Sam Telt has attended Lincoln Child Center since 1/22/2008. Sam has been my client for almost 2 years. In that time, Sam has experienced amazing personal growth throughout his time at Lincoln Child Center. His presentation is drastically different than when he initially attended Lincoln and when I was transitioned as his clinician. I feel that he has learned much academically, socially, and personally. Sam continues to build positive relationships with adults that he trusts, such as his teacher, his clinician, Therapeutic Behavioral Service (TBS) worker, mentor, and his uncle.

Throughout his time here, Sam has exhibited a wealth of emotions, feelings, and behaviors, some of which he is unable to explain. During his early months, Sam had connected with a peer and called themselves "best friends." Sam and this peer seemed to have a very healthy attachment and seemed to have formed an unspoken "competition" between themselves regarding academic achievement. Sam would still exhibit some offprogram behaviors, but Sam's positive personality had really shined while this peer was attending Lincoln. However, when this peer left, Sam never really connected to other peers in his classroom like he did with this "best friend." Sam began to exhibit more unstable and risk-taking behaviors. Along with the leaving of his friend and the failing health of his grandmother, Sam's life at Lincoln seemed to be guarded. Sam had a difficult time expressing himself appropriately much of the time and the staff had to be alert to Sam's unpredictable behaviors.

Sam has enough insight to understand and realize his enormous attachment to his now passed grandmother and how his behaviors and feelings were connected to her health, and continue to be. Although attendance has never been a concern, when his grandmother was showing signs of failing health, Sam exhibited uncontrolled behaviors, such as climbing on rooftops, running away from campus to a nearby church, and exhibited other distractible and somewhat aggressive behaviors. Sam also was hospitalized once as a result of climbing on top of a two-story roof, an event that saddened all adults who knew and cared for Sam. Sam has the unique ability to pull a very empathetic emotion from adults, an emotion that is often expressed through great care for him.

Sam has since seen a wealth of support since her passing a month and a half ago. Sam has recently built and continues to build a positive relationship with his uncle, who now lives at home with Sam, and other adults who provide care, therapeutic means, and case management. However, through all this support, Sam had to take ownership of his own behaviors and improved tremendously. Sam has had only two Incident Reports recorded since the beginning of 2011 and only one reported in the year of 2010 from the end of October to 2011. Sam understood the importance of exhibiting positive behaviors, one of the reasons for that of his grandmother.

Sam has exhibited such high academic intelligence and is at or above grade level in all subjects. Along with academic intelligence, Sam's greatest growth has been through personal and emotional development. Although Sam still has difficultly acknowledging and verbalizing his feelings, he is slowly developing this skill with help from the support around him. Even though Sam has this difficulty, his personal and emotional growth has been exhibited through his ability to remain stable through the passing of his grandmother in late February. Simply, Sam stated, "I've been preparing myself for this for a long time." Sam achieved the highest level of Lincoln's level system, Self-Control for 100 days consecutive and continues to build upon that amount to this day. All parties are in agreement and want Sam to transition out of Lincoln to a lower level of care by the end of summer.