Raven’s Hope
I am a mother who has spent years pleading for help for my 9-year-old daughter’s mental health needs, exhausting every available resource — many now fully utilized — including MFS, MDS, Home Base Services, Guardian ad Litem, Kurn Hattin, Brattleboro Retreat, Healthy Starts, Connected Families, Fast Forward, Northeastern Families, Crisis Prevention, Behavioral Health Therapy, Psychiatry, trauma-informed care and long-term therapy. BSBH of New Hampshire and Hampstead Hospital have also been part of this exhaustive search. Yet after all this, we are repeatedly told we must “deal with it.”
There have been times I have self-reported to DCYF, refusing to pick her up from the hospital and begging them to place her in secure treatment. Ultimately, I had to exaggerate my reaction just to get DCYF to remove her from the home — resulting in charges against me and my daughter being bounced through multiple foster homes, none of which provide the appropriate level of care according to her Comprehensive Assessment for Treatment score.
Meanwhile, her behaviors remain dangerously severe: she runs away, climbs onto rooftops, threatens self-harm, assaults police, parents, siblings, teachers, peers and hospital staff. I have three younger children in the home, all at risk, and daily crises have become routine.
Stigma and lack of resources leave families navigating these crises alone. New Hampshire must do better. Children deserve early intervention, trained mental health professionals and safe, appropriate treatment — not years of families fighting endlessly for care that should have been available from the start