@loadsofchocolate it sounds like you have had an uphill struggle getting his anxieties recognised and dealt with properly.
We're just at the beginning of our plight. DD's OCD has been waxing and waning for 4 years but it's just constant at the moment. At her worse points she has only 2 hours sleep and has spent the entire night either washing her hands until they bleed or thinking about washing her hands.
She went to CAHMS at 4 years old but back in those days we marked it down to a one off episode. Went back to CAHMS at 7 years old they diagnosed her with Anxiety with OCD traits and we were there for a year but because she is my natural child and step parent adopted by my husband (whose been around since she was 7 months) they fobbed us off with an adoption social worker!!! Shocking! We stuck it out for a year but everything she suggested didn't work or produced band aid help that got worse over time quite simply because you can't fix a mental health problem like OCD with a flipping family tree and life story work!!!!
Complained bitterly to CAHMS and demanded a referral to the Tavistock only to be met with the ... Adoption, fostering and kinship care social team. Truly hacked off. We have demanded to see a psychiatrist for an assessment and diagnosis, they said they will let us know next week.
The school have been largely useless. The teacher tells me she's been fine all day but she's changed her clothes x amount of times= not fine! She's dropped from the top groups in everything to the lowest groups. Other kids say she just sits looking out of the window either worrying or tearful.
Phoned the council's Parent Partnership last week and they are coming in mid february to meet with me, class teacher and senco in school. No one has discussed school action or school action plus with me even though it's been 2 years like this and the school know how bad she is as they wrote the referral to the Tavistock.
I think the main problem is she is good at controlling it through the day and the teacher doesn't seem to know what she is looking for. Went in today with some monitoring forms - just a list of common symptoms : prolonged hand washing, wanting to change clothes, asking if it's ok if she touched something, looking at hands etc and asked the teacher to tick box when she notices her doing it.
Hoping once she gets her diagnosis it will be easier to get her the help she needs.