis Powers, R-Jacksboro, said he will meet with District Attorney General Paul Phillips and DIDDS Commissioner Jim Henry on Friday to discuss whether charges can be filed or, if not, legislation introduced to prevent such a situation from occurring in the future.

The Northwest Herald said Cameron said her daughter would be placed in a “center for children and adults with developmental disabilities.” DIDDS has been moving away from large centers — such as West Tennessee’s recently closed Clover Bottom or the downsized Greene Valley Development Center in Greeneville — in favor of smaller “supported-living” houses where three or four residents live with one to three caregivers.

But it’s too early to speculate whether Lynn Cameron will remain in Tennessee, and the severity of her disabilities have yet to be evaluated beyond making sure her immediate needs are met.

If she becomes a Tennessee resident, she would likely be eligible for TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, said TennCare spokeswoman Kelly Gunderson.

Gunderson said Lynn Cameron’s eligibility for Supplemental Security Income — a federal government-funded program that provides stipends to low-income people who are disabled, blind or 65 and older — would automatically make her TennCare-eligible. There is no minimum residency requirement to receive TennCare, she said, though the Social Security Administration, which administers SSI, would need to have her on file as a Tennessee resident.

Eva Cameron told the Northwest Herald that she was overwhelmed by caring for two children with disabilities: “You can only stretch yourself like a gummy bear so far until you rip.”

A group of parents is suing Illinois’s financially strapped Department of Healthcare and Family Services because it plans to cut services for some disabled children who require nursing care to stay at home, but it’s not clear whether either of Cameron’s disabled children falls into that category.

Even if neither does, “it’s difficult on the best days to navigate the system to be able to get all the services a family needs … particularly when they have more than one child with a disability,” said Charlotte Bryson, executive director of Tennessee Voices for Children, an advocacy group that provides support to families of disabled children. “We see families all the time that are at the point where they just throw up their hands.”

Most families who relinquish custody do it within state guidelines, she said.

“It’s very dramatic when a parent gets to the point when they just feel they have to turn their back, walk off and leave their child,” Bryson said. “I can’t imagine how difficult that would be. … Think of how many years she’s provided support and care for this child. It is a major stressor, taking care of a disabled child. They can’t do it without respite, they can’t do it without breaks, and they can’t do it without support.”

Steve Johnson, founder of the Open Doors Tennessee referral and support organization for parents in East Tennessee and a parent of a 13-year-old boy who suffered brain damage from a stroke at birth, said the paperwork involved in getting services can be so difficult to navigate that “a lot of people have given up before they even get through it.”

Parents of disabled children have to plan ahead for every contingency, even for something as simple as a trip to the drugstore, he said, and often become isolated from friends and sometimes even family.

When Johnson heard about Cameron, he said, “my immediate reaction was, ‘How can anybody do this to their child?’ But then you kind of take a step back. … I can sympathize. I have been that frustrated, that the front door’s looked awfully good to me.

“It’s a fine line. … Sometimes you can’t even take it day by day. You take it second by second.”

When families feel overwhelmed, Bryson said, “what we’ve done is asked the family what they needed in order to continue to take care of their child. Families can usually tell you what it would take. And it’s usually not that much.

“I think it would be really interesting to have asked that parent what it would take. I bet it would not be something so huge.”

Disabled teen left at Campbell County bar safe, but her future is up in the air

[Knoxville News Sentinel 7/12/12 by Kristi L. Nelson]

New York Respite Care Case

This case shows that for a child with seriously disturbing behaviors, only respite care in a private foster home is what is offered instead of a 5150 ( an involuntary hold in a psychiatric facility.)

“Police said an 11-year-old girl is accused of killing a 3-month-old puppy over the weekend because she was angry her temporary foster mother wouldn’t take her out.

Troopers reportedly said the girl was just brought to the Lake George home for respite care shortly before the incident happened on Sunday.

Police said the girl wanted to go someplace but the woman said no. Then the girl allegedly slammed the puppy against the floor and bed post until it was dead. The dog was a King Charles spaniel, a toy breed.

The girl was charged with felony counts of criminal mischief and cruelty to animals and the case was referred to Warren County Family Court. Her name wasn’t released.”

NY girl, 11, beat puppy to death because foster mother wouldn’t take her out, police say

[CBS News 7/11/12]

REFORM Puzzle Piece