May 26, 2025 • 49 mins
Every parent knows the heart-wrenching reality: you're only as happy as your least happy child. Attorney Laura Sundberg knows this terrain intimately. With over three decades of legal expertise in trusts and estates, she found herself navigating unfamiliar territory when her son developed severe clinical depression and anxiety. What began as mysterious medical symptoms evolved into a complex mental health journey requiring specialized care. Through this experience, Laura discovered a game-changing resource many families don't know exists; a therapeutic consultant.
In this deeply personal conversation, Laura reveals how professional guidance transformed her family's approach to treatment selection and recovery support. Laura reveals how therapeutic consultants provide crucial navigating for those seeking appropriate treatment. Unlike general referrals or internet searches that might lead to inappropriate placements, consultants who regularly visit and evaluate programs nationwide can identify the right fit for specific needs.
The discussion bridges personal experience with professional insights, exploring how these challenges intersect with estate planning. Traditional special needs trusts often fail to address the unique complexities of mental health conditions. Laura shares essential considerations for creating effective trusts for beneficiaries with mental health challenges, including authorizing trustees to work with therapeutic consultants, providing liability protection, and ensuring appropriate discretion for difficult decisions.
Whether you're a parent navigating a child's mental health journey, a professional working with families in crisis, or someone planning for a loved one's long-term care needs, this conversation offers invaluable guidance from those who've walked the path. The message is clear: you don't have to navigate these challenges alone, and finding the right professional support can make all the difference.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well folks.
Thanks for joining us on HeadInside Mental Health, featuring
conversations about mentalhealth and substance use
treatment, with experts fromacross the country sharing their
thoughts and insights on theworld of behavioral health care,
broadcasting on WPBM 1037, thevoice of Asheville Independent
commercial free radio.
I'm Todd Weatherly, your host,therapeutic consultant and
(00:22):
behavioral health expert, andtoday joining me.
I'm excited to have a trustedlegal colleague and, I would say
, a personal friend of minethese days mom with her own
family story about recoveryLaura Kristen Sundberg.
Laura is an attorney down therein Florida with a robust legal
career spanning over threedecades.
(00:44):
She's established herself as aprominent figure in the trust
and estates field, which is aplace that we do a lot of
interface With a JD fromVanderbilt University.
Her decades of experience isespecially beneficial to trust
and estate beneficiaries andfiduciaries, covering areas such
as estate and trustadministration, capacity issues,
dispute resolution, advancedtax and estate planning and
(01:06):
navigating stuff with clientswhen things get hairy.
Her professional achievementshave been acknowledged by her
peers in the legal community.
She is a board certified by theFlorida Bar and Wills Trace
Trust and Estates.
Her expertise has beenrecognized consistently by
groups such as Best Lawyers ofAmerica, florida's Legal Elite
and Florida's Super Lawyers.
Beyond her practice, laura hasdedicated legal education and
(01:29):
mentorship.
She has frequently lectured atthe Florida Bar Seminar she even
invited me to do the same thingat one point the Florida Trust
School and the Florida JudicialCollege, and has authored
numerous publications, includingchapters administering trust in
Florida published by theFlorida Bar.
She also serves as a mediatorand been hired as an expert
witness on cases involvingcomplex trust estate tax issues,
(01:50):
contributing her expertise toconflict resolution in her field
.
She has led education in thepractice of law in Florida as a
past chair of the Florida BarCLE Committee and currently is
the vice chair of both theCommunications Committee and the
Professionalism and EthicsCommittee of Real Property
Probate Trust Law Section of theFlorida Bar, where she remains
(02:12):
an influential longtime memberof the section's executive
council.
Laura, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
In other words, I'm old.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
No, well, you know, we work with a lot of folks that
are, as you already know, thatare dealing with a beneficiary
and that beneficiary suffersfrom mental health challenges or
substance use challenges or acombination of the two, and the
trust doesn't know what to dowith them and the family doesn't
(02:42):
know what to do with them.
They come to us and we help getthem on a track.
That is not how we met.
Um, we we actually met becauseyou are a mom with a with a
story about recovery and, um,we've gotten to work together,
uh, with you and your family andnavigating some difficult stuff
, and I think that that'sprobably the story that you want
(03:03):
to talk about.
Uh, I wanted to know, you knowa lot of people.
When they come to us, they don'tknow what a therapeutic
consultant is.
They're like what is that?
I'm like?
Well, I'll try to explain it toyou.
It's a bit of a niche thing.
Most people don't know whatthey are until they need one,
and then you know, at least webelieve that it becomes a pretty
(03:23):
invaluable resource to havenavigating what is ultimately a
complex journey.
What was your experience?
You know, having this issue andbeing introduced to a
therapeutic consultant andhaving to navigate, you know, a
family issue that was near anddear to your heart, and how,
(03:44):
like, how was that for you, likewhere did as a parent, like
sometimes they come from allkinds of places First of all,
how did you even learn aboutwhat a therapeutic consultant
was?
And then how was it kind ofwalking into that world?
I'm curious to know, because Idon't get to ask this question a
lot.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I mean, I'll tell you that really the
interesting thing is, when youhave a family member,
particularly a child with a,with a critical mental health
issue, it's terrifying.
I mean, you know the old sayingyou're only as happy as your
least happy child.
And you know when, when they'rereally suffering, there's
there's nothing you wouldn't dofor them.
(04:20):
There's nothing you wouldn't dofor them.
And you're you know.
So you start with sendingemails out to all your friends
and you say you know, do youknow a psychologist?
Do you know a psychiatrist?
You know, and then you try tofind the best person you can
find, not knowing whether that'sthe right person for your child
(04:43):
or not.
You, you know, you flail around, you spend a lot of money, you
wait.
Oftentimes you have to waitmonths to get your first
appointment and your person isin critical shape and you're
trying to emotionally managethat.
Actually, one of the treatmentplaces that my son went to, when
(05:04):
I was interviewing, or maybebeing interviewed by the
director, he said to me you know, are you a helicopter parent or
a lawnmower parent?
And I was like, well, I knowwhat a helicopter parent is and
I don't float around him.
And I was like, what is alawnmower parent.
He said it's somebody who mowsdown all the problems for him
ahead of time.
And I was like, yeah, that'sexactly what I've been doing.
(05:27):
But you know when they're, whenthey're struggling, like that
it's, you'll do anything and andyou know so for example, if
your child has a substance abuseproblem and you don't know any
differently, you like, what'sthe closest place in town that
handles substance abuse, what'sthe most expensive place for
(05:50):
substance abuse?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Because you assume, like that must be the best place
that's going to place that'sgoing to give me the best care,
right.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Right and.
And so you know, unfortunately,like, I know I'm on your
podcast but like the best thingthat ever happened to our family
was being introduced to you andit, it was such a game changer.
And when you say, like, whatdoes a therapeutic consultant do
?
I can, I can answer thatquestion, because it's the
(06:22):
difference between it's kind oflike you know, like you have a
heart problem and you say, ohwell, I'll go to a heart doctor.
Well, like.
And so you ask your friends,what heart doctor should I go to
?
Like, you know, none of usreally know who's good and who's
not good at what they do.
I mean, so what a therapeuticconsultant does is not only do
(06:45):
they know who's really good atwhat they do, but they also know
they they match you and matchyour child with just the right
program.
So there's, how many substanceabuse programs are there in
Florida alone?
What hundreds of them.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
There's hundreds.
Yeah, I mean we might pop overa thousand, honestly.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So, you know, figuring out, like, what's the
right one for for my person and,um, you know, when we first met
, it was.
You know that we were talkingabout this off camera a little
while ago.
It's a chemistry thing, youknow, like it's.
This is the off camera a littlewhile ago.
(07:29):
It's a chemistry thing, youknow, like it's.
This is the.
This is like your.
I'll use my Star Wars Yoda, youknow, like you know, this is
the person who's going to guideyou in your spiritual journey to
manage everything that you'vegot to manage and it's going to,
you know, help navigate what isjust very complex and very
distressing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, I.
You know, mental health is sucha I'd like to say it's not an
exact science, and that'slargely true.
That doesn't mean it can't bedone.
Well, yeah, it's really trickythough.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I mean and that's the thing, is that.
So the first program that yourecommended for our son, the one
that he went to, was, you know,our son had severe clinical
depression and anxiety, hadclinical, severe clinical
(08:22):
depression and anxiety, andthere was some medical stuff, so
you guys were chasing themedical dragon for the longest
time.
Yeah, so, which which turnedout to be psychosomatic.
So he was having somaticsymptoms, terrible stomach
problems and in fact we actuallywent to.
(08:47):
Connecticut during COVID and hehad surgery for this GI stuff
right, did not do anything.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So that was that, which is what happens if you
start turning down wrong roads,like you start turning down
treatment roads that areineffective and cost a lot of
money and take time, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Exactly so.
You know, it was kind of yearsin the making once we realized
it really was predominantlymental health, and that's the
other thing is like, you know,the other part that's
interesting is how oftensubstance abuse pairs with
mental health issues.
But you know, if you, if youlead with the wrong thing, I
(09:21):
don't think you fix the problem.
And so, you know, our son hadsome substance abuse issues as
well, but it took resolving themental health issues and and it
completely cleared up thesubstance abuse issues for us
and I, which I, I, I guess iskind of remarkable.
But you know, you did a lot ofcoaching along the way and one
(09:46):
of the things we talked aboutjust a few minutes ago that, you
know, is kind of a surpriseside effect.
I mean, I thought I was hiringyou to.
