Opinion ID: 2445011
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mental Health Treatment

Text: April has been diagnosed as suffering from myriad mental health problems, including personality disorders, suicidal ideation, and grandiose delusions, but her primary issue is bipolar disorder, for which she is prescribed medication. It is significant that the case plans identified mother's mental stability as a prerequisite for reunification. Sutliff testified that respondent's mental health stability was important because April struggled most when under stress, and the presence of her two youngest children in the home increased those stress levels. In an effort to achieve the goal of reunification, DCYF provided a variety of services; however, April repeatedly failed to pursue treatment on a consistent basis. From 2002 through 2006, April was a client of the South Shore Mental Health Center, where she received counseling and prescriptions to mitigate the effects of her illness. Unfortunately, April's participation in her own care was sporadic at best. Her many social workers testified that she often stopped taking her prescribed psychiatric medications because of their physical side effects, she missed appointments, and was sometimes abusive toward her psychiatrists. On one occasion, she trashed the office of her doctor. As a result of such violent outbursts, she no longer was welcome at the offices of several service providers. The effect of April's inability to comply with her treatment is startling. Her behavior, which frequently bordered on violence, included threats against her caseworkers, resulting in no fewer than seven caseworker reassignments by DCYF. At one point, she asked the South Kingstown police to arrest her for the attempted murder of one of her caseworkers, and then she threatened to blow up the home and family of the next worker who was assigned to her case. As one witness noted in her testimony, this constant upheaval only served to increase the chaos in the lives of April's children.