Is this Discrimination (ASD related) Very upset

[Aeroflotgirl]

I am so upset I don't know where to start. DD 7.5 has just started Brownies 2 weeks ago, she has ASD and is supported by a carer. The Brownie leaders work in an Autistic school during the day. I received yesterday a text from her carer telling me that the Leaders wanted to give the children a talk on dd condition without her being there. This was 2 hours before she was due to start her session, so I paid for care she did not need as it was under the 24 hour cancellation period.

I was really upset, as it should not take 1.5 hours to talk to Brownies about her disability. I tried to contact the Brownie leader a few times and left a message. I then contacted the head of her care agency who knows the Brownie leader. It transpires that parents of Brownies have had issues with dd behaviour, like the stimming, hand flapping, and getting too close to children's personal space and the district commissioner as asked that the Brownie leader give a talk to the Brownies about ASD. DD goes with a carer who would have relayed to me if she had been violent or emotionally abusive which she had not, she does not display that type of behaviour. Both her sessions at Brownies have been positive, so I can imagine it was dd unusual behaviour. Apparently couple of girls have left the Brownies for no reason, which I presume because of dd.

I feel so hurt that others feel that way about dd, if she was in a wheelchair or had a disfigurement they would not get away with that, its like we have not progressed 40 years. Anyway dd is going next week with her head held high, these are not her issues and she has nothing to be ashamed about.

I am drafting a letter to the District Commisioner and head of Brownies and Girlguide in my area, it has been handled so badly. No representative from our end was asked to attend the meeting to see what was being said about dd. She was in a different Rainbow pack with a more experienced leader, and we had no issues, parents were so positive. I feel so upset

Hope your ok

Well, I've read every post and I believe that that the moral of the story is, 'DON'T volunteer for anything because no thanks are coming your way'.
I would however like to take this opportunity to THANK every single volunteer who gives their time, energy and soul into supporting others and I am SO SORRY that people feel the need to criticise and complain about you. Shame on them all.

Thanks Billabong but I don't need you to pour shame on people on my behalf.

During the considerable time I spend volunteering, I ensure that I work to the high standards that would be expected of me if I were a paid employee. I do that because the guidelines I am expected to follow are in place for very good reasons, often to protect vulnerable people. The same applies to Brownie leaders who have a responsibility to protect the children in their care and absolutely should be called to account if they are failing to do so.

Billabong so you think it's ok for an Autistic child to be told tgat they will not be going to their Brownie group 2 hours before it starts, dd is upset and in tears. This information has not come from her leaders directly to me, but a 3rd party. I contacted the leader, I could nit get through to her and left several messages to contact me with my number. The leader relays the situation to dd carer who then tells me, instead of calling me. I contacted dd leader of her old Rainbow group who is the district commissioner for tgat region and she is appealled how it's been handled. She said volunteer or not, they have to follow strict guidelines and protocols, this has not been done and told me to lodge a complaint with the district commissioner in tgat district. She also offered dd a place in her Brownie pack . I know that dd will be happy there, she has been nothing short of excellent with her pBrownie and Rainbow packs.

Yes they are volunteers, but they also have to be professional and deal with situations appropriately!

Billabong - brownies need to follow the equality act whether they are volunteers or not.
The district commissioner was absolutely wrong to instruct the brownie leader to inform the children about a child's disability in response to discrimination by parents.

It would never be appropriate for a leader to explain a child's differences or quirks without express permission and collaboration.

I never implied otherwise.

I simply said that having a talk was a good thing to do, but they went about it wrong and should have included the parents.

Also, they could have had a talk about how the girls were gossiping or treating her. It could have been a talk on behavior, it could have been anything.

Has the leader gotten back to you OP? I'd be demanding to know what was said about my child.

Right- so they 'went about it wrong and should have included the parents' but 'shame' on anyone who disagrees with what they did.

Hope you never, say, need the knowledgeable and non judgemental services of, say, the CAB Billabong. They are only volunteers, after all.

No they haven't got back to me

Whilst I agree that voluntary organisation have to work to a code, the. Guiders are volunteers and deserve respect. I admire them giving up their time, I understand you are upset but I also worry that many involved in the scouting and guiding movement have given up the roles as they are not appreciated.

Right- so they 'went about it wrong and should have included the parents' but 'shame' on anyone who disagrees with what they did.

Kindly take a moment to see that while Bulbasaur and Billabong look similar, they are indeed different usernames with different people.

That is all.

I have a child on the spectrum at the most severe end, he's a young adult now. Ive also been a Brown Owl. I think its positive ASD is being explained to the children but it should have been done before your daughter joined the pack.

I suspect children have gone home and spoken about the new girl and parents have added feet and legs to things. They won't know why our children stim and hand flap for e.g. and neither will they know why our children can and very often do invade other peoples personal space. They will probably just know their child got frightened when the new girl got to close to them and was making noises and waving her hands around in a scary way, because thats probably how it looks and feels to the other Brownies.

Im not sure where discrimination comes into it to be honest, and I really do believe that when it comes to things like this its how everyone is affected by a situation - not just our children and ourselves.

The leader work with children with autism and may well just have been talking generally about autism (and kids are not stupid from this they would recognise your daughters condition).
I doubt they spent the whole meeting talking about it, but it then gives them the flexibility about when to do the talk if your dd isn't there.

