Shocking!

I got home from the waste of time parenting course today (not that the course is a waste of time, just a waste of time for us, as we already do all the techniques suggested!) to find an answerphone message from the duty social worker asking that I call back urgently! Quite worrying - duty SW's are usually only involved in serious & immediately urgent issues, and considering I have been trying for nearly 2 years to get SS to assess Mstr A, me or the family without ever getting a reply out of them, I was obviously a little concerned as to what they wanted so desperately.

I get the woman on the phone & she queries why Mstr A has missed "several" appointments at a place I've never heard of. I ask for more details and get told the name of the centre, what it specialises in, what the appointments were for (blood tests), what the blood tests were for, and how many appointments have been missed. At which point I explain that Mstr A has not recieved any appts, has never had any contact woth that centre, and would not have any reason to attend somewhere of that specialisation, or to have blood tests, and certainly not for that condition! After a bit of arguing, SW agrees to check the details with the centre & get back to me.

5 mins later, she calls back & apologises - the details were all about another child with a similar name

So. Now I have loads of seriously personal info about another child. AND, SS obviously have utterly terrible record keeping procedures. WTF DO they have on Mstr A's file? I ask what details she has on his file. She is very cagey, but it transpires that they certainly do not have all the details they should (no referral from the school for starters, which I KNOW happened over a year ago!)

I have sent a formal comnplaint about the procedures & request for a copy of his file to check details held - but really, you have to wonder WTF is happening in SS nowadays! If I gave any one of those pieces of info to a client about another client I would be immediately sacked and, I expect, sued!

I wonder what sort of response I'll get - and what might be on my SS file now!!!!

Silver lining

Every cloud has one, and I am pretty good at finding it in even the worst thunderclouds.

Mstr A's suspension was a pretty ugly cloud, but it did make me decide to be a bit proactive and get some help. First off, the return to school interview was very good, with a bit more explanation about what actually happened from the school, and no difficulties agreeing the best ways forwards. Now we have that "violent behaviour" tick box ticked, we may even be able to get him properly statemented and apply for some funding for the school to get hi more one-to-one time.

I also spent friday afternoon looking into what help might be available to us. If was a fiarly unfruitful search in that there was a lot of "you may be entitled to..." and "some people can get...", but it did culminate in me contacting social services to see what they could offer.

Sadly, they haven't answered. I mean, it's only been a week since I emailed saying that I didn't now where to turn with a violent son & disabled husband, no money and two younger children to care for...... I've been told that the only way to get an answer is to personally turn up, with kids in tow, and annoy them until they do something about it! I may have to get round to that some time, but I don't feel like it right now tbh!

However, having decided that if we're going to get social services involved in any way, we might as well get them involved in every way, I also contacted the disabilities team about getting a carer's assessment for me. They seemed a bit confused as to whether I cared for an adult or a child, as different teams do the assessments, but today I spoke to a ver sensible woman who agreed I cared for both and therefore either needed a joint assessment or two separate assessments - depending on what the teams liked best. So I am waitng to hear back from them.

I also discovered that I don't have to wait for social services to refer me on to other things, and self referred myself to the local Children's Centre and applied for a family support worker. I don't know what they can offer, but some suport would be welcome:) I think I only qualify for that because of the younger kids, but it may well help Aggie out during the summer holidays.

Finally, although work was not overly impressed by the whole situation, they also did let me have the time, and let me take leave at short notice to attend the meeting at the school. Although I did mention that I was a carer before this, it has made it very official - which will make it easier when I ask for some carers leave later in the year to attend the National Autistic Society's course on managing ASD's. I'm hoping they might let me swap my days for the ten weeks, as carers leave is unpaid, and I need the money. But we'll see.

So now it's just a matter of waiting for everyone to get back to me and see what help they might be able to offer. And see where they suggest we go next....