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Welcome to the new home of the Michigan
Association for Children with Emotional Disorders. Check back often for exciting new updates
to the MACED website. |
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Children’s mental health
and education What do you do if your child, diagnosed with an
anxiety or a mood disorder, cannot attend classes successfully in the large
middle or high schools in the Kalamazoo area?
What if the child needs a smaller environment staffed by adults who
understand their disorder and can tolerate an occasional “meltdown” without
calling the police? What if the child
also needs a challenging curriculum and an appropriate education that
consists of more than homebound instruction with a teacher coming to the
house twice a week for an hour or two? On most Monday nights since the beginning on May a
group of up to twelve parents, whose children have a variety of diagnoses,
have met in the MACED office in Kalamazoo in search of workable programs or
supportive school placements for their children. These are veteran parents, many of whom
have worked with the local school districts for many years to write IEPs
(Individualized Education Plans), including behavior plans, contingencies and
all of the usual approcaches suggested to them by the Michigan department of
Education and others they have consulted. This summer they have done research and invited
speakers, including school administrators, the director of a new alternative
program, and a sales from a computer-based program used in the Austin Harvard
School for Bipolar Children in Austin, Texas.
Some have visited alternative schools farther afield. A few of them are still working with their child’s
present school, hoping that other “creative approaches may work this
time.” Basically however, they are
searching for the unicorn, a creature that perhaps does not exist in
Michigan. Smaller classrooms for students with special needs
have all but disappeared due to to the pressures of the inclusive education
movement to eliminate these settings.
But in many ways, appropriate settings for children with
neurobiological disorders have not existed in the past either. The schools tent to classify these children
as “emotionally impaired.” However,
brain research over the past 10-15 years has discovered a physical cause for
these neurobiological disorders. With more disorders being recognized and as
more children having them are identified, there is increasing urgency to
address their needs.
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