You know, because you travelall over the country, you look
at all different kinds ofprograms and you know kind of
what's exactly like.
Then you analyze the person andyou say of what's exactly like.
Then you analyze the person andyou say what's exactly right
(10:07):
for this person and um, and thatgave me just a ton of comfort
to to know that, um, but youknow what I didn't know I was
going to need and and relied on,maybe even more heavily than
the coaching you were doing forour son was coaching me through
the process and helping you know, help, help, helping me manage.
(10:30):
You know, is this the rightthing?
What should I be doing now?
Like know when to hold them,know when to fold them of as a
segue, because of that it mademe realize how important that
kind of coaching is for anybodywho has the purse strings and in
(10:53):
my world, in the trust world,how important bringing in a
therapeutic consultant is whenthere's any beneficiary who has
mental health issues, becausesometimes you were telling me, I
want you to do nothing, don'tgive him any money, don't do
anything, Just let him work itout.
(11:14):
And a trustee unless they arekind of absolved from that
responsibility in the trustdocument, you know that's that
might be liability for them.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Right.
And so it's part of why ifthey're being responsible, you
know their fiduciaryresponsibilities are to give
this person the money when theyask for it.
Except what they're doing is,you know, tearing their life
apart with the money thatthey're receiving.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Right, right.
So you know it's, it's, it'snot.
Not only did you, you know,help our family, but you know it
.
It opened my eyes to you knowthings that I could integrate
into my practice and and howimportant that was and how you
(12:06):
know we have a very prettyrobust system for people who
have medical issues like specialneeds, trust, you know right,
Somebody who has MS orParkinson's or you know whatever
.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And they're aging and you know they've had plenty of
time to kind of mull over whatthey feel the needs are going to
be right.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Well, but there is also, you know, special needs.
Trusts are predominantly usedto make sure that you don't
spend money on things, thatthere's a government program
that would pay for things, andthat's mostly how they're
designed.
And you know, designing a trustfor someone who has a mental
health issue, it's justcompletely different.
(12:48):
And I think if you, you knowyou've got to be careful you
don't go to somebody who's justgoing to pull something off the
shelf and say, oh, your childhas a problem, here's a special
needs trust and that's just notgoing to take you where you need
to go, I think.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, yeah, do you?
I mean, I'm curious.
You know we've we've talkedabout the personal experience
that you've had navigating thisstuff and having somebody can be
like, look, you know, I wantyou to, I want you to.
Here's where I want you tostand still, here's where I want
you to pick it up.
Here's, you know, the, the, thephases of care look different
(13:25):
In the beginning.
They look this way.
As the person moves intransition, they may move this
way.
So it's not just a one equationkind of thing, and I wouldn't
walk into a court or I wouldn'twalk into the need for a special
needs trust and not seek youout and be like, hey, how do you
?
You know, what does thisdocument need to look like?
(13:46):
Look at, and I've seen and hadclients, certainly before, that
they'll try to Google consulttheir way through therapeutic
consulting or they'll try toGoogle consultant their way
through legal processes and I'mlike get an attorney, here's one
, please call them.
And you know not being able toknow what the answer is, because
there's a script right makeswriting it down in a document
(14:11):
challenging.
You know, um, and I would saythat when you work with the
clients that you're working with, have you had the opportunity
to work with individuals who arein a similar situation to the
one you had, or have a loved onethat's suffering from mental
illness?
What's the language that you'relike?
How is this working in thelanguage world that you live in?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, I mean the other part is.
So the thing I had notmentioned is I have a nephew who
developed schizophrenia in hisearly 20s, developed
schizophrenia in his early 20sand you know that's, that's how
I got introduced into thetherapeutic consultant world.
But you know, that's a that's awhole different animal.
(14:54):
But I worked with with mysister's family on, probably
over a period of six months orso, on designing the right trust
for for their family.
I, you know it's funny causewe've we've got, we've got AI
and it's, it's, it's here andit's coming in and and everybody
(15:16):
says, oh my gosh, it's, it'sgoing to take over my job.
I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I don't worry.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I don't worry about that because I think that really
, you know, it's not even somuch the words on the page.
Really, the most importantthing is the individual design
of the right estate plan for thefamily, because it's not just,
you know, you're not justsetting up a trust, for usually
not just setting up a trust foryour child who has mental health
(15:43):
issues, just setting up a trustfor usually not just setting up
a trust for your child who hasmental health issues, you also
have other children and theyhave felt neglected and ignored
and they felt like all theresources have gone to the one
who's struggling.
And so, you know, trying tonavigate how to make sure that
(16:04):
there is some family that staysintact when the parents are gone
and you meet the needs of theperson who has the mental health
issues and they're not dumpedon the other children.
There's an art to all of thatand it's not a one size fits all
.
There's an art to all of thatand it's not.
(16:25):
It's not a one size fits all.
You can't, I can't, you know.
If you just said, generically,what kind of trust should I do
if I have a child who has amental health issue, I can tell
you some things I think youshould definitely have included,
but really the most importantthing is getting to know the
family, getting to know who the,what the family's resources
look like.
Are there enough funds so thateverybody can be treated equally
(16:47):
?
Or, you know, are you going tohave to tell somebody some bad
news, that you know that they'regoing to get something less of
a share, and do you tell themthat?
You know?
I'm an advocate for tellingthem that ahead of time and not
letting them get the bigsurprise when mom and dad both
die.
And then, oh, you know, threequarters of the money is going
into a trust for Bobby and thethree of you are going to share
(17:11):
the other quarter and, you know,maybe have enough to go on a
vacation, and that's, I mean,that's just a tough pill to
swallow.
So so there's, you know there'sthat as well.
But you know, regarding thesorry, regarding the you know
(17:31):
the provisions.
I think, like I I draft intoevery trust that the trustee is
specifically authorized to usetrust funds to hire a
therapeutic consultant andspecifically authorized to
follow the direction of thetherapeutic consultant when
making distribution decisions,and so that takes them off the
(17:55):
hook for somebody saying youknow, I want to go to the Betty
Ford Clinic when they're justnot doing what they need to be
doing Right and the.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Betty Ford clinic is probably not the right treatment
.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
You know, if they suffer from schizophrenia, right
, you know right Exactly, and soyou know I also.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I also think that you should.
You know, picking the righttrustee is really tricky,
particularly if somebody youknow schizophrenia is one of the
hardest ones, because they gooff their meds and then you know
off to the races.
Yeah, and you know the barrageof things you know you have to
be careful about.
Like, ideally, you want to havean individual serve as a
(18:41):
trustee, like somebody that theycan have a relationship with.
But if you pick an individual,you better protect them in the
trust document, because they'regoing to have to set boundaries
in order to manage thatbeneficiary over a period of
time.
They've got to layer somemental health professionals into
(19:05):
the mix and you have to givesome buffer.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Well, we were down in Florida together presenting the
ATO conference, the Florida Baris Attorney Trust Officer
Conference, and part of what Iwas doing there was like okay,
first of all, we got to matchthe diagnosis to the treatment
you know which so many peopledon't know how to do and unless
(19:32):
you're a therapeuticprofessional and, frankly,
unless you do what we do, whichis travel and see things, it can
be very challenging.
I mean, even psychiatrists don'tknow where to turn.
You know what's close to me,you know and what's the most
expensive, you know.
They ask the same questions andthey're technically
professionals, but, moreimportantly, the when we work
(19:53):
with trusts um, cause I had a Ihad a um an executive director
of a of a pool trust that wasthere with me presenting
director of a of a pool trustthat was there with me
presenting one of the thingsthat we do is look at the trust
but also look at the.
You know how much is in thistrust, you know this person and
we, you know we talked aboutthis this particular case where
(20:15):
it's like this individual reallyliked treatment you know what I
mean.
Like they would spend everydollar they had on treatment, if
you let them, and would oftenjust kind of come out and be
like, oh, I need this veryexpensive this or this very I
want to go here and so on and soforth.
It's like, look, if you do andI had to be the bearer of bad
tidings, you know it's like,look, if you do all this, this
(20:37):
is the amount of money you haveand that's going to use a third
of it amount of money you haveand that's going to use a third
of it and you want to be able touse this money for the rest of
your life.
I don't think that you want tospend that this way.
I think there are other ways todo it.
So we, we take on the wholebeing being responsible to the
fiduciary um of the trust asseriously as the attorneys that
(20:59):
wrote the agreement, asseriously as the trustee, the
trust manager, if they'reinvolved.
And you know, as a result, we'vegot a lot of attorneys and
trust entities that have foundus and been like we, like these
guys, they've got it, they'rewatching the dollar, you know
(21:19):
honestly, that's really a bigdeal and you want this to last
the rest of their lives and then, like you say, you don't want
it to dump on the other siblingsand the other family members
that may be involved, and Ithink there's a lot of
consultants out there.
But back to this part where it'sa personality match, but it's
also a competency match, like ifyou were to, if you as a parent
(21:40):
and knowing now what you know,both from a lot of different
sides, as a person with personalexperience, not only your
direct family, but you knowother family members and your
sister, being a person who's anattorney and helping families
with complex matters such asthis, a speaker who's going to
go, you know, go down toCharleston soon and go speak for
the Silver Hill Conference,silver Hill Hospital Association
(22:03):
Conference, and you are anhonored and distinguished
speaker for them, which I'mexcited to go see myself.
But what would you say that aperson should look for in this
equation?
Like, what makes a good in youreyes?
I think I know, but what inyour eyes?
