I think CAHMS have sent me the wrong letter!

[ReanimatedSGB]

Been stewing about this all day as the letter came this morning (and I KNOW there is nothing I can do till Monday.)

I asked the GP to send a referral request for DS, who is 13 and... not quite 'normal', probably Aspergers/ASD. This was on the advice of the school welfare officer, though we have all suspected for a while that there's something going on with him.

Got a letter today saying that there doesn't appear to be anything that needs a referral but it says the initial request came from [name] and [school]. It's not his school, not a school he ever attended, and the name is not that of the SENCo at his current school, either. Though they have apparently CC'd their letter to the right GP.

Has anyone else had something like this? I don't know whether they have sent completely the wrong letter, or just send the standard 'Nice try, there's no funding, sod off' letter but not bothered to change the name/school of the person referring.

It sounds like it's a cut and paste gone wrong... i.e. right letter wrong details.

That sounds like a simple administration error. Call the office number on the letter and explain what has happened and ask them to check their files and make sure you have received the correct response and cross check everything. Also get your GP to write as well pointing out the error and asking them to rexamine/refer.

I suspect what has happened is that someone has dictated a letter against the wrong name/record in error.

I regularly get letters from CAHMS with the wrong details. Usually just DS name, or their school. It's administrative mistakes.

I think they must employ a special kind of secretary

In our area unless your child is demonstrably suicidal camhs will not see due to lack of funds

There is a policy of not seeing teen children to diagnose asd, it’s often discussed over on the special needs area sadly

DS, who is 13 and... not quite 'normal'

Please don't ever describe him like that and definitely not if he could hear you.

He's fine with that. We don't see normal as something to aspire to.

Schroedingers - yeah, we are not in the greatest of areas for youth support as it is. A few years ago I made a few tentative steps to get a DX for him but was told then (by the primary school SENCo) that he wouldn't be a top priority as he was managing fairly well.

For context: DS is clever but quirky and a bit socially inept. He gets on really well with other kids who are officially diagnosed as Aspergers'/ASD, but seems a bit 'emotionally immature' compared to NT kids his own age.

There's no way of knowing on this one, I think. Even if someone else had got a similar letter on here, I don't think it would tell you anything about yours. I do sympathise, we're over a year into the assessment process and there is a lot of waiting.

Here there are 3 routes to CAMHS - GP, school or parent, so you don't need GP at all. Our GP actually refuses to refer for it, which astounded me.

The GP actually did the referral - I don't know if the school did an additional one, but I will be asking them about it on Monday.

Cahms won't diagnose ASD this would be done via a peaditrican, they have to perform a 3DI scan (a series of questions that determines a score and this is where on the spectrum your child would be put, the about 2 hours ) i had to fight for my son for many years to get this.

I am currently dealing with cahms for my DSD as she has mental health issues. They have turned my friends children away as they are not as severe. Not something they choose to do but they are limited. hope this makes sense.

different teams are different. Some camhs teams do asd assessments and they do not all use the 3di (the adi is more thorough). But sorry you have been through this. CAMHS teams are not immune to human error. Please judge them on the care or not they give your ds rather than this.

We had similar when DS was 4. He had been observed at nursery by an early years inclusion officer. The follow up report we received was for another little boy with the same first name. My OH knew this boys parents and contacted them, to find that they'd been sent the paperwork for our son! Both reports contained lots of confidential information. The inclusion officer came to our house to swap the reports over by hand and seemed mortified that it had happened.

Your sons school need to make referral for an Educational Psychologist Gorham assessment to diagnose ASD.

Gorham? No idea what that is or why is appeared in my post! Sorry!

Thanks all. I will talk to both the SENCo and CAHMS on Monday and see what they advise.

We've had the wrong school on letters too.

CAMHS are great once you get there but from referral to therapy you're looking at the best part of 2 years.

Sadly the best way to get seen is to self harm or threaten suicide.

It varies from area to area. Here in Hampshire, you can self-refer to CAMHS (but nobody tells you that 😉). Even still, it took 6 months for DD2 to get to her initial appointment where the guy said 'yep, I think it's ASD, so I'll put her forward for assessment', and we've waited 6 months so far since then to be allocated a case worker for formal assessment. We've just had a letter confirming that she's still on the list 🤔.

We don't see normal as something to aspire to.

It’s a name of a letter, why does it matter? Just call them and explain.

It's CDC who diagnose here. First refusal to see letter had DS's name as one completely different to his. Other details were correct though.

TBH I am very on the fence about getting a DX at all. DS is happy, generally, and has friends - definitely not self-harming or suicidal, and there has always been a part of me that thinks 'FFS leave my kid alone, he's just clever.' There's been no indication that he needs 1-1 support in lessons, so I am honestly not sure whether we need to stress ourselves pushing for appointments.

In this CAMHS-diagnosing area you don't need a child to be self harming to get a referral onto the autism assessment pathway.

If you have SENCO and school welfare officer on board are you sure he's happy and fine? We wibbled for a long time too.

I get where you are coming from with the "not normal" - my family is full of "not normal" . But there is a risk that some of his schoolmates, and looking into the future employees/colleagues won't see the "clever" but the "not normal" and treat him worse because of it. A diagnosis isn't a magic wand, but would potentially confer some form of legal protection, particularly in the work place. Also given the waiting lists, it's always better to at least get on the waiting list, while things are going reasonably OK, than take the risk of things becoming more urgently, and meeting with a "computer says no - wait 2 years like everyone else" response to a referral.

TBH I am very on the fence about getting a DX at all. DS is happy, generally, and has friends - definitely not self-harming or suicidal, and there has always been a part of me that thinks 'FFS leave my kid alone, he's just clever.'

That bit's hard - we got our eldest into OT because it gave us something to talk to the school about, purely because one teacher was giving him a hard time and labelling him as immature and lazy - when actually, he was trying really hard, and just found some things really difficult (and therefore tried to use his charm to clown/talk his way out of being told off for it) - once we had the Occupational Therapist report, we could go to the school and get them to be positive about him, rather than negative, and that really helped.

Still waiting to talk to school SENCo as want to find out whether they wrote to CAHMS as well... She doesn't seem to be in today.