My letters rarely make sense but I am trying to put the thing with DS on a more formal setting so we can have something to measure their helpfulness / prove lack of if that makes sense.
It is in response to a letter I found in the bottom of a bag DS brought home from school the evening of the proposed meeting with the school nurse.
Thank you for your letter regarding DS1’s assessment.
I would like to raise a few points:
- The Paediatrician requested a report to be arranged by yourselves from and Educational Psychologist, which is what HEADTEACHER advised would be happening on May 12th. Can I confirm please that the ‘Behaviour Advisory Teacher’ has the necessary authority to make this report, as it is not a job title I am familiar with. I am led to understand that this report is an important part of DS1’s assessment, and would hate to delay it more than necessary.
- I have contacted BIBIC and confirmed you wish to accept their offer of a visit, however not having access to your diary it is very difficult for me to arrange that myself. With that in mind, perhaps it would be simpler for you to call them? Their telephone number is 0800 841122, or the head office is 01278 684060.
BIBIC also has a website, WWW.BIBIC.ORG.UK, where you should be able to familiarise yourself with them quite easily. As I have explained to TEACHER, they do not assess for specific conditions but focus on identifying the underlying problems and addressing those. I have attached a copy of their report, but I am still awaiting the report from the speech and language therapist.
- (Regarding your request for a copy of the report from Dr X- just to give context),I have not got a report from Dr X, and will not until the assessment procedure has been carried through. As this requires reports from a number of professionals, this will take time. SALT have advised us of a wait of at least a year; however, the BIBIC SALT hopes that she may be able to help in this case, and I am awaiting further contact from her.
- With regard to the visit from the School Nurse on April 5th, we wonder how much help this will have been without one of us being present. TEACHER advises us as DS1’s class teacher that she has little problem with him in school now (although he still reports distress on going into school, and tells us he finds breaks difficult as he doesn’t know who wants to be his friend and who wants to hurt him). The School Nurse, as far as I am aware, has never met DS1. As the majority of his problems and behaviours are displayed in either unfamiliar situations or in his own ‘safe’ home space, I feel that this meeting would have benefited from parental input from someone who actually knows Sam and our family. We also would express a desire to be kept fully involved with any efforts made to support DS1, and thus would have wished to be invited to this meeting.
Also, we were somewhat disappointed that the letter advising us of this meeting did not reach us until after it had taken place (although we have had no feedback), and as such we were not given any option of involvement.
- Finally, I would mention that DS1 has been trying a diet recommended by BIBIC which is low in salicylates, a diet often used with children with ADHD, although these is of course no question of DS1 having ADHD. We would report a definite downturn in the number of violent incidents that have taken place thus far over Easter, indeed bar one morning where I suggested an outing without pre-warning him, and a trip to an unfamiliar supermarket, the holidays have been rather pleasant and he has been excellent company, both for us and his brothers. We are hopeful that this adjustment will help him as mark will shortly be moving onto an irregular shift pattern at work, something we had hoped to avoid.
I look forward to hearing the outcome of the meeting with the School Nurse, and to learning whether the Behavioural Advisory Teacher is in fact an Educational Psychologist.
Yours Sincerely
TIA
