Tikkabik

We had a victory this week when we met with officials from the Department of Mental Health (DMH). Both Robert and Emmeline qualify for services -- it's been a bit of an arduous process to get to this point, involving the filling out of copious volumes of paperwork, having clinicians and therapists sign off on stuff, and having an interview by one of their intake people.

One of the DMH reps present at the meeting was boggled by the difficulty we've had securing services from the town of Mashpee for Robert in particular. She said this never would have happened where she's from -- South Florida. Yeah, that's right. Where police taser uncooperative six-year-olds. That sort of puts it in perspective, doesn't it?

It's a bit odd for us, given that difficulty, suddenly dealing with a state agency that actually seems to want to be helpful and useful, rather than obstructionist. Let's hope it's a trend that's here to stay.

But now that we are covered, we can actually try to get Robert and Emmeline some additional help through state-funded services and programs they haven't had access to before. Fortunately for us, we have a great ally in the form of a woman who runs a parent support group we attend regularly, who's experienced with the ins and outs of DMH. She was there with us when we met with the DMH people.

What does this mean? For the short term, nothing -- the holidays put a crimp in everyone's schedules, obviously. But sometime in January we'll meet again to discuss how we can work together. More to report on this later.