Need to go off work with stress - but don’t want it marked as stress

The other piece of advice that I have and this is an SEN not work specific thing, is to try to make contact with other parents in the same boat. My SEN friends have really had my back at certain points, it is very hard for those not in the system to understand it.

Your 'fast tracked' date could still be 20 weeks away, and if you're off sick for 20 weeks, what then? That was my point OP. Short term you might be drowning but I'm thinking of the raft you might be needing to live on for the next 6 months and the provisions you may need along the way.

I have level 3 IPSEA legal training and do know what I'm talking about. I'm also not being paid thousands of pounds by you. I help people for free.

Take it step by step OP.

Get signed off for a month or so. Take a breath, spend some time with your oldest child and with your parent, definitely try to do some nice things, walks with friends, coffees, nothing, do whatever you need to do. Then see. You may need another month or two, you may not. You may need the whole six months and if you do, you do, but you don't know that now. I was so ill with long covid that I exhausted my paid leave and now have to build it up again. That's not a great position to be in, so if you can avoid that I would.

You can't do it all at once, and you don't really know how it will work out., but you do need to look after your own health.

You'll onpy get 112.00 per week for 28 weeks no matter what hours you did before so will be a massive reduction in wages.
But you can talk to your dr and tell them your stressed to sign off but you can tell them that you didn't want your work to know that. They can leave it blank or put down other reasons.
As for your kid....mainstream schools do have non verbal children and many kids start school who are not toilet trained still.

Maybe you also need to look for a role in another part of the Civil Service? Lots of people in my department have had time off for stress or caring responsibilities and it hasn't "marked their card" (although one division is a bit like that, the one with high turnover).

Yes, it's pretty stupid to expect people not to lie, to do their job, and to drop their hours when they can't do what they are paid for.

FFS! I'm not having a go at the OP, despite her passive aggressive responses, but the reality of having people off sick in public sector roles is that someone has to pick up the slack, there is often no budget to pay for temps (and many roles are too specialist to get one quickly anyway), and the work has to be done as there are clients who would suffer if not. Lying to get a sick note is not ok for all the reasons that have been stated, plus the OP is not sick, she is in an ongoing difficult situation that is not going to resolve any time soon, so she needs to look at ways to mitigate that. Yes, it's rubbish, but pretending that it's ok for the OP to lie and to take a salary she's not earning is not being helpful, but she won't listen to anything other than what she wants to hear.

The OP says from the start that asking if she's being unreasonable will 'set people off' - she's already framing the situation as one in which a different opinion = intolerance. There was never much point in giving an alternative perspective, so OK. . .

Poor you, OP. Of course you should lie and get as much time off as you can. Never mind that doing so will make life difficult for those who genuinely sufferer from illness. Don't dwell on the fact that someone will be doing your work free whilst you get paid, and that their life may be stressful too. Or that your behaviour might affect the way female managers are viewed. Don't worry, and don't even consider dropping your hours or getting a less stressful job. Do what's best for you, and only you. Anyone covering for you must be stupid anyway.

Is that better?

It literally says in the last paragraph that the tribunals may not take place before the Reception start, which is exactly what I said OP. You're tired, I get it. I don't need the aggression.

None of these suggestions will pay her mortgage tho

Well OP isn’t one of them….so she got options ….not sure the point of your comment ?🤔🙄

As I said before, once you use it up now, what happens in future? You get 5 months full and 5 months half according to gov.uk in a rolling 4 year period.

I’m just advising you to be cautious.

you’re clearly very stressed, but not sure what is going to change significantly to reduce this in future, given your child will likely need picking up more often than other children and you’ve got financial obligations requiring both of you to work full time. It’s at least 13 years of education to manage. What’s the long term plan?

Hello there and big hug. I have a 12 yo with EHCP and now in specialist school. Spent most of his nursery year trying to get EHCP and honestly that was probably the worst year of my life and I have blanked it out. So I hear you. I also work in a relatively high pressure job 4 days a week. My job has actually been the saving grace in terms of time away from all the SEN (although childcare.....). Take the time off, be kind to yourself and you will bounce back stronger.

I haven’t RTFT (a cardinal MN sin, I know).

I just wanted to add my 2p as both an employment lawyer and an employer.

If my staff came to me with this, I’d be letting them know we could help. Whether that was parental leave, carers leave, more flexible hours or a temporary reduction in hours. None of which would go down as sick leave or have any impact on their employment record.

Sometimes you really can sort things directly with your employer, assuming they aren’t ogres.

If they are, THEN get signed off. You’ve got a lot on your plate.

I promise you I get this every which way as a civil servant and a parent of a child with SEN. My child is older now but I had to deal with EHCP stress for years and the deaths of my mum and my inlaws too.

Do be honest, as pp said, in the kindest possible way, your mental health may well be worse than you think. If you are off for a significant period of time then you will have to talk to work OH, it will just add to your stress if you are trying to game things.

Also, this is a long haul. Even if your child gets into the right placement, you may well find that you are needed more than you would be in 'usual' parenting. Things can go well for a while and then suddenly something will change and you will need to come up with a new plan and readjust.

Take some time off and do think about what you can do to make things more sustainable. Your DH will need to do his bit. Things changed for me when I insisted that mine came to all important meetings. The mental load is substantial.

I burnt out in the end, I think I was susceptible to long covid because of my burnout. Please do take care of your health, it is so important. Sending you love, things will get better

It's not going to work being signed off with something else.
If you say muscular skeletal then you will be referred to a physio
Migraines -prescribed medication
Gynae issues -investigation
You would be required to show your work you are being treated, getting help
Just go to the Gp and get signed off with anxiety/ stress

I'm not sure about the UK but here in Ireland you don't need to write on your medical cert what is wrong. Not sure if this applies to longer leave. But I have gone to GP previously and they just wrote Medical Condition on my cert, although it would only have been for a few days. Your employer doesn't need to know why you're off sick.

I'm saying that short term if you need time off to deal with the stress then absolutely take this, but have in mind that this issue could very well be much not be short term.

I'm an advocate for SEN families on a voluntary basis and have never heard of tribunals legally needing to take place before Reception starts. I'm pretty sure that's not a thing.

Mediation is a stalling tactic. If you haven't even passed the mediation stage you're looking at at least 2025 for a tribunal date, and they won't fast track it.

If you need that time off right now absolutely take it, I'm just warning you this could be another year at least of fighting ahead of you.

Speak with your GP in the first instance

I apologise. You are absolutely right. I just think it is so sad that the Op feels her source of income might be lost permanently if she tells the truth about needing time off.

They won't fast track the tribunal. I know because I've been through the exact same situation. You could be looking at 2025 for a tribunal date. Can you be off until then?