What makes a good therapeuticconsultant?
What are the things that cometo you when you're?
If you're going to say, hey, ifyou're going to find a
(22:23):
therapeutic consultant.
Make sure that they know thesethings.
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's tough because it's that whole you don't know
what you don't know, I mean.
I would say you call Todd, justcall Todd.
But you know, some of it islike there's so much art to it.
(22:54):
I don't know how you evaluate atherapeutic consultant
consultant, because I mean, Iwas like you said, I was
impressed by the fact that youspend what probably a third of
your time just traveling todifferent programs all around
the country.
Like, you don't get paid forthat, you get.
(23:19):
I mean, that's the researchthat you're continually doing
and you're using that as thebasis.
You and your team are lookingat programs and going and seeing
them and again and again andmaking sure they're still
working, um and andunderstanding kind of the the
differences between them.
So, for example, one of thethings I was going to say is you
(23:41):
know, you, you recommended awilderness program for for our
son.
But there's, yeah, how manydozens of wilderness programs
are there.
It's not enough to just go do awilderness program.
You, you found one that was theright match for our son, who
was not violent.
(24:01):
He was not he, he didn't act up, he didn't have those kind of
loud, large kinds of problems.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
He isolated and imploded on himself a lot.
You know that was the strugglethat he had.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, and so you know , like the, the program you sent
, you sent him to, was, you know, I always refer to it as the
place for lost boys because youknow, like they were all kind of
quiet and and if you and if youput a lost boy in a program
where there's people who areacting up all the time, there's
the loud boys, you know they'regoing to get no treatment, and
(24:37):
so he.
So you found just the rightplace for him and and you know,
a place where he was not goingto get.
He wasn't going to be able toget ignored or let himself be
ignored and not do the work thathe needed to do.
And if he had been at anotherplace he probably would not have
(25:00):
made the progress that he did.
So you know, going back to howdo you pick a therapeutic
consultant, I think I'd want toknow that they travel like you
do and that they're that eitheryou or your team are evaluating
programs over and over again.
Like you didn't just see it,and you know the last time you
saw it was in the 80s, you know.
So that that was kind of a bigdeal.
The personality match, I think,is really important.
(25:22):
I never felt like you didn'ttake the time that I needed to
help me work things through, andI know that everybody works a
little bit different.
I'm sure I took more of yourtime than a lot of other people
do because you know you were mylifeline and you know, um, I, I
(25:46):
needed to make sure that that Ihad you know that that I was
looking at everything that Ineeded to look at and you were
patient with that, and so thatwas really important.
But, um, I mean I think it alsoyou want to make sure that you
know they have a good reputationin the community.
I think you can.
(26:06):
The hard part is, if you askfacilities, are you going to get
a good referral or not?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So you tell me, how do you find?
If you don't have a Virgil or aTodd already, how do you find?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, you know, I've talked about this a little bit
and I'm getting ready to speakon it again for an organization
of which I'm a member, and soone of the things I think that
you look for in a consultant isthat they've got some
professional memberships undertheir belt, like they belong to
an organization like the TCA orthe IACA.
(26:44):
They're organizations forconsultants and if you belong to
them you have some assurancethat they've got training,
they've got some level of eithermentoring or colleagues,
they've got a network ofcolleagues that where you, you
know, there is some bear ofaccountability that happens
(27:06):
there.
But, more importantly, they'llalso have, you know, pcs
standards.
One of the standards is that wehave to travel and we visit
programs and there's a certainnumber that we see.
And then, you know, there'sethical guidelines which include
not, you know, you know takingkickbacks from programs for
referrals you know, there's not.
There's not these sticky andmessy kinds of arrangements
(27:28):
they've got with different,different programs in different
areas or they're funnelingeverything to one place.
There's also there's a fair.
There's a number of consultantsout there and the the world is
changing so you're seeing adifferent kind of consultant
arise.
But you've got moms that haveturned into consultants because
(27:49):
they went through an experienceof having their child go to
wilderness or whatever.
Their repertoire tends to befairly narrow, right.
So you know they're notclinicians and they haven't done
some kind of professionaltraining.
You know, if you were a personwho turned into it let's say you
(28:10):
turned into a consultant you'rean attorney, you've had a lot
of experience with programs.
If you wanted to pick up doingwhat I was doing, I would say
that you would add some clinicaltraining to it.
You would add travel to it,seeing programs and forging a
network out of those things, andyou might make a very good
consultant because you've alsogot a level of professional
training on a foundation that itcan stand on that would allow
(28:32):
you to be able to make that moveor jump.
There are a lot of moms outthere that just went and did it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah that's.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
that was an early consultant thing because there
weren't consultants and then yougot organizations and so on.
So we've got these standards.
Now the other thing that youthat you look for, that I've had
to provide plenty of and I'mgrateful that you've even
provided for me is that you'vegot that consultant has people
who are willing to speak totheir experience.
(29:01):
You know, if you got anybodythat you've worked with before
that would be willing to speakwith me, so just checking off
some of those boxes can get you,get you fairly far down the
road.
One of the particularcomponents of my team that I've
built specifically that way isthat everybody in my team has
(29:22):
experience running programs.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, that's invaluable.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
They've been on the functional operational end.
So they can walk into a programand know what it looks like.
It's like, oh, staff ratios andthis, and kitchen was dirty,
and you know we can look at aprogram quickly and know whether
or not it's it's running right,honestly, and then how much?
And the one question I get?
(29:47):
There's two questions that Iget from families.
One of them is you know, do youget any kickbacks?
Great question to ask.
The other one is do you do thisfor a living?
Is this all you do?
Is this what you do?
And it's like yep, this is allwe do.
You know, this is, this is ourjob.
It's not something we're doingon the side of something else
(30:08):
that we do, and I think that's athat's.
That's a pretty good question.
Actually, cause this, you needto be all in on this thing.
You can't.
This is not a side project.
It's too complicated.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
You don't have a dry cleaners on the network Right
right right.
Well, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
I've got a daycare in the basement.
Would you add anything to thatlist Like would you add anything
in your mind?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Well, I mean, I think you know, like I said, the
thing that's a little bit of adouble-edged sword is do you go
to a program to find atherapeutic consultant or do you
find one independently?
You know, one of one of thethings that you recommended very
(31:11):
strongly was, you know, whenthey've gone through a program
like that, they can't come backhome because they're just going
to slip back into where they areand so they need to go into
some sort of transitionalprogram, and so the facility was
, you know, was advocating that,but they, they were also, you
know, kind, I think they werekind of providing names of
therapeutic consultants and I, Iwasn't, I was glad, I was glad
I already had somebody that was,you know, kind of guiding us by
(31:32):
the time we were there.
But I don't know, I mean,what's your opinion about that?
I'm not.
I mean, are they the bestpeople to do that?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Are they not the best people to do that?
Um, it's, you know.
We certainly have programswhere our name is on the list,
you know, and they'll mention usalong with three others.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And they want to try not to be overly exclusive with
a consultant that sort of thingif they're practicing the way
that they're practicing.
But you know as much as youwant to avoid these ethical
entanglements.
There is a bit of a reciprocalnature you know Sure, not a
referral consultant that theyhaven't worked with right.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yeah, yeah, and same with me, with financial advisors
.
There are people that they youknow, they know what I do, they
get what I do.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
They, you know, they know what I do.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
They get what I do yeah.
They, you know, they know whatto expect and they know I'll do
the handholding.
I need to do and they can, butit can overcycle, you know, as
in you know Maybe, if they'reusing a specific consultant who
refers to them, is thatconsultant?
Is that consultant channeledfor individuals that tend to go
to that kind of program, whichmeans, is their experience broad
(32:48):
enough to handle a wide rangeof issues?
So you will get consultantsthat you know.
Kind of all they do is refer to, say, wilderness, for example.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
And as much background as I have in
wilderness and everything elselike.
My master's degree is inoutdoor education, for heaven's
sake, but I don't send people towilderness that much.
So for me to make a decision topick a wilderness program like
the one that your son went towas not a lightly considered
(33:22):
deal.
You know, like this has got tofit, this has got to be
something that works for thisfamily and works for you know,
um, him and his journey andeverything else.
And then, on the other side ofthat, like we also you, along
with many others okay, we'regoing to step down from this
residential environment, whichwas expensive and insurance
(33:48):
didn't cover much of it, right?
What happens after?
Well, we're talking about sixto nine months worth of doing
some other kind of transitionalprogramming, and you could pay.
You could pay three grand, youcould pay six grand a month, you
could pay 15.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Which one of these you know, like what fits the
budget, you know what stillmaintains a level of quality
that we think is going to getthere.
Budget, you know what stillmaintains a level of quality
that we think is going to getthere.
And and then finally I thinkthis is probably speaks to some
of the stuff that we're talkingabout is your consultant
sticking around and walking withyou through the process,
because it didn't come withouttrips, it didn't come without
(34:27):
little stumbles.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh my gosh.
I mean I, I you know, maybe youneed to raise your rates, but
but I will tell you that, thatyou know, with all it I mean it
was.
It was a ridiculous amount ofmoney that we spent on this
whole process.
The best bang for our buck waspaying for you.
(34:51):
The absolute best bang for ourbuck was, you know, was the
guidance we got from you.
If you'll recall you, evenbecause of your relationships,
you even negotiated a littlediscount on one of the programs.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Which I do regularly.
It's like hey these guys aregoing to be here for a little
while.
Why don't we knock off thedollar a little bit and yeah,
you got to ask um so, yeah, thatwas that.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That was great too.
