Please join me in a HV spitting fit rant (non sn welcome)

[PeachyClair]

Ok, as many of you will know DS3 has an appointment at the paediatrician next week, as he has delays that are causing significant concern, here and at Nursery.

When we moved here, HV came as we requested, to discuss speech- this is 18 mnths ago, he's now 3.5. She said it was irrelevant at his age and she couldn't do anything.

Fast forward to the summer, no contact we summon HV as concerns mounting. She comes, does assessment, has concerns, will be back. Comes back, we're a bit edgy- got dx for eldest son that day. She says that HV 1 when we moved here was someone else, they mesed up not following ds3.

Next time she comes, we are delayed at a hospital appointmenta nd not there- she pops a card through with a date, on which we sit in, she doesn't turn up. We phone, we have our dates wrong apaprently- even though her card is in our hands. She won't come back, we're clearly too busy atm. We aslked to see her in the surgery as home visits traumatise ds1, no.

Phone call today- note one week before paed visit. Apaprently, she's just taken our case on (its the same on FFS!) after someone 'else' messed it up, she has a note from 18 months ago saying DS3 has notable delays even then (thanks for mentioning it love), what's happening. Dh is phsl at this point, as we know its the same HV and same excuse about 'someone else'. Passes phone to me in hysterica.

Can I come and do an assessment? Oh cannot come until two weeks time, never mind will be a good idea anyway. So sorry DS3 has been missed...



FFS! There's one small child caught up in all this, its been harder to get referrals, and she takes us as foolsd only bothering to cover up when DS3 is seeing a Paed! what about family X who ahve no idea of sn??? Doe their kids just fall by the wayside then? Is it routine just to leta lready Sn famillies struggle by with help withdrawn???


Ok Rant ovre. Phew


Either I psychically create these scenarios, or shite service follows me around like a baad smell. Coz this is getting beyond a joke now, what with school and stuff.

[VelmaDinkley]

Peachy, I share your feelings..we moved here nearly 18mths ago & I have seen the HV once @ a clinic..have since been told via friends dont expect any more assessments etc... where we came from our HV was excellent & after ds diagnosis was told would get enhanced service- which we did- always available, informative & helpfull.. in contrast I get a phone call from a very vague HV after a hospital admission in Nov 06 asking if ds was ok? (!) she couldnt get off the phone quick enough ... I feel I cant be bothered with them now but fortunately he's doing well @ nursery....
I agree the children do get lost in the system (or in some areas the local system cant meet thier needs) & you feel it gets passed back onto youselves, the parents

[PeachyClair]

I can't believe (well I can but ykwim) you are not egtting HV help after DX! That's awful.

( I am of the opinion that our HV has a multiple personality and she refers to her other self as someone else).

Are you geting support Velma/ And what's the DX your son has if you don't mind?

[VelmaDinkley]

ds has severe haemophilia..we give prophylactic factor 8 treatment @ home (he has a portacath) but this works very well & he has no visible disability & seems like all his 3.5 yr old mates .. luckily I work with a non practicing HV & another is a neighbour, (ds playes with her dd) so do have them as a resource as well as a community oncology/ haematology nurse from the hospital who I get on well with...guess I've made alternatives as HV's have been so inaccessable

[InvisibleFlamesparrow]

ARGH! F*ckin HVs! Its starting to make me want to train to be one just so that there are some decent ones out there

Also another reason for me being wary about trying to get DD looked at... this is the woman who very pointedly at my antenatal meet for the red book, told me that it needed to be QUIET for DS's hearing test whilst glaring at DD who was foolishly trying to talk to the woman and was excited about the baby coming I can just see her being all ears about me wanting the noisy one looked at and giving her more work

[VelmaDinkley]

the 2 non practicing HV I mentioned are unable to work as HV as there's no vacancies!

[coppertop]

The last time I tried to get help from a HV for SN issues was when ds1 had just been dx'ed and our portage worker asked the HV to visit during a portage visit. The HV was clearly uncomfortable and left after about 10 minutes, promising to phone and let me know what the policy was wrt free nappies. That was nearly 3 years ago now and we never did get that call.

The HV is excellent wrt NT issues though so I wonder if it's a question of training?

That's truly awful though, Peachy. Even without extra traininh a HV should know that the earlier children get help/intervention the better it is for everyone. Grrr!

[VelmaDinkley]

coppertop, dont mean to be thick, but what's a 'portage worker'?

[mamadadawahwah]

WE never had an HV and didnt feel that they would be of any help at all, except for getting free nappies. We always went to the "top", i.e. the line manager of the SLT/OT and Paed departments, when we were stuck.

usually paid off, writing letters.

[PeachyClair]

Lasti time she was here she pointed at sam and said' I have another one of them (mening HFA) on my books but he's nto so quiet'- then when Sam relaxed 'oh thats more like it'

One of them????????

[amyclaire85]

Ahh I had awful visit from a HV last week. She came out because we have recently changed surgeries.
She obviously knew f all about autism and even said to me "are you sure he's autistic?" I was baffled! It was as though she wanted me to prove it! My answer was that he had been diagnosed by professionals as autistic so therefore yes he is autistic!
I am also 38 weeks pregnant (which she didn't know before she came out) and her first question was "Oh you're pregnant, is the father still around?" Charming! She seemed surprised to hear he was and that he was at working!
She was saying things to ds1 and then asking me "does he understand me?" I said "probably but he might be ignoring you!"
She seemed to think I was mad to be having another child! She told me about lots of groups that are run for newborns at a centre down the road. I don't think she grasped the concept that I could not take ds1 along to a breastfeeding group! Yet she still gave me the times and said "I'll see you there then!"
Err no you won't!

