Two Moms Uncover Plot to Deny Mental Health Services to Children

February 2, 2010

Mary Peitso and Ilene Allinger Candreva of Monterey County California, are both Moms of sons that need mental health services. Mary and Ilene joined forces with the non profit agency, Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) lawyer, Maggie Roberts  in a compliance complaint against Monterey County Special Education Local Plan Area  (SELPA).  The California Department of Education investigated and found multiple violations where children who needed mental health help were systematically denied the services they were entitled to.

Mary’s story began two years ago when her son was having a horrible time in school.  So much so, that it created a lot of anxiety in him. Her  son has Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD, he has always been mainstreamed with extra support (accommodations and social skills training).

Here is Mary’s narrative in her own words:

Doing research, I discovered California Bill AB 3632 which states that a child with an IEP who needs mental health services that the school can’t provide will be referred to county mental health for services. Well, I wanted to make sure that this service would be appropriate for my son, so I called the County Mental Health office in Monterey and asked the receptionist a bunch of questions. The receptionist couldn’t answer my questions but offered to transfer me to the therapist who treats kids from a neighboring school district , to which I said, "Yes, please do." I asked the therapist a bunch of questions, but mainly she told me "Yes, I have a couple kids like your son right now that I see, all with Asperger’s and all with anxiety." I was satisfied that my son probably would benefit from this service and e-mailed our school psychologist requesting a referral. The school psychologist e-mailed me back and said he thought it was a good idea, he called me when the paperwork wa s ready for me to sign and I stopped by the district office and signed it.

A couple of weeks after this I got a notice from County Mental Health to call and make an appointment for a "pre-referral assessment". In Monterey County, County Mental Health has cooked up a Chapter 493
referral which is a pre-referral process they make everyone go through so they can be selective on who becomes clients, as opposed to treating all kids with IEP’s regardless of disability as stated in
their Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA).

Well, I went to the pre-referral assessment which consisted of a psychologist talking to me for about 30 minutes, and my son for about ten minutes. Twenty minutes into my meeting with her, she diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder and said it just hadn’t been triggered in me yet. (I do not have bipolar disorder) I remember sitting there thinking "If this is what it takes to get my son services, so be it."  At the end of the meeting she told me they couldn’t see my son because his primary diagnosis is Autism (even though he would clearly be able to benefit from services), but that I would get the final answer in the mail.

About a month went by and I didn’t receive anything in the mail, and I had heard nothing from County Mental Health, so I called the psychologist I previously met with and asked her if my son was going to receive services. She said she thought she had called me.  Then she went on vacation and she thought she had talked to me already and told me " That no, he did not qualify for services based on his diagnosis of Autism". So I asked her to explain to me why her son from neighboring school  was treating kids just like my son, all with Asperger’s and all with anxiety. Her response to me was ,  "What?! Who told you that?!"  I told her the therapist for the neighboring school told me. She then put me on hold for a few minutes, When she  came back on the phone and asked me to meet with her the following morning to discuss this. I agreed to meet with her. At that meeting she told me they would have the therapist for Carmel Unified School District meet with son for a few sessions to see if his anxiety was simply from his Asperger’s or if it was a manifestation of something else, Then the  therapist would
decide. She stated,  if I agreed to this, then I would need to accept the therapist’s findings and not write letters to her supervisor if she couldn’t continue seeing him. Again, I thought to myself, "If this is what it takes to get my son services, then so be it." and I agreed to this. And in my defense, I never did write any letters to her  supervisor.

I attend a monthly "Mom’s Night Out" coordinated by Special Kids Crusade for moms of special needs kids which is where I met Ilene. I had known her for about a year when all of this was going on. One
night at a Mom’s Night Out right after I had gone through all of this, Ilene asked if anyone had been through the mental process and I related my experience to her. She said she had an appointment coming up with the same psychologist I had dealt with.

Ilene’s story:

When Ilene met this psychologist, she was even more rude and unprofessional to  Ilene than she was to Mary. She denied Ilene’s son services on based on his diagnosis of Autism too. Ilene was sure her son had mental health issues that were not associated with autism.  Angered by the dismissive treatment,  Ilene found a lawyer.

Ilene reminds us, "There are twenty kids in the rep ort. But that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the kids who didn’t get a referral because "everyone knows that Department of Behavioral health  doesn’t treat kids with autism."

She continues,, "An estimated 1 in 50 boys will be diagnosed with autism — and tell them that an estimated 30-40% of those kids will have a dual diagnosis of autism and a mental health disorder.
Tell them that when they are in danger of losing their child, they want help. They don’t want a lawsuit and a lawyer!"

The results:

Mary points out, "Basically my school district messed up because when County Mental Health denied my son initially, they should have contracted that service out instead of telling me "Oh well, that’s too bad." He still needed (and needs) the service. No one from County Mental Health ever came to an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting (which they are supposed to), I never even got a copy of the initial assessment the psychologist did.  I requested a copy from our school psychologist and got it through him. Then County Mental Health unilaterally exited him from services without an IEP meeting.  The reason I got was "my supervisor said I can’t continue to see him." There were a lot of mistakes made across the board.  There remains one boy who is still on medication for anxiety and in
need of therapy, and 22 other kids (at a minimum) who are still out there in need of services. This investigation will get my son compensatory services for the time period of April 2008-September of 2009.
Currently he has another referral pending to County Mental Health for therapy for anxiety, this time it’s a 26.5 referral because the state investigator told them to get rid of the 493 referral process. There
is only one other county in California that uses the Chapter 493 referral process, I’m not sure which county it is,  but our local SELPA knows".

Mary and Ilene deserve a lot of credit for their perseverance.  Because they refused to take "No" for an answer, their sons will get the mental health services they need and so will at LEAST twenty-one other children, not to mention all the future referrals who would have been turned away.  Mary and Ilene are heroes.

On the other hand, one can only wonder how many children and families have been left to suffer the effects of mental illness because they were never allowed to be treated.