But, um, but by by far, and, ifyou'll recall, I, I, I think
maybe we hung on a little bitlonger and you're like no, no, I
don't think you need us anymore.
And I was like no, no, we'regoing to do another six months
and we're going to do thisbecause I need to make sure that
if we have got a problem, youknow.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Well, yeah.
I mean, we were I mean just likeI would say that nothing that
happened for you is unusual inall honesty, like there are so
many parents out there who areyou know they're going to take a
step, but it's.
Hey, I'm not getting the rightamount of communication.
Hey, I don't think thisclinician is the right one for
(36:02):
my kid.
Maybe we need to do a switch upor maybe he's looking at making
this move.
What do you think about this?
And are there resources in thearea where he wants to go, like
all that stuff?
It's not just oh, it's got aprogram, see, I mean there used
to be, there's, a consultantworld that used to just do
placement, um, and there arestill a few out there, but like
to be able to continue with thatperson while this process goes
(36:24):
on is it's critical Um?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
yeah, it, it, it is, and.
And the other thing that youimpressed upon us was how
important it was to to hit ithard and resolve it.
You know, to get him treatmentas early as possible, because
the amount of time that someonestruggles with mental health
issues, the longer it goes, theless likely you're really going
(36:49):
to resolve them.
And so I mean that was that wasreally important and you know it
.
It for I'll tell you the otherthing, and maybe some of your
families will relate to this youknow when you're, when, when
it's your child and they starthaving mental health issues, it
you know, you, you kind of havea plan.
Like you're, you you've got ahigh school plan and a elective
(37:13):
plan and an extracurricularactivities plan and they're
building a resume for college.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
College plan right.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, like this stuff is.
You know you really don't wantto disrupt their progress.
You know in the regular worldtheir progress you know in in
the regular world but ultimately, when, when it's critical like
this, you have to just put onthe brakes.
And that was really hard for meto say like, oh, we're just
(37:44):
going to take you out of schooland you won't be going to school
and you won't be graduating.
And you know and it maybesounds shallow, but you know
hearing from all these parentsthat were, you know that your
child was going to school withand you know what superstars
their kids were and you knowlike kind of feeling like you
(38:09):
know like feeling like there'skind of a death in the family to
a certain extent when you'remanaging this and it's just so
critical and so emotional.
Um, and again, you coached usthrough a lot of that stuff too.
On that, you know, like I said,maybe, maybe I'm shallow, but
(38:30):
that was hard.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
You're not alone.
Um and I think it's a hardmessage to hear Um, I I take a
lot of care in giving thatmessage to family Like, hey, you
know I, and the truth is, isthat as a, as an adult, you'd
say this to any?
You'd say this to any like lateteen, 20 year old, right, it's
like, look, you got so much ofyour life ahead of you.
It's time to do this.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Just because you're not on the same timeline as
everybody else that you grew upwith doesn't mean really
anything.
You can say that if you're theperson who's standing out and
you're not the mom or the dad,right, right, but when?
It's your child you're likewhat, what?
do you mean yeah, just wait,it's just three more months
(39:18):
until they graduate, like couldwe just get there and then he
can kind of take a gap year anddeal with his mental health
issues, like no, well, it's likeI've seen families try to do
that but it didn't work, theyfailed, and it was another year.
And then if the condition gotworse and you know and I try to
acknowledge my own bias Like Isee the, I see the cases when
they get serious, so we have abias towards seeing those things
and I try to acknowledge it.
If there's a less interventiveway, great.
(39:41):
And to circle it back to someof the trust stuff, this is why
trying to put all this stuffdown in language, put all the
language of that into a trust,to have it follow something,
would be very, very, I mean,it's impossible really, which is
why you're like be willing toget another professional
involved when these thingshappen.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, yeah, well, and you want to have a trust
protector.
You want to have, like you know, maybe you do have a child or
another family member that canmonitor the trustee.
But you've got to give thetrustee just tons of discretion.
You, frankly, have to probablyindemnify them because, more
than likely, they're going tohave a beneficiary who you know
(40:23):
is because of their mentalhealth issues, they're going to,
you know, they're going to goafter them, and so you have to.
You know, you have to kind ofgive them, you've got to give
them a lot of power and a lot ofcontrol.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, because they're not going to be reasonable
about it.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
No.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And so you need an outside person who can say, yeah
, trustee's doing what they needto do, be quiet, I'm not doing
anything.
But you also need them to beable to say they've gotten a
little confused about whosemoney this is.
You know, they're jetting offto San Tropez to have a
conference on mental healthissues, and that's not really
(41:02):
what this money is for.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
They've hired a curandero down in Costa Rica and
they're going to do ayahuascafor several weeks and that's
going to resolve their issues.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
They're going to come with you to the yoga retreat in
Thailand.
Um, yeah, so, uh, you know,like that's, that's, that's an
important part.
Um, I, I, I do think that youhave to, you know, once again,
the most important thing is isgive them authority to say no
when, when they're they're beingdirected by a mental health
professional or a therapeuticconsultant about.
You know when to do things.
And then you know, once again,I think that you, I don't know a
(41:47):
ton of professional, I mean ofof corporate trustees that are
equipped, you know, equipped forthis day-to-day stuff.
I know that the people with thepool trust in North Carolina,
you know they seemed reallyterrific.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, do that, but a lot of them will turn down stuff
when they see mental illness.
You know you've got banks withthese kinds of you know services
and they see mental illness, sothey see something complicated
and they turn it down.
Yeah, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah.
So you know that's the bigchallenge is, you know, working
with the family and helping themfigure out who you know who
really makes the most sense.
On, you know, from our ethicalperspective.
On, you know, from our ethicalperspective, like some, on some
(42:40):
rare occasions I will serve astrustee, but I spend a lot of
time with families that ask meto like, come on, there's
somebody else, who else can wepick?
Because I don't ever want, Idon't ever want a client to feel
like I'm trying to feather mynest, like I'm, you know, trying
to use my position to have youknow to, to take advantage of
somebody else.
And so you know, kind of backto when you're, when you're
(43:03):
talking to a trust lawyer, I,you know, how do you pick a good
trust lawyer, kind of is theother side of things, and I
think the big part of that islike Go, laura is the other side
of things, and I think the bigpart of that is like Go.
Laura.
Well, just make sure they'relistening to you.
Like, when they should beasking you a lot of questions
they should be educating youabout, like, okay, if you do
(43:27):
this, this is how this will work.
I'll walk you down the streetwith this and if you put this
provision in, this is how it'sgoing to work.
Or if you have this kind ofperson, these are the problems
that you're going to have,because you know you're going to
need to really make.
You want to make the decisionsyourself, you want to understand
how they work and when you needto make changes.
(43:47):
And if your lawyer doesn't takethe time with you to really
educate you and listen to youand they say you know, here's my
cookie cutter thing, here's aspecial needs trust, there you
go, ten thousand dollars, youknow, like that, you can, once
again, you can spend a lot ofmoney with a lawyer and you
won't necessarily get very muchof a result.
(44:09):
Yeah, the thing that's right,that's right for your family
particularly.
You know it's a lot harder when, when somebody has a family
member with a mental healthissue, it's not, it's not cookie
cutter and you can't you reallycan't Google your way through
it.
I mean, you might be able toGoogle your way through drawing
up the document If, once youfigure it out, you've really
done the hard work and figuredout what's going to make sense.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
But I'd still get a lawyer to look at it.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
I still wouldn't do it on my own.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I mean no, honestly, so I get.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I get a lot of those after somebody dies and I'm like
, well, you know it reallydidn't work the way you thought
it did, but you know this iswhat you got now.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
So yeah, yeah, penny, wise pound, foolish you know
what I mean, like that's what?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
that's the thing that Todd and his team will act as a
consultant to the trustee andthat you know I've recommended
(45:21):
that to all of my corporatetrustee friends down here in
Florida.
You know, like Todd said, hespoke at the ATO conference and
I think you're still gettingcalls from professional trustees
about just kind of being eitherbeing on retainer with them or
working specifically with aspecific trust and specific
(45:42):
beneficiary.
But you know, if you don't havesomebody on staff, I think you
need to have that resource.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
And one call.
We did get had a case with themom and, you know, with a child
who needed care and was in akind of a bad situation, but the
child was.
You know we cover a lot ofterritory in terms of people
that we work with, but thisindividual was just, you know,
they were on the end of the carespectrum that we don't spend a
lot of time on and is a worldunto itself.
(46:09):
It was a individual with DDchallenges, you know, an IQ
below 70.
That's our limit, so we referit out.
It's like, hey, here's aconsultant who does this.
This is not us.
And if you're working with anattorney, if you're working with
a consultant of any kind, theability to refer out to other
(46:29):
professionals is also a markerof a good company, in my opinion
.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So anyway, so like, if somebody comes and wants to
do Medicaid planning, that's youknow, out to other
professionals is also a markerof a good company, in my opinion
.
so yeah, anyway, but so like, ifsomebody comes and wants to do
medicaid planning, that's youknow, that's not what I don't do
that sorry, yeah, yeah so Imake sure that they you know,
they know a couple of peoplethat that I've learned and
trusted over time and you knowthat, yeah, you, you want to
make sure that, whateverprofessional you go to, like
(46:54):
they're, they're willing to getyou to the right place.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Yeah, absolutely Well , I'm excited's, as usual, great
to see you and it's been lovelyto have you on your show.
Thank you for being willing totalk about you, know your
(47:19):
experiences and everything elseand be vulnerable as a mom.
