AIBU to be pissed off at this autism course?

[Welldd]

DD is autistic. We struggle a lot with behavior, anxiety, poor academia, massive social struggles. We've just had a diagnosis.

A local ASD team are running a parenting support course. It's a 12 week block run by professionals. I can't even begin to put into words how beneficial this would be for us.

It's every Friday. I can't go because I'm in work. I've spoken to my boss and there's no way I can get one day a week off for 12 weeks (understandably obviously).

The lady I spoke to was taken aback when I said I work and she also didn't really 'get' my predicament. She even asked with almost raised eyebrows "You can't make one session a week for your daughter? Really?"

There are over 500 families who are eligible for this course. There are 12 spaces and our family have miraculously been selected. I feel so upset and angry that I'm going to have to turn this course down despite being desperately eager to attend all because I've got a fucking job. We have no other support.

AIBU? I feel crushed about it

Looks like you just cant go. Disappointing, but the courses are not essential, even if they are really useful. Theyre also usually run by charities and volunteers, so its not likely theyre going to start doing weekends and evenings too.
Just another one of the hundreds of reasons that so many families with SEN children are forced to give up work even when they dont want to. Its sad.

Seven what a load of shit. How would putting herself in debt help FGS. having a disabled child is tough financially. My ds is very destructive and has cost me a bloody fortune. Not to mention the legal battles to get good provision. Being bloody poor would have made it a hundred times worse. The problem is your attitude is shared by many professional s who should know better.

course and live on pasta

And to hell with the fact the OP's son might just have dietary issues that mean she'd have more chance of getting him to eat the contents of a witches cauldron. 🙄

Haven't RTFT, but have you requested flexible working for the duration of the course, ie cut down to 4 days just for those 12 weeks? Or even 4.5 days, with you going in on the course day, outwith course hours (if that's physically possible). It's only 12 weeks after all, I'm sure your work would cope.

Wow seven, you must really rate these courses highly to think it is worth taking on a massive amount of debt over I would suspect that the op could actually teach the course facilitator a thing or to about autism, given she lives with it day in day out.......... (of course the facilitator might too, but equally might not...).

Cansu this month I have spent £1500 on therapy for one of my dc It will take us 12 months to pay it off , it was improve my dc life so the debt is absolutely worthless it.
Since having disabled dc I have had to change my way of thinking and view the costs of therapy , equipment, appointments etc as essential cost as much as food and clothing are for my dc.

• it will improve my dc life so the debt is absolutely worth it.

MissDuke yes I do rate those courses highly I have lived with autism for 18 years and yet I would still attend. Yes it done ways I could " teach the course" but it is still very beneficial to go.

Well- I'm sure you've though of this but could you and your dp do alternate weeks? Your workplaces might be happier about 6 Friday's worth of annual leave over 12 weeks?

....and view the costs of therapy , equipment, appointments etc as essential cost as much as food and clothing are for my dc.

seven, I can only assume that you are financially in a much more priveleged position that most parents of disabled children - and there is nothing wrong with that. However, it is not the same for a lot of other families with children with ASD.

For most of the families I know, disability of a child comes with financial hardship and cost of therapies and equipment is not something that is seen as essential. Most struggle to cover the bare basics (food and a roof over their heads)and therapy costs are an unaffordable luxury.

Coffee no I am unable to work and claim pip. The cost for dc this month have gone on an interest free credit card.

I was offered one of these courses when my son was diagnosed. Monday morning every week for 12 weeks with a break at half term.

I work in a school so "leave" is set for school holidays. Mornings are my busiest time. We are a small school and could not afford to pay for cover for me for 12 mornings (sickness is different as we have insurance for that). The courses simply dont run during the school holidays which I think is silly.

Sorry, didn't RTFT but could your DH/DP go?

I'm just finding it hard to believe that teachers cannot get the time off.
There are unions, you have rights.

www.teachers.org.uk/files/leave_of_absence.pdf

And unless your DP is a teacher also
Why can't he take the time out

Why can't DH take annual leave?

My school is currently allowing me paid time off to attend my asd child's EHCP and CAMH appointments. If I have to leave early to pick up another DC that is now unpaid. If I had a course to do they would make me go down to 90% or lower for the whole year. It's not easy and this is looking likely for his therapy.

I don't think the op has mentioned whether she is a single parent or the child sees her father?
I think claiming Dla to cover the shortfall in earnings and taking parental leave sounds the best option. If that will take too long maybe you could ask to be put on the next course?
Tbh though I have found the NAS helpline to be much better than any course. You always spend a lot of time listening to very specifically c advice that doesn't apply to you on the courses. They are good for meeting other parents though. Maybe you could see if a church/community centre near you would be willing to host a coffee morning/evening for parents of children with asd/sn. There must be other parents who struggle to get to things on weekdays.

Yes I had this too. I had already closed my business (running children's activities) as it wasn't compatable with having to deal with ds. Dh is a teacher. I'd already used all my leave including unpaid to deal with the myriad of appointments, being called urgently into school etc.

I simply could not take all those Tuesday mornings off work that was required. I also have a dd & it's not fair on her if she gets neglected if all my leave is spent on ds.

This is why I ended up having to stop working. It was impossible to juggle everything and I was making myself ill trying to. Ds is currently under 13 different teams so it was a nightmare

I've got two children with ASD...one severe. I didn't go back to work after DS2 was born as he was so I'll and was constantly at appointment etc....
I was also the main bread winner so we took a massive pay cut.
Depends really how old your child is too! We did the Early Birds course and my DH just went to a couple .... it was the biggest waste of time ever!!! Did not help at all!!!

I think your employers are being thoroughly unreasonable for not giving you the leave.

No well-run business should be that reliant on one person's presence. If they can't let you be gone for a day a week, they need to think through what would happen if you were in a serious accident and were suddenly off work for 12 weeks with all your limbs in traction. If that would cause the business to go busy because you are so vital then that is really poor management. If they would be able to rally round and put arrangements in place to cope without you then they can jolly well do that for Fridays for this course.

Assuming the OP is a teacher there are huge problems with taking the same bit of time each week. If she is timetabled to take an exam group on a Friday morning in a subject for which there are v few specialist cover teachers and your child was in that group, would you be happy for her to be absent for 12 double lessons? Not all schools have the flexibility to rearrange the timetable to let someone else cover it who is a specialist. I totally agree that it sucks that she can't go and in an ideal world there would be a variety of times on offer but it's not fair to blame the school for saying no ..their responsibility is to their students.

If anyones around Oxford www.autismoxford.org.uk/index.php do courses and one day seminars. I havent been to any as not local, but they have some really good speakers.

It's difficult all round- I feel for you OP. The woman you spoke to was unnecessarily dismissive, which wasn't kind or helpful at all. Perhaps she was genuinely surprised as it was such a hard course to get onto.

Unfortunately with courses like these they are often in the day for logistical reason. Most of the courses use both employees and volunteers (often parents), or are run by volunteers. The paid staff who organise don't work evenings/weekends (and it would be more expensive and more difficult to recruit people to work weekends) and the volunteers frequently can't do these due to their own childcare commitments. There are plenty of parents who couldn't do evening ones, or can't do x day of the week so I think it would be hard to run things to suit everyone. Not that this helps you and I'm sorry things are so hard.