As many of you know, my middle daughter April got into more trouble and the juvenile court decided to turn custody of her over to DHS.

We have been waiting for the worker to call us. We left her a few messages and she recently got back with us.

In the meantime April got scared and she ran away again. One morning I woke up and found her standing in the yard. We told her to come in and she sat with us and talked. (My husband slipped into the other room and called the police since we had reported her as a runaway.)

The police never showed up. April told us she was leaving the state and never coming back again. She had not had her medications for her bipolar disorder in several days. So we just let her talk and we listened, not wanting to cause conflict and or anger.

She left and stormed out the door. We called the DHS worker and she called the police to find out why they did not respond.

Well today the DHS worker told me that she was putting a pick up order on April and that she would be found and taken to a juvenile lock down facility until court on Monday. Then she would talk to April and the Judge could make a decision on how to handle things.

Well a state trooper showed up at our door. We gave him names and addresses of possible places she could be. An hour later they found her. But instead of putting her in juvenile they brought her right back home to us.

For now, I got her to take her meds and to fall asleep. The one thing I do know is our DHS does not have their act together. She has run away at least 20 times since November. She does not need a reason, she just decides she does not want to come home and she stays out on the streets with her friends until she needs to sleep or eat. Then we hear from her or she shows up on our doorstep.

We have begged for them to do a medication evaluation on her but it really does no good unless she is home to take the medications.

I have often said this is our last chance to help our daughter. To me it seems like they are just biding time until she is 17 and can run away on her own and no one can do anything about it.

I don't know about you but to me, having an angry bipolar child who is off her medications out on the street is not a good thing. They are just waiting until she does something that will justify locking her up for a long time.

I know better than anyone else, that is not what my daughter needs. She needs structure and an independent living system. But first she needs to be evaluated and proper medications need to be given to her so she can gain self control again.

It is a shame that so many mentally ill people just float through the system and they are given medications and turned back out on the streets with no one to observe them.

I wish they would put a little bit of the money that flows out to the war or other countries back into fixing our own issues here at home. But I am one voice. Who else will listen?