I really appreciate you andappreciate the work that you're
doing.
I know that we're in the themutual appreciation club, so I'm
I'm I'm always glad about thatand that we continue to share
with each other personally andprofessionally.
But this has been Head InsideMental Health with Todd
(47:39):
Weatherly.
This has been Laura Sundberg onthe show.
We look forward to seeing youall next time.
Take care, thanks, laura.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Thank you.
Outro Music I found the illegalillegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
(49:15):
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal.
Thank you, I'm so lonely andlost in here.
Bye, I feel so lonely and lostin here.
(49:38):
I need to find my way home.
I feel so lonely and lost inhere.
I need to find my way home.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Find my way home.
Well folks.
Thanks for joining us on HeadInside Mental Health, featuring
conversations about mentalhealth and substance use
treatment, with experts fromacross the country sharing their
thoughts and insights on theworld of behavioral health care,
broadcasting on WPBM 1037, thevoice of Asheville Independent
commercial free radio.
I'm Todd Weatherly, your host,therapeutic consultant and
(00:22):
behavioral health expert, andtoday joining me.
I'm excited to have a trustedlegal colleague and, I would say
, a personal friend of minethese days mom with her own
family story about recoveryLaura Kristen Sundberg.
Laura is an attorney down therein Florida with a robust legal
career spanning over threedecades.
(00:44):
She's established herself as aprominent figure in the trust
and estates field, which is aplace that we do a lot of
interface With a JD fromVanderbilt University.
Her decades of experience isespecially beneficial to trust
and estate beneficiaries andfiduciaries, covering areas such
as estate and trustadministration, capacity issues,
dispute resolution, advancedtax and estate planning and
(01:06):
navigating stuff with clientswhen things get hairy.
Her professional achievementshave been acknowledged by her
peers in the legal community.
She is a board certified by theFlorida Bar and Wills Trace
Trust and Estates.
Her expertise has beenrecognized consistently by
groups such as Best Lawyers ofAmerica, florida's Legal Elite
and Florida's Super Lawyers.
Beyond her practice, laura hasdedicated legal education and
(01:29):
mentorship.
She has frequently lectured atthe Florida Bar Seminar she even
invited me to do the same thingat one point the Florida Trust
School and the Florida JudicialCollege, and has authored
numerous publications, includingchapters administering trust in
Florida published by theFlorida Bar.
She also serves as a mediatorand been hired as an expert
witness on cases involvingcomplex trust estate tax issues,
(01:50):
contributing her expertise toconflict resolution in her field
.
She has led education in thepractice of law in Florida as a
past chair of the Florida BarCLE Committee and currently is
the vice chair of both theCommunications Committee and the
Professionalism and EthicsCommittee of Real Property
Probate Trust Law Section of theFlorida Bar, where she remains
(02:12):
an influential longtime memberof the section's executive
council.
Laura, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
In other words, I'm old.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
No, well, you know, we work with a lot of folks that
are, as you already know, thatare dealing with a beneficiary
and that beneficiary suffersfrom mental health challenges or
substance use challenges or acombination of the two, and the
trust doesn't know what to dowith them and the family doesn't
(02:42):
know what to do with them.
They come to us and we help getthem on a track.
That is not how we met.
Um, we we actually met becauseyou are a mom with a with a
story about recovery and, um,we've gotten to work together,
uh, with you and your family andnavigating some difficult stuff
, and I think that that'sprobably the story that you want
(03:03):
to talk about.
Uh, I wanted to know, you knowa lot of people.
When they come to us, they don'tknow what a therapeutic
consultant is.
They're like what is that?
I'm like?
Well, I'll try to explain it toyou.
It's a bit of a niche thing.
Most people don't know whatthey are until they need one,
and then you know, at least webelieve that it becomes a pretty
(03:23):
invaluable resource to havenavigating what is ultimately a
complex journey.
What was your experience?
You know, having this issue andbeing introduced to a
therapeutic consultant andhaving to navigate, you know, a
family issue that was near anddear to your heart, and how,
(03:44):
like, how was that for you, likewhere did as a parent, like
sometimes they come from allkinds of places First of all,
how did you even learn aboutwhat a therapeutic consultant
was?
And then how was it kind ofwalking into that world?
I'm curious to know, because Idon't get to ask this question a
lot.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I mean, I'll tell you that really the
interesting thing is, when youhave a family member,
particularly a child with a,with a critical mental health
issue, it's terrifying.
I mean, you know the old sayingyou're only as happy as your
least happy child.
And you know when, when they'rereally suffering, there's
there's nothing you wouldn't dofor them.
(04:20):
There's nothing you wouldn't dofor them.
And you're you know.
So you start with sendingemails out to all your friends
and you say you know, do youknow a psychologist?
Do you know a psychiatrist?
You know, and then you try tofind the best person you can
find, not knowing whether that'sthe right person for your child
(04:43):
or not.
You, you know, you flail around, you spend a lot of money, you
wait.
Oftentimes you have to waitmonths to get your first
appointment and your person isin critical shape and you're
trying to emotionally managethat.
Actually, one of the treatmentplaces that my son went to, when
(05:04):
I was interviewing, or maybebeing interviewed by the
director, he said to me you know, are you a helicopter parent or
a lawnmower parent?
And I was like, well, I knowwhat a helicopter parent is and
I don't float around him.
And I was like, what is alawnmower parent.
He said it's somebody who mowsdown all the problems for him
ahead of time.
And I was like, yeah, that'sexactly what I've been doing.
(05:27):
But you know when they're, whenthey're struggling, like that
it's, you'll do anything and andyou know so for example, if
your child has a substance abuseproblem and you don't know any
differently, you like, what'sthe closest place in town that
handles substance abuse, what'sthe most expensive place for
(05:50):
substance abuse?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Because you assume, like that must be the best place
that's going to place that'sgoing to give me the best care,
right.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Right and.
And so you know, unfortunately,like, I know I'm on your
podcast but like the best thingthat ever happened to our family
was being introduced to you andit, it was such a game changer.
And when you say, like, whatdoes a therapeutic consultant do
?
I can, I can answer thatquestion, because it's the
(06:22):
difference between it's kind oflike you know, like you have a
heart problem and you say, ohwell, I'll go to a heart doctor.
Well, like.
And so you ask your friends,what heart doctor should I go to
?
Like, you know, none of usreally know who's good and who's
not good at what they do.
I mean, so what a therapeuticconsultant does is not only do
(06:45):
they know who's really good atwhat they do, but they also know
they they match you and matchyour child with just the right
program.
So there's, how many substanceabuse programs are there in
Florida alone?
What hundreds of them.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
There's hundreds.
Yeah, I mean we might pop overa thousand, honestly.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So, you know, figuring out, like, what's the
right one for for my person and,um, you know, when we first met
, it was.
You know that we were talkingabout this off camera a little
while ago.
It's a chemistry thing, youknow, like it's.
This is the off camera a littlewhile ago.
(07:29):
It's a chemistry thing, youknow, like it's.
This is the.
This is like your.
I'll use my Star Wars Yoda, youknow, like you know, this is
the person who's going to guideyou in your spiritual journey to
manage everything that you'vegot to manage and it's going to,
you know, help navigate what isjust very complex and very
distressing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, I.
You know, mental health is sucha I'd like to say it's not an
exact science, and that'slargely true.
That doesn't mean it can't bedone.
Well, yeah, it's really trickythough.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I mean and that's the thing, is that.
So the first program that yourecommended for our son, the one
that he went to, was, you know,our son had severe clinical
depression and anxiety, hadclinical, severe clinical
(08:22):
depression and anxiety, andthere was some medical stuff, so
you guys were chasing themedical dragon for the longest
time.
Yeah, so, which which turnedout to be psychosomatic.
So he was having somaticsymptoms, terrible stomach
problems and in fact we actuallywent to.
(08:47):
Connecticut during COVID and hehad surgery for this GI stuff
right, did not do anything.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So that was that, which is what happens if you
start turning down wrong roads,like you start turning down
treatment roads that areineffective and cost a lot of
money and take time, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Exactly so.
You know, it was kind of yearsin the making once we realized
it really was predominantlymental health, and that's the
other thing is like, you know,the other part that's
interesting is how oftensubstance abuse pairs with
mental health issues.
But you know, if you, if youlead with the wrong thing, I
(09:21):
don't think you fix the problem.
And so, you know, our son hadsome substance abuse issues as
well, but it took resolving themental health issues and and it
completely cleared up thesubstance abuse issues for us
and I, which I, I, I guess iskind of remarkable.
But you know, you did a lot ofcoaching along the way and one
(09:46):
of the things we talked aboutjust a few minutes ago that, you
know, is kind of a surpriseside effect.
I mean, I thought I was hiringyou to.
You know, because you travelall over the country, you look
at all different kinds ofprograms and you know kind of
what's exactly like.
Then you analyze the person andyou say of what's exactly like.
Then you analyze the person andyou say what's exactly right
(10:07):
for this person and um, and thatgave me just a ton of comfort
to to know that, um, but youknow what I didn't know I was
going to need and and relied on,maybe even more heavily than
the coaching you were doing forour son was coaching me through
the process and helping you know, help, help, helping me manage.
(10:30):
You know, is this the rightthing?
What should I be doing now?
Like know when to hold them,know when to fold them of as a
segue, because of that it mademe realize how important that
kind of coaching is for anybodywho has the purse strings and in
(10:53):
my world, in the trust world,how important bringing in a
therapeutic consultant is whenthere's any beneficiary who has
mental health issues, becausesometimes you were telling me, I
want you to do nothing, don'tgive him any money, don't do
anything, Just let him work itout.
