four good visits in a row and how we dealt with the jerk of a therapist

I think I will write this in reverse order.
This has been a week of dealing with difficult people. Unfortunately,they all revolve around youngest son and his care. We opted to involve my youngest son’s probation officer (I think she is twenty one…..) to resolve the rather bizarre communication with the jerk of a therapist (joat). On Tuesday we had a meeting to hash out difficulties. My husband,who tends to be easy going and quiet in nature,took and kept control of the meeting. Joat was none too happy about this,but the meeting was being witnessed. He could only do so much when the PO looked at him like he was a bit crazy himself. He is still on his I need therapy kick. I only spoke when the therapist would actually listen without twisting my words. My husband kept the floor otherwise. At one point joat even asked if this is what I did to Alfonso-had my dh talk for me. We ignored that little comment-so he made it again.
We did have a good understanding with the PO. She seems to think we are reasonable in our requests and is encouraging the beginning of family therapy. She also suggested prolonging our son’s parole if possible.We could possibly keep him in the program past mid June,or bring him home and continue county involvement. The latter would give us a bit of support and if youngest blows,he will violate his existing parole,not have a new offense on his record. There isn’t a guarentee that it is even possible. It may give us some breathing room. The disadvantage of Youngest staying in the program is joat.
Last night we had a support group of parents with boys in the program. It was kind-of- sort-of voluntary. Joat had made passing references to another adoptive family to us in the past(that were overly involvedand sort of a pain),but we seem to be the only adoptive family. (I suppose that means we are overly involved most certainly a pain).
After the support group-in which only joat spoke the majority of the time-we were told to visit our sons.
We did.
It was a good visit. This is the forth good visit in a row with youngest. It is the second visit in which he laughed. He laughed so hard last night,he was holding his stomach,and had tears in his eyes. For four visits there has been no posturing. He did use horrible manners eating his snack. We ignored that. (joat would be upset. His advise is to come down hard on the little things and ignore the big ones) We ignored his lack of hygiene.
It was just nice to be the good guys for once.
If we can just get a knife edge into his heart,I think we can parent him. We just need that bit of connection-real connection. If he comes home we will use EMDR (well the therapist will use it,we will encourage and follow through) in the attempt to decrease the power of his trauma. If we can decrease his fear,we can decrease his anger. We just need him non homicidal. We really can deal with the rest.
Honestly, I would rather clean up pee and poop than blood and my or someone else’s internal organs. I would rather have him barking in the back yard than running the roads with gangsters and guns.
I do not think I am wrong in my priorities.
He just needs to be safe.
We need to be safe.
We will work on the rest later.