Jane is 17 years old. She is a high school student who wears capri pants, likes to listen to music and tries her hardest to get out of doing anything realated to school work or learning.  Jane also takes lithium to keep her even, she has been diagnosed as bipolar and will go from 0 to 60 in a second.  It doesn’t take much to get her upset and she will not back down, and unless you talk to her in a calm, soothing voice she will escalate until you have to call some type of authority to detain her. 

Jane is a ward of the state, she has recently been placed in a new foster home (brand new, not even a month) in her sophomore year of high school. Technically she is a junior but has failed a few classes, she is in my junior English class.  Jane is functionally in 3^rd grade, she has no figurative reading comprehension skills and can repeat back to what is said to her, but cannot make any kind of inferential connection with anything.  She is also severely OCD, she will spend 10 minutes shuffling papers trying to find the right one rather than focusing on the lesson being given, and will not stop unless you gently speak to her and help her get organized. 

Jane isn’t being served by a public high school. Even in a smaller special education class Jane has to deal with a curriculum almost 10 years past where she is, and has to deal with the social rigors of 2000 kids, 4 lunch periods, a 3 day rotating schedule, standardized tests and gym class when she is bipolar and OCD to the point where her medication knocks her right out.  When she takes her medication, Jane is a ward of the state, and being bounced around from foster home to foster home and school to school, her files don’t necessarily follow her and she may take breaks from her meds, and when we sit at her intake meeting everyone is a little awkward while the social workers ask standard questions because no one knows enough about her to formulate any kind of proper case history, and her file is probably two schools removed from where it should be and won’t be coming anytime soon.

Jane needs an immediate psychiatric referral whitch will be filed for, but may not get done because there are only 4 weeks of school left.  She needs to be placed in an acute care specialized school which has a therapeutic setting so she can get the help she needs in order to succeed academically. The referral is over 100 pages of work and data which takes a minimum of 4 weeks, required by state law, before her referral will even be considered. I’m not sure if she will even be at our school long enough for the referral to be processed. 

More than likely Jane is going to end up homeless and in jail, or worse dead and alone. She is difficult to get along with and isn’t really one to reach out, but if she likes you she will be your shadow.  Jane isn’t unique to my situation, Jane exists everywhere and needs to be loved and helped by someone.  Even just noticed would be more than she is used to.  Jane exists, and that should mean something.