New specialist clinic treats truants

Specialist Clinic: Therapy for truants

28/10/2014

When children skip school, laziness does not always have to be behind it. Many of the school objectors are struggling with serious problems. Often they are excluded, have depression or psychosomatic complaints. A specialist clinic in Baden-Württemberg helps young people to return to everyday social life.

Truants do not have to be lazy
Those who do not go to school do not necessarily have to be lazy. This is also known in the specialist clinic for children and adolescents in Wangen (district of Ravensburg) in Baden-Wuerttemberg. There are no truants that prefer to sit outside in the sunshine than to sit in class. Rather, many patients have a long ordeal behind them. For example, a 16-year-old, who does not want to give her name: Already as a first year she suffered severe injuries, as the news agency dpa reports. Thus, the shy girl explained: „I had asthma and eczema, for the other students I was the monster.“ For three weeks she is in rehabilitation in the Allgäu.

The patient was labeled as a failure by the teacher
The girl said she was struggling with abdominal pain, eating food out of frustration, and finally being ashamed of her overweight. When she was labeled a failure by her teacher, she had hurt herself, thought of suicide, and became increasingly isolated. The 16-year-old looks back: „I put cabinets in front of the room door so that my parents could not reach me.“ She barely dared to go to school. After a therapy in a psychiatric day clinic, the girl finally came to cheeks. „Slowly I start to like myself again.“

Organic and psychosomatic complaints
According to chief physician Dirk Dammann, about 300 of the 1,500 chronically ill patients at the children's hospital each year hardly ever go to school - and the trend is rising. Here, organic and psychosomatic complaints balance each other. „Some come with asthma, dermatitis, some with ADD, anxiety disorders, depression, social behavior disorders“, counted the child and adolescent psychiatrist. „Many have two or three construction sites at the same time.“ The increase explained Michael Gomolzig of the association education and education Baden-Wuerttemberg the dpa also with increased sensitization: „Nowadays, schools and parents pay more attention to whether a child is missing, and rather seek the youth welfare office.“ If people of all ages are marginalized and bullied, many health-threatening consequences are imminent. For example, sufferers often experience symptoms such as headaches, sleep disorders, anxiety, gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular complaints and depressive moods.

Individual treatment plan for each patient
At the specialist clinic in Wangen, an individual treatment plan is created for each patient, in which nurses work together with social educators, psychologists or physical therapists. In addition, 40 educators from all educational programs teach in inclusive learning groups at the affiliated Heinrich-Brügger-Schule. „Some start with 20 minutes of lessons per day, the groups have up to eight students“, explained the headmaster Stephan Prändl. A 15-year-old, who also wants to remain anonymous, has for the first time in years again a regular daily routine and no contact „to wrong people“, as he puts it.

Aggressive behavior in school
The quiet boy felt excluded from the fifth grade and misunderstood, struggling with depression, sick leave and therapy for half a year. „Then I slept all day until early in the morning playing computer, smoking marijuana and selling too.“ His parents were little present: „My dad's gone anyway, and my mother was never there.“ When he went to school, he attracted attention through aggressive behavior. Only when a friend took his own life did Tim pull the emergency brake and, together with his mother, find a doctor who sent him to cheeks. „Everyone here has some problem, because you no longer feel alone.“

Therapeutic living groups for teenagers
The children and adolescents stay in the Allgäu for four to eight weeks. „For the time afterwards, the clinic organizes outpatient care and „individual educational paths at home“, so Dammann. In addition, the clinic has 36 places in therapeutic residential groups for teens. There is, for example, a 19-year-old, who learned from his father after own description early to strike in conflicts. The boy, who is slightly autistic, quickly became an outsider at school. For years he took beating, developed anger and hatred, social phobias and finally serious personality disorders and violent fantasies. „I played at the computer for 16 hours a day, had revenge, wanted to get weapons, was about to run riot“, he told soberly. Now, after a six-week stay in the hospital with compulsory medication and ten months in the Wangen rehabilitation, the young man is heading for a secondary school leaving certificate. (Ad)