(11:14):
And a trustee unless they arekind of absolved from that
responsibility in the trustdocument, you know that's that
might be liability for them.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Right.
And so it's part of why ifthey're being responsible, you
know their fiduciaryresponsibilities are to give
this person the money when theyask for it.
Except what they're doing is,you know, tearing their life
apart with the money thatthey're receiving.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Right, right.
So you know it's, it's, it'snot.
Not only did you, you know,help our family, but you know it
.
It opened my eyes to you knowthings that I could integrate
into my practice and and howimportant that was and how you
(12:06):
know we have a very prettyrobust system for people who
have medical issues like specialneeds, trust, you know right,
Somebody who has MS orParkinson's or you know whatever
.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And they're aging and you know they've had plenty of
time to kind of mull over whatthey feel the needs are going to
be right.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Well, but there is also, you know, special needs.
Trusts are predominantly usedto make sure that you don't
spend money on things, thatthere's a government program
that would pay for things, andthat's mostly how they're
designed.
And you know, designing a trustfor someone who has a mental
health issue, it's justcompletely different.
(12:48):
And I think if you, you knowyou've got to be careful you
don't go to somebody who's justgoing to pull something off the
shelf and say, oh, your childhas a problem, here's a special
needs trust and that's just notgoing to take you where you need
to go, I think.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, yeah, do you?
I mean, I'm curious.
You know we've we've talkedabout the personal experience
that you've had navigating thisstuff and having somebody can be
like, look, you know, I wantyou to, I want you to.
Here's where I want you tostand still, here's where I want
you to pick it up.
Here's, you know, the, the, thephases of care look different
(13:25):
In the beginning.
They look this way.
As the person moves intransition, they may move this
way.
So it's not just a one equationkind of thing, and I wouldn't
walk into a court or I wouldn'twalk into the need for a special
needs trust and not seek youout and be like, hey, how do you
?
You know, what does thisdocument need to look like?
(13:46):
Look at, and I've seen and hadclients, certainly before, that
they'll try to Google consulttheir way through therapeutic
consulting or they'll try toGoogle consultant their way
through legal processes and I'mlike get an attorney, here's one
, please call them.
And you know not being able toknow what the answer is, because
there's a script right makeswriting it down in a document
(14:11):
challenging.
You know, um, and I would saythat when you work with the
clients that you're working with, have you had the opportunity
to work with individuals who arein a similar situation to the
one you had, or have a loved onethat's suffering from mental
illness?
What's the language that you'relike?
How is this working in thelanguage world that you live in?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, I mean the other part is.
So the thing I had notmentioned is I have a nephew who
developed schizophrenia in hisearly 20s, developed
schizophrenia in his early 20sand you know that's, that's how
I got introduced into thetherapeutic consultant world.
But you know, that's a that's awhole different animal.
(14:54):
But I worked with with mysister's family on, probably
over a period of six months orso, on designing the right trust
for for their family.
I, you know it's funny causewe've we've got, we've got AI
and it's, it's, it's here andit's coming in and and everybody
(15:16):
says, oh my gosh, it's, it'sgoing to take over my job.
I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I don't worry.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I don't worry about that because I think that really
, you know, it's not even somuch the words on the page.
Really, the most importantthing is the individual design
of the right estate plan for thefamily, because it's not just,
you know, you're not justsetting up a trust, for usually
not just setting up a trust foryour child who has mental health
(15:43):
issues, just setting up a trustfor usually not just setting up
a trust for your child who hasmental health issues, you also
have other children and theyhave felt neglected and ignored
and they felt like all theresources have gone to the one
who's struggling.
And so, you know, trying tonavigate how to make sure that
(16:04):
there is some family that staysintact when the parents are gone
and you meet the needs of theperson who has the mental health
issues and they're not dumpedon the other children.
There's an art to all of thatand it's not a one size fits all
.
There's an art to all of thatand it's not.
(16:25):
It's not a one size fits all.
You can't, I can't, you know.
If you just said, generically,what kind of trust should I do
if I have a child who has amental health issue, I can tell
you some things I think youshould definitely have included,
but really the most importantthing is getting to know the
family, getting to know who the,what the family's resources
look like.
Are there enough funds so thateverybody can be treated equally
(16:47):
?
Or, you know, are you going tohave to tell somebody some bad
news, that you know that they'regoing to get something less of
a share, and do you tell themthat?
You know?
I'm an advocate for tellingthem that ahead of time and not
letting them get the bigsurprise when mom and dad both
die.
And then, oh, you know, threequarters of the money is going
into a trust for Bobby and thethree of you are going to share
(17:11):
the other quarter and, you know,maybe have enough to go on a
vacation, and that's, I mean,that's just a tough pill to
swallow.
So so there's, you know there'sthat as well.
But you know, regarding thesorry, regarding the you know
(17:31):
the provisions.
I think, like I I draft intoevery trust that the trustee is
specifically authorized to usetrust funds to hire a
therapeutic consultant andspecifically authorized to
follow the direction of thetherapeutic consultant when
making distribution decisions,and so that takes them off the
(17:55):
hook for somebody saying youknow, I want to go to the Betty
Ford Clinic when they're justnot doing what they need to be
doing Right and the.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Betty Ford clinic is probably not the right treatment
.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
You know, if they suffer from schizophrenia, right
, you know right Exactly, and soyou know I also.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I also think that you should.
You know, picking the righttrustee is really tricky,
particularly if somebody youknow schizophrenia is one of the
hardest ones, because they gooff their meds and then you know
off to the races.
Yeah, and you know the barrageof things you know you have to
be careful about.
Like, ideally, you want to havean individual serve as a
(18:41):
trustee, like somebody that theycan have a relationship with.
But if you pick an individual,you better protect them in the
trust document, because they'regoing to have to set boundaries
in order to manage thatbeneficiary over a period of
time.
They've got to layer somemental health professionals into
(19:05):
the mix and you have to givesome buffer.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Well, we were down in Florida together presenting the
ATO conference, the Florida Baris Attorney Trust Officer
Conference, and part of what Iwas doing there was like okay,
first of all, we got to matchthe diagnosis to the treatment
you know which so many peopledon't know how to do and unless
(19:32):
you're a therapeuticprofessional and, frankly,
unless you do what we do, whichis travel and see things, it can
be very challenging.
I mean, even psychiatrists don'tknow where to turn.
You know what's close to me,you know and what's the most
expensive, you know.
They ask the same questions andthey're technically
professionals, but, moreimportantly, the when we work
(19:53):
with trusts um, cause I had a Ihad a um an executive director
of a of a pool trust that wasthere with me presenting
director of a of a pool trustthat was there with me
presenting one of the thingsthat we do is look at the trust
but also look at the.
You know how much is in thistrust, you know this person and
we, you know we talked aboutthis this particular case where
(20:15):
it's like this individual reallyliked treatment you know what I
mean.
Like they would spend everydollar they had on treatment, if
you let them, and would oftenjust kind of come out and be
like, oh, I need this veryexpensive this or this very I
want to go here and so on and soforth.
It's like, look, if you do andI had to be the bearer of bad
tidings, you know it's like,look, if you do all this, this
(20:37):
is the amount of money you haveand that's going to use a third
of it amount of money you haveand that's going to use a third
of it and you want to be able touse this money for the rest of
your life.
I don't think that you want tospend that this way.
I think there are other ways todo it.
So we, we take on the wholebeing being responsible to the
fiduciary um of the trust asseriously as the attorneys that
(20:59):
wrote the agreement, asseriously as the trustee, the
trust manager, if they'reinvolved.
And you know, as a result, we'vegot a lot of attorneys and
trust entities that have foundus and been like we, like these
guys, they've got it, they'rewatching the dollar, you know
(21:19):
honestly, that's really a bigdeal and you want this to last
the rest of their lives and then, like you say, you don't want
it to dump on the other siblingsand the other family members
that may be involved, and Ithink there's a lot of
consultants out there.
But back to this part where it'sa personality match, but it's
also a competency match, like ifyou were to, if you as a parent
(21:40):
and knowing now what you know,both from a lot of different
sides, as a person with personalexperience, not only your
direct family, but you knowother family members and your
sister, being a person who's anattorney and helping families
with complex matters such asthis, a speaker who's going to
go, you know, go down toCharleston soon and go speak for
the Silver Hill Conference,silver Hill Hospital Association
(22:03):
Conference, and you are anhonored and distinguished
speaker for them, which I'mexcited to go see myself.
But what would you say that aperson should look for in this
equation?
Like, what makes a good in youreyes?
I think I know, but what inyour eyes?
What makes a good therapeuticconsultant?
What are the things that cometo you when you're?
If you're going to say, hey, ifyou're going to find a
(22:23):
therapeutic consultant.
Make sure that they know thesethings.
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's tough because it's that whole you don't know
what you don't know, I mean.
I would say you call Todd, justcall Todd.
But you know, some of it islike there's so much art to it.
(22:54):
I don't know how you evaluate atherapeutic consultant
consultant, because I mean, Iwas like you said, I was
impressed by the fact that youspend what probably a third of
your time just traveling todifferent programs all around
the country.
Like, you don't get paid forthat, you get.
(23:19):
I mean, that's the researchthat you're continually doing
and you're using that as thebasis.
You and your team are lookingat programs and going and seeing
them and again and again andmaking sure they're still
working, um and andunderstanding kind of the the
differences between them.