I think you've got it in a nutshell 'itsaknockout'.

I agree that it was handled badly in that you should have been asked and sufficient notice should have been given to avoid having to pay out for the carer.

However, I actually think it's great that the girls were talked to and think it could make Brownies a much more positive experience for your daughter (for example - the girls sent the message that they really missed her at the meeting. This won't be true because no group of 7/8 year olds will actively regret the absence of another 7/8 year old in a weekly activity that they know they will see them in next week. But it shows that they are learning kindness and empathy and want you daughter to know they are thinking about her.)

When I was a child there was a little boy with ASD in my Dad's cub group who lived near us. He used to come round to our house several times a week wanting to play and it drove my sister and I mad. The games he wanted to play were boring to us and we thought he was 'weird'. We started hiding from him, running away from him mid game and being generally shitty little girls. So my Dad explained to us that he had ASD and what that meant for him (this was back when ASD was quite rare and we'd never come across it before so had no idea how to recognise it). It really helped and we played much better together after that. Probably my Dad was in the wrong to do that but children are looking to understand each other not for sensitive information to note down. So it worked.

I think it's the lack of communication, information being relayed to me by a third party, and not directly by the leaders. I have no problem with the talk but the way things were dealt with çoukd have been a lot better. I still haven't had anything back from the leaders. I am sure she will really enjoy her new group. I understand that the Brownie leaders are volunteers and I am very grateful, I was a Brownie back in the day and had many fond memories.

Perhaps the leaders now feel as if they're walking on egg shells and wondering if they phone you it may make things worse given that it took very little to ignite the situation in the first place. They are probably letting the dust settle and waiting to be told by the powers that be how they should handle any further contact regarding the situation.

And I would assume that because your DD was at Brownies with a carer they thought she was privy to sensitive issues as well as being the go between themselves and your family.

I feel very sorry for the Brown Owl, she couldn't do right for doing wrong and if I've understood correctly her and the District Commissioner in your area have been well and truly shafted by a District Commissioner from another area who's spoken about them to you. And now she's taking your DD into her pack? Why couldn't she help the current pack leaders integrate your DD and deal with situations that could arise? She could have been so useful in a different way but what she did stinks to high heavens and it would leave a very nasty taste in my mouth.

The reality is that a group of women who volunteer to run a Brownie Pack handled something in a way that wasn't taken with the spirit intended. I think they need to be cut some slack.

At the end of the day if they had contacted me directly explaining the situation, none of this would have happened, I would be very understanding. This information should never had been related to me from a third party. it should not be up to dd carer who also works with the brown owl to convey this information 2 hours before the session. Dd looking forward to it and being told nit this week and her upset and confusion. Anyway I gave dd the choice of which Brownie pack she wanted and she chose tge one she was familiar with, not the new one. This pack that dd attended has only been running for 3 weeks, the Brown owl is nit fully qualified, she is being overseen by the district commissioner in that area. Next time if this type of situation arises, it will be handled in a better way hopefully.

The issue is that the OP's DD wasn't considered eligible to take an active role in supporting her own integration into the pack and neither were her parents, her most enduring and involved advocates.

Rather than working with this child and her parents to decide what information should be shared and the best way to proceed, the leaders took it upon themselves to give the brownies the information they saw fit and actively excluded the child from this process.

This gives out an extremely negative message about disability to everyone concerned including the OP's DD and betrays an attitude of seeing people with disabilities as passive recipients of our tolerance, rather than active members of society with something positive to offer.

Hopefully this situation will trigger some training for this Brown Owl so that these negative attitudes are not reinforced any further and a truly inclusive ethos is promoted in the future in this pack.

Thankyou Goldmandra , that is what I feel, we where were not involved in anything. Just a text via dd carer and told not to come to Brownies this week as they are giving a talk on dd and her Autism, they did not want her there. This was hurtful, and excluded dd and her advocates from having a say in the situation, or dd being represented by myself, dh or her carer. Yes it is important that even volunteers act appropriately, to instill positive attitudes towards disability. Imagine dd had a Physical disability, or disfigurement, would this be acceptable!

As the pack is still very new, and the Brown Owl is not fully qualified, I would have expected the District Commissioner who is overseeing her to act in an appropriate way. Hopefully this will not happen a next time. It was this is what will happen, you have to comply. No information about the situation, and involvement from us. I have lost confidence in that pack, it left a bad taste. Dd made the choice herself to go to the other pack, where the Brown Owl knows dd extremely well, and no issues ever happened in Rainbows, always such a lovely experience for dd and myself.

I think you did the right thing to move her. Yes, in an ideal world, the Brown Owl could get some training, learn from this experience and change her attitude but your DD shouldn't be the crash test dummy. She needs to be somewhere that has a truly inclusive ethos from the start.

I wonder if the children in the school where the leaders work are similarly disenfranchised

I agree Gold, her District commissioner apparently is a special needs teacher, and Brown Owl works with children who have ASD. The leader of her new Brownie pack where she was a Rainbow, is also Autistic trained and works with children with ASD. The experience with her could not be different and more positive. Is this too much to ask? I remember at school I was prevented from going on a school trip, I was 9 years old, I had dev delay, and was very immature for my age. My parents were told I couldent go, I still remember it today