[mum24boyz]

peachy i think i would have wanted to smack her, ok my rant, when ds3 was around 2 yrs old and we had just moved, i went to see hv to say it had been advised that he had a repeated 18mth assessment at 2 yr old and he was around 2, she asked me my areas of concern and i told her mostly speech, and said they had a speech therapist going in soon and she would ring me, she never did,he also never had the repeat assessment that had been advised, after several failed attempts to get her attention,eventually she was corned at the clinic, by now this is 6 mths later, and luckily for me she was going on hols the following week, so a locum came to assess ds3, the outcome, an imediate refferal to child development centre, 6 mths i knew my child was not developing right, and 6 mths that something could have been getting done. oh and just to rub salt in, she forgot to mention, until a visit with her and social worker another 6 mths later, that the local playgroup had now agreed to take children still in nappies, the whole point of that meeting was for ss to get my son into a nursery cos he couldnt access the local pre-school (rural village) and she never thought to tell me that before hand, so arrrrggggg, i'm with you on the whole hv issue.oh and amy, i think you should advise that yours goes to charm school, how cheeky is she!

[Fubsy]

This is so sad. I sometimes wonder if theres two completely different trainings for HVs as they seem to be so different.

I was really lucky, mine was great and saw me through some really difficult times when DD was little. In both the CDCs Ive worked in we had specialist HVs who were very knowledgable on SN, but Ive come across some who wouldnt know a child with SN if it fell on them.

A long time ago, the CDC where I worked at the time recieved a referral from a HV to see a child who wasnt sitting at 8 months. This didnt sound too bad, so he wasnt put on the high priority WL. When we did see him, poor kid turned out to be visually impaired, spastic quadriplegic CP....... no wonder he couldnt sit!

Interestingly, ive noticed that although theres the specialist HV, where the local one is good, families stay with them, where theyre not, they dont. Maybe more CDCs should have specialist HVs.

[PeachyClair]

I know there are some good ones, we've had several (we move a bit) some brilliant, most average, one so abd I complained (she asked me, in a packed clinic with my sister also there with her baby, do you love you ds or not? just coz I didn't get upset he needed a hearing test- all my 3 needed them fgs).

Amy, DS1 had a meeting a year ago with social services disability team, DH was there the whole time with us, talking. When I got my review form last week the father space was left as unknown!!!!

[nikkie]

and I thought mine was bad!
Used to have a fantastic HV when dd2 was 2 the sytem changed and we were supposed to get a different one.Original HV knowing me quite well after my PND and had started us on referrals for dd2 kept us for a while but went to maternity leave so we were transferred.
The new HV put a card through my door 'came to see the new baby but you weren't in' .I was at work and had no new baby?????? Phoned HV and she said'oh letter must have got lost on the post' 2 days later the letter arrived

When she was ready for her 3year assement I phoned to make an appointment to be told she didn't do them and the Nursery nurse who did was on long term sick but she could send me a questionnaire.I pointed out that my daughter has quite big speech and language/hearing probs and she said she would call me when the NN came back.I pushed and eventually she made an appointment for an assessmant
BTW at the appointment she offered SALT/hearing tests as she ob had probs (well its a good job I noticed then [rolls eyes])

[mum24boyz]

this is the annoying thing isnt it, if hv knew their families, like they used to when my eldest was little, we wouldnt have to keep chasing them, nor should we have to. if my ds3 had been my 1st child, and i had been the young naive girl i was back then, i dread to think when it would have got spotted, as there is still no sign of him coming out of nappies(now 5 yr old) he prob would never have gone to the preschool where i lived, and it wouldnt have been found probably till fairly recently upon starting school perhaps, i know that may be a bit drastic, but you get so used to getting fobbed off with oh they all develop at different stages etc, i am just glad that several yrs of parenting already under my belt gave me the strength to be a pain for my son, and thats really very sad isnt it, we shouldnt have to make a nuisance of ourselves to be heard. peachy, thats terrible about the father bit, but perhaps she was sooo pre-occupied with doing her job well, she didnt notice him, lol!

[riab]

Oh great, you know i'm not sure if this cheers me up to realise its not just me or depresses me to realise that we've got even more battles ahead.

DS (21 months) has language delays and we're starting to wonder if there are other delays too. He has (after a HELL of alot of pushing) being referred to a SALT, who basically sent us away to see us in 3 months time.

The HV who agreed to refer him did so solely because I had gone to the hassle of getting hold of a list of speech and language developmental milestones and highlighted all the ones he couldn't do (ie at 18 months he couldn't do any of the things a 10 month old should manage)

I've been up and down to the health clinic, the Gp's rung the HV's to come out and visit so many times since DS was born and not a single person picked up on the fact that there have been numerous areas of concern. None of them bloody well talk to each other even thoguh our HV's are suppoused to be linked to the GP surgeries.

Very tired and pissed off right now after the latest bout of illness, loss of weight, lack of ability to fit in at nursery due to delays in understadning etc etc

[coppertop]

Sorry I missed your question, Velma. Portage is a service for families of pre-school children with SN. How often they visit will depend on your needs, staffing levels etc but ours usually visits every 2 weeks or so. Portage workers offer advice, practical help, and often do play therapy with children too. Here's their official site here