Since his parents split up when he was 4, the North Otago boy’s anger had intensified, his mother, Sarah, said. He had become "incredibly" angry, physically assaulted his mother and was verbally and physically aggressive towards her partner.
Ben asked his mother and her partner for help to control his anger, but the best that could be provided was a four-week camp in Roxburgh.
Run by Stand Children’s Services Southern, the camp was four weeks of positive adventure-style activities, and follow-up care would be a visit to their North Otago home by a health professional every three weeks until Ben turned 12 later this year.
Sarah said Ben fought going to the Roxburgh camp because it was away from his support network. She said she was "appalled" the camp was the only option deemed appropriate for her son and something needed to be done to improve available options. She wanted more done to get her son help more quickly.
"Ben’s going to be a statistic.
"It gets to the point he’s so angry I can despise him, I don’t hate him, but you get to that point where I wish he’d just ... [disappear]."
There was a "massive" gap in services, she said.
"Unless they’re threatening to kill themselves and then mental health may do something. Unless they’re really scary and threatening to chop someone’s head or shoot people with a gun they’re not interested. But he’s going to end up at that point."
Sarah believed the camp would not fix her son.
"This has been going on since he was 4. How can you fix something that was going on for seven years in four weeks?"
SDHB mental health medical director Brad Strong said the board matched patients to treatment based on referrals from GPs, schools, school counsellors and experts.
In Ben’s case the family GP referred him to the DHB for help, but the family felt more could be done.
If Ben entered the system through Stand Children’s Services Southern, then those who ran it could make notes on how he responded to treatment at that level.
If it was the wrong place for him, then workers at Stand could refer his case back to the DHB and he would be placed somewhere else.
Dr Strong said other services did exist for people such as Ben, for example, Adventure Development, a service which operated in part on self-referrals, and stated on its website it aimed to help young people and whanau who were dealing with alcohol and drug issues and mental health difficulties, and Mirror HQ, a youth-focused alcohol and other drug co-existing problem that could take Ben once he turned 12.
- Names in this article have been altered to protect the identity of the child.
