Help The Hamnes Family Get Treatment For Claire

Help Hamnes Family Get Treatment for OCD

As many of you may know, Erik and Nichole’s daughter, Claire (7), has been suffering from severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for the past 18 months. Claire has also been diagnosed with OCD, Anxiety, ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder), and ADHD.

The family has been fortunate to work with some of the best providers in Billings (or via telehealth), which have included specialists in Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Occupational Therapy (OT), Exposure Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), SPACE, and psychiatry. What started as major sensory sensitivities to clothing around age 3, has now progressed to complex and severe anxiety and OCD. Despite all of the resources listed above, Claire’s mental health has continued to decline. Simple activities, such as dressing and brushing hair, warrant one-on-one support. Claire is at the point where she can not even look at her clothing and is completely avoiding entering her bedroom at all. Obssesions and compulsions have extended to other areas as well, thus impacting the entire family’s wellbeing.

This past July, Claire’s obsessions and anxiety escalated to the point that the family began considering residential treatment. Pediatric OCD resources for Claire’s age are extremely limited in the United States. Fortunately, Roger’s Behavioral Health in Wisconsin accepts children as young as age 8. Claire turns 8 later in November and at that point Claire will be placed on a short wait list for treatment. Due to Claire’s age and the severity of her obsessions, the hospital suggests having a parent be present throughout the entire program which is esitmated to be 6-8 weeks long. After Claire completes the residential program, a transitional outpatient program lasting a number of weeks is highly recommended.

Roger’s is located 30 minutes outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which has a Ronald McDonald House open to families. After the cost of the program even with the help of insurance, loss of work (Nichole will not have enough paid days of leave to cover her absences), travel, a suggested minimum donation to the Ronald McDonald House, and more miscellaneous expenses, the family is looking at thousands of dollars in expenses on top of what they have already spent treating Claire’s and their own mental health.

Claire wants to attend Roger’s so much; she keeps inquiring about when she can go. It has been so hard to see the effects on her self-esteem as she wants to “be just like everyone else”.

Please help support this family in sending their daughter to one of the only facilities in the U.S. that works with children so young.