So, for example, one of thethings I was going to say is you
(23:41):
know, you, you recommended awilderness program for for our
son.
But there's, yeah, how manydozens of wilderness programs
are there.
It's not enough to just go do awilderness program.
You, you found one that was theright match for our son, who
was not violent.
(24:01):
He was not he, he didn't act up, he didn't have those kind of
loud, large kinds of problems.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
He isolated and imploded on himself a lot.
You know that was the strugglethat he had.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, and so you know , like the, the program you sent
, you sent him to, was, you know, I always refer to it as the
place for lost boys because youknow, like they were all kind of
quiet and and if you and if youput a lost boy in a program
where there's people who areacting up all the time, there's
the loud boys, you know they'regoing to get no treatment, and
(24:37):
so he.
So you found just the rightplace for him and and you know,
a place where he was not goingto get.
He wasn't going to be able toget ignored or let himself be
ignored and not do the work thathe needed to do.
And if he had been at anotherplace he probably would not have
(25:00):
made the progress that he did.
So you know, going back to howdo you pick a therapeutic
consultant, I think I'd want toknow that they travel like you
do and that they're that eitheryou or your team are evaluating
programs over and over again.
Like you didn't just see it,and you know the last time you
saw it was in the 80s, you know.
So that that was kind of a bigdeal.
The personality match, I think,is really important.
(25:22):
I never felt like you didn'ttake the time that I needed to
help me work things through, andI know that everybody works a
little bit different.
I'm sure I took more of yourtime than a lot of other people
do because you know you were mylifeline and you know, um, I, I
(25:46):
needed to make sure that that Ihad you know that that I was
looking at everything that Ineeded to look at and you were
patient with that, and so thatwas really important.
But, um, I mean I think it alsoyou want to make sure that you
know they have a good reputationin the community.
I think you can.
(26:06):
The hard part is, if you askfacilities, are you going to get
a good referral or not?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So you tell me, how do you find?
If you don't have a Virgil or aTodd already, how do you find?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, you know, I've talked about this a little bit
and I'm getting ready to speakon it again for an organization
of which I'm a member, and soone of the things I think that
you look for in a consultant isthat they've got some
professional memberships undertheir belt, like they belong to
an organization like the TCA orthe IACA.
(26:44):
They're organizations forconsultants and if you belong to
them you have some assurancethat they've got training,
they've got some level of eithermentoring or colleagues,
they've got a network ofcolleagues that where you, you
know, there is some bear ofaccountability that happens
(27:06):
there.
But, more importantly, they'llalso have, you know, pcs
standards.
One of the standards is that wehave to travel and we visit
programs and there's a certainnumber that we see.
And then, you know, there'sethical guidelines which include
not, you know, you know takingkickbacks from programs for
referrals you know, there's not.
There's not these sticky andmessy kinds of arrangements
(27:28):
they've got with different,different programs in different
areas or they're funnelingeverything to one place.
There's also there's a fair.
There's a number of consultantsout there and the the world is
changing so you're seeing adifferent kind of consultant
arise.
But you've got moms that haveturned into consultants because
(27:49):
they went through an experienceof having their child go to
wilderness or whatever.
Their repertoire tends to befairly narrow, right.
So you know they're notclinicians and they haven't done
some kind of professionaltraining.
You know, if you were a personwho turned into it let's say you
(28:10):
turned into a consultant you'rean attorney, you've had a lot
of experience with programs.
If you wanted to pick up doingwhat I was doing, I would say
that you would add some clinicaltraining to it.
You would add travel to it,seeing programs and forging a
network out of those things, andyou might make a very good
consultant because you've alsogot a level of professional
training on a foundation that itcan stand on that would allow
(28:32):
you to be able to make that moveor jump.
There are a lot of moms outthere that just went and did it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah that's.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
that was an early consultant thing because there
weren't consultants and then yougot organizations and so on.
So we've got these standards.
Now the other thing that youthat you look for, that I've had
to provide plenty of and I'mgrateful that you've even
provided for me is that you'vegot that consultant has people
who are willing to speak totheir experience.
(29:01):
You know, if you got anybodythat you've worked with before
that would be willing to speakwith me, so just checking off
some of those boxes can get you,get you fairly far down the
road.
One of the particularcomponents of my team that I've
built specifically that way isthat everybody in my team has
(29:22):
experience running programs.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, that's invaluable.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
They've been on the functional operational end.
So they can walk into a programand know what it looks like.
It's like, oh, staff ratios andthis, and kitchen was dirty,
and you know we can look at aprogram quickly and know whether
or not it's it's running right,honestly, and then how much?
And the one question I get?
(29:47):
There's two questions that Iget from families.
One of them is you know, do youget any kickbacks?
Great question to ask.
The other one is do you do thisfor a living?
Is this all you do?
Is this what you do?
And it's like yep, this is allwe do.
You know, this is, this is ourjob.
It's not something we're doingon the side of something else
(30:08):
that we do, and I think that's athat's.
That's a pretty good question.
Actually, cause this, you needto be all in on this thing.
You can't.
This is not a side project.
It's too complicated.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
You don't have a dry cleaners on the network Right
right right.
Well, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
I've got a daycare in the basement.
Would you add anything to thatlist Like would you add anything
in your mind?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Well, I mean, I think you know, like I said, the
thing that's a little bit of adouble-edged sword is do you go
to a program to find atherapeutic consultant or do you
find one independently?
You know, one of one of thethings that you recommended very
(31:11):
strongly was, you know, whenthey've gone through a program
like that, they can't come backhome because they're just going
to slip back into where they areand so they need to go into
some sort of transitionalprogram, and so the facility was
, you know, was advocating that,but they, they were also, you
know, kind, I think they werekind of providing names of
therapeutic consultants and I, Iwasn't, I was glad, I was glad
I already had somebody that was,you know, kind of guiding us by
(31:32):
the time we were there.
But I don't know, I mean,what's your opinion about that?
I'm not.
I mean, are they the bestpeople to do that?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Are they not the best people to do that?
Um, it's, you know.
We certainly have programswhere our name is on the list,
you know, and they'll mention usalong with three others.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And they want to try not to be overly exclusive with
a consultant that sort of thingif they're practicing the way
that they're practicing.
But you know as much as youwant to avoid these ethical
entanglements.
There is a bit of a reciprocalnature you know Sure, not a
referral consultant that theyhaven't worked with right.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yeah, yeah, and same with me, with financial advisors
.
There are people that they youknow, they know what I do, they
get what I do.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
They, you know, they know what I do.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
They get what I do yeah.
They, you know, they know whatto expect and they know I'll do
the handholding.
I need to do and they can, butit can overcycle, you know, as
in you know Maybe, if they'reusing a specific consultant who
refers to them, is thatconsultant?
Is that consultant channeledfor individuals that tend to go
to that kind of program, whichmeans, is their experience broad
(32:48):
enough to handle a wide rangeof issues?
So you will get consultantsthat you know.
Kind of all they do is refer to, say, wilderness, for example.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
And as much background as I have in
wilderness and everything elselike.
My master's degree is inoutdoor education, for heaven's
sake, but I don't send people towilderness that much.
So for me to make a decision topick a wilderness program like
the one that your son went towas not a lightly considered
(33:22):
deal.
You know, like this has got tofit, this has got to be
something that works for thisfamily and works for you know,
um, him and his journey andeverything else.
And then, on the other side ofthat, like we also you, along
with many others okay, we'regoing to step down from this
residential environment, whichwas expensive and insurance
(33:48):
didn't cover much of it, right?
What happens after?
Well, we're talking about sixto nine months worth of doing
some other kind of transitionalprogramming, and you could pay.
You could pay three grand, youcould pay six grand a month, you
could pay 15.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Which one of these you know, like what fits the
budget, you know what stillmaintains a level of quality
that we think is going to getthere.
Budget, you know what stillmaintains a level of quality
that we think is going to getthere.
And and then finally I thinkthis is probably speaks to some
of the stuff that we're talkingabout is your consultant
sticking around and walking withyou through the process,
because it didn't come withouttrips, it didn't come without
(34:27):
little stumbles.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh my gosh.
I mean I, I you know, maybe youneed to raise your rates, but
but I will tell you that, thatyou know, with all it I mean it
was.
It was a ridiculous amount ofmoney that we spent on this
whole process.
The best bang for our buck waspaying for you.
(34:51):
The absolute best bang for ourbuck was, you know, was the
guidance we got from you.
If you'll recall you, evenbecause of your relationships,
you even negotiated a littlediscount on one of the programs.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Which I do regularly.
It's like hey these guys aregoing to be here for a little
while.
Why don't we knock off thedollar a little bit and yeah,
you got to ask um so, yeah, thatwas that.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That was great too.
But, um, but by by far, and, ifyou'll recall, I, I, I think
maybe we hung on a little bitlonger and you're like no, no, I
don't think you need us anymore.
And I was like no, no, we'regoing to do another six months
and we're going to do thisbecause I need to make sure that
if we have got a problem, youknow.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Well, yeah.
I mean, we were I mean just likeI would say that nothing that
happened for you is unusual inall honesty, like there are so
many parents out there who areyou know they're going to take a
step, but it's.
Hey, I'm not getting the rightamount of communication.
Hey, I don't think thisclinician is the right one for
(36:02):
my kid.
Maybe we need to do a switch upor maybe he's looking at making
this move.
What do you think about this?
And are there resources in thearea where he wants to go, like
all that stuff?
