Firstly - apologies for being vague, I don’t want to identify the individuals involved.
I have absolutely lost all faith in social services, who have absolutely and totally let down a vulnerable adult. So this autistic man who is a close family member (let’s call him Fred) is currently being cared for by his mother. (For context - Fred is severely autistic and has very limited communication skills)
Fred’s mother has been behaving increasingly strange and erratic, and recently Fred has been appearing to suffer as a consequence - for the past few months he’s appeared unwashed, underweight, an infection in his arm (which she refused to treat), and now very withdrawn. He’s even fainted on occasion.
I was also made aware that other family members were concerned because Fred’s mother has been forcing him to shave his body hair ‘so he doesn’t just have to wear trousers’??? It seems really odd to me to force a grown man to do this, particularly as Fred clearly couldn’t possibly understand the social reasons why people shave their legs! (Who would even expect a man to shave all his body hair off anyway?!)
So I reported this to social services - I didn’t take this decision lightly as they are family members (although Fred’s mother absolutely despises me, as I work with the medical profession and she doesn’t ‘believe’ in it). In particular I was concerned about his infected arm, and she seemed completely unwilling to do anything about it. Meanwhile Fred’s mother is suddenly appearing in very expensive clothing - one has to question whether she’s taking is money, particularly when she has no other form of income.
I thought social services would do something, but they’ve said she is fine and isn’t withholding medical care as she’s ‘using alternative medicine options’. I wouldn’t even care if they were working, but they clearly aren’t.
I really don’t know what to say. I can see the poor man becoming worse and worse, and isn’t the happy young man he was before. He seems to be in a very bad situation and yet social services seem to accept that he’s ok because his mother says so? They haven’t even tried to get a second opinion from a doctor.
I just don’t even know what to do. Social services have made me feel like a nuisance for even raising it, but I’m really worried about this poor man - particularly as I’ve seen him thriving when he had proper care. I don’t even think his mother is doing it deliberately, I think she’s just ill too.