Tyler's Story "I don't belong (in a school for severely emotionally disturbed children) he told his EMQ team. Please get me out!"

“He just wanted to be a normal kid and be treated like everybody else.”

All his life, Tyler had been told he was a troublemaker. Heavily medicated and enrolled in a special school for children with severe emotional disorders, he had been labeled as a child who had severe behavioral problems, the kind of child who might harm himself or others.

Tyler had been removed from his home at age 7 because of abuse and spent several years in residential treatment facilities for troubled children, including 3 years at EMQ. Like most children in residential treatment, Tyler missed his family. At age 11 he was excited to learn he’d be going home to live with his dad and stepmom. Two days before he was scheduled to go home, however, his dad and stepmom changed their minds and said they weren’t ready to take him.

Tyler was devastated, but luckily his maternal grandmother Liz stepped in and he went home to live with her. Liz lived in a different county, outside of EMQ’s usual service area, but EMQ agreed to provide Wraparound services to Tyler there because his treatment team believed he could thrive if given the kind of intensive in-home services that Wraparound provides.

Besides making sure Tyler got mental health services in his new county, Tyler’s EMQ Wraparound facilitator also encouraged Tyler’s grandmother to enroll him in a community baseball league, helped Tyler get a volunteer job at the local library, and connected Tyler with an EMQ volunteer mentor through EMQ’s Mentor Program. On his baseball team and at his library job, Tyler was incredibly successful. His coach praised his athletic ability and team spirit, and the librarians commented favorably on the wonderful job Tyler was doing as a volunteer.

But not everything was going well for Tyler. His new county had placed him in a school for children who were severely emotionally disturbed, but he was much brighter and higher functioning than most of the other kids there, and he got into trouble a lot. The school had a different perspective on Tyler than his Wraparound team. His teacher stated that Tyler was out of control and would never succeed in a mainstream environment. Tyler’s psychiatrist in the new county prescribed a heavy dose of medication for Tyler.

Tyler’s EMQ Wraparound facilitator never stopped believing in Tyler. When his special education teacher argued that Tyler didn’t have the ability to concentrate well enough to succeed in a regular school, EMQ pointed out that Tyler was able to focus for six hours at a time at his library job. When his teacher argued that Tyler couldn’t get along with other children, EMQ responded that Tyler was a great team player in his baseball league. Tyler himself had been saying this all along. “I don’t belong (in a school for severely emotionally disturbed children),” he told his EMQ team. “Please get me out!”

When Tyler’s teachers continued to insist that Tyler was still a problem child at age 13, EMQ arranged for Tyler to begin seeing a psychiatrist at EMQ, who reduced Tyler’s medication by 50% over a six-month period. (Previously Tyler had been on so much medication that he had to sleep for 15 hours after every baseball game.) EMQ then arranged for Tyler to attend his regular local high school in ninth grade.

To the surprise of everyone who had said Tyler wouldn’t succeed, Tyler thrived in regular school. He made friends, and on his first report card he got 3 A’s, 2 B’s, and one C (in health class). The teachers and administrators said that if they hadn’t seen Tyler’s case file, they never would have suspected that this was a child with emotional problems.

Tyler graduated from EMQ’s Wraparound program at age 15. Today he is doing well in high school, plays baseball and football, has friends and a girlfriend, and is taking only a small fraction of the medication he was taking previously. Tyler’s EMQ Wraparound facilitator reports, “He just wanted to be a normal kid and be treated like everybody else. And he is a normal kid, and now he does get treated like everybody else. He’s a really good kid. Tyler is truly, truly a success story.”

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Confidentiality of EMQ children and families has been preserved
through the use of models. Some stories may be composites of multiple cases.