Back in December of last year, the Newhall School District referred Janni for AB 3632, which is a state law that provides services for severely emotionally disturbed and mentally ill children who can't function within the regular school system. Basically, the law requires the State of California to provide the best and most appropriate environment for a child like Janni. The AB 3632 evaluation was conducted by a psychologist contracted by the LA County Department of Mental Health. Her recommendation was that Janni be placed in residential care due to threat to Bodhi and Janni's lack of response to anti-psychotic medications. On March 5th, Susan and I attended an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meet with the County Department of Mental Health Residential Placement Team. Due to Janni's age, we were presented with only four facilities, two out of state (Texas and Montana) and two in state in the LA area. Susan and did not want Janni going out of state.

To continue, in terms of cost the State of California would pay for her room and board at the residential facility (under Ab 3632) and the Newhall School District would pay for her education at the private school inside such a residential facility. As I said above, we did not want Janni going out of state. Our friend Jennifer Wohlenberg has had her two daughters at the Deveroux facility in Victoria, Texas, and her daughters were beaten there. You see, since no one wants a residential psychiatric facility built in their backyard, they end up being built in the middle of nowhere. Victoria, Texas is a tiny town and the Deveroux facility is the best paying job. So locals are hired (because they are cheap) but they aren't trained. So when the kids act out because of their psychosis they get beaten and in the middle of Texas nobody can hear you scream. We don't know anything about the facility in Montana, Intermountain, but it didn't matter.

Janni wasn't going out of state where we couldn't keep an eye on her. County DMH provides two tickets a year. We need to be able to see Janni almost every day to make sure she is safe and so we can maintain whatever relationship her psychosis will allow. How could we even consider doing this? It is Sophie's Choice. We want to protect Janni but we also have to protect Bodhi. If we didn't have Bodhi we might bring Janni home and just live with her attacks on us, but we can't risk him. Perhaps one day he might decide that he loves his sister enough to let her beat on him, but right now he can't defend himself. Then again, Janni has tried to jump out of a second story window, so there is no guarantee we could protect her even if Bodhi didn't exist.

The two facilities in California require full Medi-Cal. Why you ask? Yes, the State will pay room and board but not medical and psychiatric expenses for Janni and neither of the two facilities in California will accept private insurance. This is because private insurance companies almost always deny payment for chronic mental health issues, while the State will never question the charge. One facility, Five Acres, never called us. The other, Maryvale, an all girl's facility, did. I spent two hours on the phone with Lisa from Maryvale, telling Janni's history. She told us that she had spoken to her supervisor and that they had agreed to take Janni even though she didn't have Medi-Cal. I almost cried with relief. At the time (early March) we were terrified that at any moment UCLA was going to release Janni, not because she was better but because Blue Shield was refusing to pay for her care, insisting she could be downgraded to a lower level of care despite trying to eat her baby brother.

So when Maryvale said they would take her, I felt the sun was starting to rise again. That was two weeks ago when I said "Michael John Schofield is starting to realize the shells have stopped falling" as my FB status update. We had a place for Janni to go if and when UCLA kicked her to the curb.

The following Tuesday we went out to Maryvale in Rosemead and looked at the facility. It was all girls (which reduced, but not completely eliminate, the fear of Janni being molested or raped), it was nice, the staff seemed on the ball. Lisa seemed to be so sympathetic and understanding. She showed us around, we met the staff, we felt that Janni would be maybe happy and safe there, and we could visit her whenever we wanted. Maryvale started the process. We told Janni about the swings, the pool, the girls like her, the dollhouses. She actually got excited.

Today, twenty minutes before I had to teach, Lisa from Maryvale called to say they were reversing their earlier approval and rejecting her.

I was speechless. Why? She told me two reasons. One, Janni did not have full Medi-Cal. I cut her off at this point and told her that Janni had been awarded Medi-Cal. That forced Lisa to go to the second reason, the real reason. They felt Janni would be too "staff-intensive" and would take attention away from the other girls. She admitted that they didn't have any girls like Janni (in other words, Janni is not the victim of parental physical or sexual abuse and her parents are not meth addicts) and that the Janni's level of stimulation would be too much for them.

My voice breaking, I reminded her that she had said they would take Janni even without the Medi-Cal. She denied ever saying this. She also told me that this was the reason Five Acres had not called us. I asked what are we supposed to do. She said "I don't know." Yeah, fuck you, Lisa. Nobody does know.

Lisa suggested I call back the rather useless woman at residential placement desk at Department of Mental Health, the same woman who wants to send Janni out of state to Texas or Montana, both states where you can legally incarcerate your children. In other words, they are prisons.

My voice quavering with blind rage, I told Lisa that I don't think it is very fair that kids whose parents drank or did drugs during pregnancy, molested them, beat them, or cooked meth next to their crib get state services while my daughter, for my wife and I have done everything for, gets nothing. This reminds me that when we applied for Medi-Cal for Janni a few weeks ago, we were actually told she would get more services if I abandoned my family. The State of California encourages dead-beat dads. Lisa's reply was that that sounded more like a socio-political. This is not the fucking Newshour with Jim Lehrer. This is our lives. I couldn't be civil to Lisa anymore so I hung up.

So Janni will not go to Maryvale. Nor will she likely go to any residential facility, because we will not send her out of state and my exorbitant salary of 45K a year prevents us from qualifying for Medi-Cal. We will have to bring Janni home and pray she doesn't kill herself or Bodhi. We will have to watch both kids every minute. We will never sleep again.

All because Maryvale got scared of Janni. The real reason is Janni's inability to stabilize and frequent hospitalizations scared them. They were afraid they would be holding the bag financially if Janni needed hospitalization and Blue Shield wouldn't pay. A pox on the whole fucking lot of them. I trusted Lisa. I trusted the doctors at UCLA. I trusted in the fucking system and shushed Susan in meetings when she would get angry. I let them paint Susan like she was nuts. I went along with them, not realizing that none of them really gave a shit about my daughter. I get it now. I'll fight the whole fucking world for Janni and Bodhi.

I will do what I have to. After Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamoto who led the attack said to Tokyo "I fear we have only awoken a sleeping giant." That's me. I am that sleeping giant.

And I'm awake now.