It's not just oh, it's got aprogram, see, I mean there used
to be, there's, a consultantworld that used to just do
placement, um, and there arestill a few out there, but like
to be able to continue with thatperson while this process goes
(36:24):
on is it's critical Um?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
yeah, it, it, it is, and.
And the other thing that youimpressed upon us was how
important it was to to hit ithard and resolve it.
You know, to get him treatmentas early as possible, because
the amount of time that someonestruggles with mental health
issues, the longer it goes, theless likely you're really going
(36:49):
to resolve them.
And so I mean that was that wasreally important and you know it
.
It for I'll tell you the otherthing, and maybe some of your
families will relate to this youknow when you're, when, when
it's your child and they starthaving mental health issues, it
you know, you, you kind of havea plan.
Like you're, you you've got ahigh school plan and a elective
(37:13):
plan and an extracurricularactivities plan and they're
building a resume for college.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
College plan right.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, like this stuff is.
You know you really don't wantto disrupt their progress.
You know in the regular worldtheir progress you know in in
the regular world but ultimately, when, when it's critical like
this, you have to just put onthe brakes.
And that was really hard for meto say like, oh, we're just
(37:44):
going to take you out of schooland you won't be going to school
and you won't be graduating.
And you know and it maybesounds shallow, but you know
hearing from all these parentsthat were, you know that your
child was going to school withand you know what superstars
their kids were and you knowlike kind of feeling like you
(38:09):
know like feeling like there'skind of a death in the family to
a certain extent when you'remanaging this and it's just so
critical and so emotional.
Um, and again, you coached usthrough a lot of that stuff too.
On that, you know, like I said,maybe, maybe I'm shallow, but
(38:30):
that was hard.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
You're not alone.
Um and I think it's a hardmessage to hear Um, I I take a
lot of care in giving thatmessage to family Like, hey, you
know I, and the truth is, isthat as a, as an adult, you'd
say this to any?
You'd say this to any like lateteen, 20 year old, right, it's
like, look, you got so much ofyour life ahead of you.
It's time to do this.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Just because you're not on the same timeline as
everybody else that you grew upwith doesn't mean really
anything.
You can say that if you're theperson who's standing out and
you're not the mom or the dad,right, right, but when?
It's your child you're likewhat, what?
do you mean yeah, just wait,it's just three more months
(39:18):
until they graduate, like couldwe just get there and then he
can kind of take a gap year anddeal with his mental health
issues, like no, well, it's likeI've seen families try to do
that but it didn't work, theyfailed, and it was another year.
And then if the condition gotworse and you know and I try to
acknowledge my own bias Like Isee the, I see the cases when
they get serious, so we have abias towards seeing those things
and I try to acknowledge it.
If there's a less interventiveway, great.
(39:41):
And to circle it back to someof the trust stuff, this is why
trying to put all this stuffdown in language, put all the
language of that into a trust,to have it follow something,
would be very, very, I mean,it's impossible really, which is
why you're like be willing toget another professional
involved when these thingshappen.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, yeah, well, and you want to have a trust
protector.
You want to have, like you know, maybe you do have a child or
another family member that canmonitor the trustee.
But you've got to give thetrustee just tons of discretion.
You, frankly, have to probablyindemnify them because, more
than likely, they're going tohave a beneficiary who you know
(40:23):
is because of their mentalhealth issues, they're going to,
you know, they're going to goafter them, and so you have to.
You know, you have to kind ofgive them, you've got to give
them a lot of power and a lot ofcontrol.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, because they're not going to be reasonable
about it.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
No.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And so you need an outside person who can say, yeah
, trustee's doing what they needto do, be quiet, I'm not doing
anything.
But you also need them to beable to say they've gotten a
little confused about whosemoney this is.
You know, they're jetting offto San Tropez to have a
conference on mental healthissues, and that's not really
(41:02):
what this money is for.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
They've hired a curandero down in Costa Rica and
they're going to do ayahuascafor several weeks and that's
going to resolve their issues.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
They're going to come with you to the yoga retreat in
Thailand.
Um, yeah, so, uh, you know,like that's, that's, that's an
important part.
Um, I, I, I do think that youhave to, you know, once again,
the most important thing is isgive them authority to say no
when, when they're they're beingdirected by a mental health
professional or a therapeuticconsultant about.
You know when to do things.
And then you know, once again,I think that you, I don't know a
(41:47):
ton of professional, I mean ofof corporate trustees that are
equipped, you know, equipped forthis day-to-day stuff.
I know that the people with thepool trust in North Carolina,
you know they seemed reallyterrific.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, do that, but a lot of them will turn down stuff
when they see mental illness.
You know you've got banks withthese kinds of you know services
and they see mental illness, sothey see something complicated
and they turn it down.
Yeah, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah.
So you know that's the bigchallenge is, you know, working
with the family and helping themfigure out who you know who
really makes the most sense.
On, you know, from our ethicalperspective.
On, you know, from our ethicalperspective, like some, on some
(42:40):
rare occasions I will serve astrustee, but I spend a lot of
time with families that ask meto like, come on, there's
somebody else, who else can wepick?
Because I don't ever want, Idon't ever want a client to feel
like I'm trying to feather mynest, like I'm, you know, trying
to use my position to have youknow to, to take advantage of
somebody else.
And so you know, kind of backto when you're, when you're
(43:03):
talking to a trust lawyer, I,you know, how do you pick a good
trust lawyer, kind of is theother side of things, and I
think the big part of that islike Go, laura is the other side
of things, and I think the bigpart of that is like Go.
Laura.
Well, just make sure they'relistening to you.
Like, when they should beasking you a lot of questions
they should be educating youabout, like, okay, if you do
(43:27):
this, this is how this will work.
I'll walk you down the streetwith this and if you put this
provision in, this is how it'sgoing to work.
Or if you have this kind ofperson, these are the problems
that you're going to have,because you know you're going to
need to really make.
You want to make the decisionsyourself, you want to understand
how they work and when you needto make changes.
(43:47):
And if your lawyer doesn't takethe time with you to really
educate you and listen to youand they say you know, here's my
cookie cutter thing, here's aspecial needs trust, there you
go, ten thousand dollars, youknow, like that, you can, once
again, you can spend a lot ofmoney with a lawyer and you
won't necessarily get very muchof a result.
(44:09):
Yeah, the thing that's right,that's right for your family
particularly.
You know it's a lot harder when, when somebody has a family
member with a mental healthissue, it's not, it's not cookie
cutter and you can't you reallycan't Google your way through
it.
I mean, you might be able toGoogle your way through drawing
up the document If, once youfigure it out, you've really
done the hard work and figuredout what's going to make sense.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
But I'd still get a lawyer to look at it.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
I still wouldn't do it on my own.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I mean no, honestly, so I get.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I get a lot of those after somebody dies and I'm like
, well, you know it reallydidn't work the way you thought
it did, but you know this iswhat you got now.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
So yeah, yeah, penny, wise pound, foolish you know
what I mean, like that's what?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
that's the thing that Todd and his team will act as a
consultant to the trustee andthat you know I've recommended
(45:21):
that to all of my corporatetrustee friends down here in
Florida.
You know, like Todd said, hespoke at the ATO conference and
I think you're still gettingcalls from professional trustees
about just kind of being eitherbeing on retainer with them or
working specifically with aspecific trust and specific
(45:42):
beneficiary.
But you know, if you don't havesomebody on staff, I think you
need to have that resource.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
And one call.
We did get had a case with themom and, you know, with a child
who needed care and was in akind of a bad situation, but the
child was.
You know we cover a lot ofterritory in terms of people
that we work with, but thisindividual was just, you know,
they were on the end of the carespectrum that we don't spend a
lot of time on and is a worldunto itself.
(46:09):
It was a individual with DDchallenges, you know, an IQ
below 70.
That's our limit, so we referit out.
It's like, hey, here's aconsultant who does this.
This is not us.
And if you're working with anattorney, if you're working with
a consultant of any kind, theability to refer out to other
(46:29):
professionals is also a markerof a good company, in my opinion
.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
So anyway, so like, if somebody comes and wants to
do Medicaid planning, that's youknow, out to other
professionals is also a markerof a good company, in my opinion
.
so yeah, anyway, but so like, ifsomebody comes and wants to do
medicaid planning, that's youknow, that's not what I don't do
that sorry, yeah, yeah so Imake sure that they you know,
they know a couple of peoplethat that I've learned and
trusted over time and you knowthat, yeah, you, you want to
make sure that, whateverprofessional you go to, like
(46:54):
they're, they're willing to getyou to the right place.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Yeah, absolutely Well , I'm excited's, as usual, great
to see you and it's been lovelyto have you on your show.
Thank you for being willing totalk about you, know your
(47:19):
experiences and everything elseand be vulnerable as a mom.
I really appreciate you andappreciate the work that you're
doing.
I know that we're in the themutual appreciation club, so I'm
I'm I'm always glad about thatand that we continue to share
with each other personally andprofessionally.
But this has been Head InsideMental Health with Todd
(47:39):
Weatherly.
This has been Laura Sundberg onthe show.
We look forward to seeing youall next time.
Take care, thanks, laura.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Thank you.
Outro Music I found the illegalillegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
(49:15):
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal, illegal, illegal,
illegal, illegal, illegal,illegal.
Thank you, I'm so lonely andlost in here.
Bye, I feel so lonely and lostin here.
(49:38):
I need to find my way home.
I feel so lonely and lost inhere.
I need to find my way home.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Find my way home.
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