Thursday, September 25, 2003

By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Jeannette and Don Oliver welcomed a 9-year-old foster child into their home on April 22, knowing they'd love him and intending to adopt him.

Three months later, they returned him to the children's home he came from after he screamed repeatedly at Jeannette, lied, stole things, punched three children in a YMCA program, then socked the Olivers' son as he tried to restrain him from taking a knife out of the house.

Jeannette determined that the child, who'd been in foster care for four years, suffered from Reactive Attachment Disorder, a condition limiting a youngster's ability to love and bond. It's a deficiency frequently found in children ignored in orphanages or removed from parents.

The symptoms may be as innocuous as the child expressing affection indiscriminately toward strangers or as terrifying as the child trying to kill the family dog, himself or a parent.

Solutions are difficult to come by. Desperate parents have taken children to attachment disorder specialists who have killed them with their therapies, such as the "rebirthing" technique.

The Olivers' search for help brought them, and nearly 600 other parents, therapists and experts to Pittsburgh for a conference that began yesterday at the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers, Downtown.

It's sponsored by the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children, headquartered in Columbia, S.C. The group conducts this meeting annually to discuss the latest research and therapies.

Demetrias Marousis, a director of clinical services for Glad Run Lutheran Services of Zelienople, brought the conference to Pittsburgh this year. Marousis is one of a few Western Pennsylvania therapists who specialize in this disorder.

The Olivers, who are from Rapid City, S.D., had been unable to find an expert in the state. The closest they located was in Denver, eight hours from them.

Part of the reason they came to the ATTACH conference is that they hoped to find someone closer. They were glad the conference was in Pittsburgh because the trip enabled them to visit one of their sons, Chris Oliver, a resident at UPMC, who lives in Etna.

The first seminar Jeannette Oliver attended was conducted by therapists Barbara Fisher and Janice Turber, whose Center for Attachment Resources and Enrichment in Decatur, Ga., focuses on treating this disorder and offers a variety of interventions.

Turber and Fisher brought with them 16-year-old Victoria Van Why, whose adoptive parents took her to them after Victoria threatened to kill herself or her mother.

Ten months after Turber and Fisher began therapy with Victoria and her parents, the girl's behavior and brain scans showed remarkable improvement. Victoria said a key to that success was her decision to actively participate in therapy and to change.

Still, she admitted there are days when the old Victoria emerges. They're rare now though. Her parents, Tina and Terry Van Why of Bethlehem, Ga., drove an hour each way to get her to treatment.

The Olivers would do that. They just want to find the right place. They are not giving up on the 9-year-old. Jeannette, who has a master's degree in special education, goes to the children's home every day to teach the boy.

And she and her husband are planning to bring him home again in January. They couldn't forget the boy, though they'd had him only three months.

The conference continues through Friday.

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