Early help - not really AIBU

[Northernsoulgirl45]

Dd2 (14) is having issues with school attendance. She suffers from social anxiety.
We are getting some support to help get her in but nothing appears to be working. We are at stage now where we could be fined.
On waiting list fo CAHMS but appointment unlikely to be soon.
Thinking of self referring for early help but just wondering what this entails.
Does snyone havw any experience please?

Yep, we have an early help plan because DS was rejected from CAMHS and they said we had to. But actually the family support worker we were assigned to has been absolutely incredible and helped us with loads of other difficulties we are facing. Totally worth it for us so far.

That is good news. Do they visit you at home?

I self referred as well BTW although I only thought of it because the second camhs letter suggested it.

I phoned the local hub (found it on county council website), booked an appt as they had drop in sessions. Went and gave them a brief run down of our situation. They then sent someone out to our house (sorry I can’t remember how long the wait was) who took it all down on a form and had a brief chat with the kids.

They then took the form and put us on the list for a family support worker so it was just a question of waiting, again I can’t recall how long although it wasn’t months or anything (that must vary by area and I’m not sure if they rank families on perceived level of need - we have quite a bit going on so that may have rushed it through)

We had the home visit from the initial person, then our actual FSW has visited maybe two or three times. The first time we met she invited us to one of the children and family centres and we’ve had other meetings there too - it’s pretty flexible

Thank you

It's a simple form to fill out, then a social worker will get in touch. Early help can be a helpful service if you engage. It can also help you to be referred on (eg, if a child has asd traits, the key worker can push for an Ed Psych referral.) I've filled the form out many times to refer families and pupils who I work with. It is a simple process. In your shoes, I'd refer.

Thank you Anyone else?

I am a DSL in a school so I regularly lead Early Helps for families or attend Early Help Family Support Meetings for children I am working with.

The process is completely voluntary, the Early Help only stays open for as long as you as Parents want it to. Essentially it's a framework for improving communication between agencies and helping families to access support more easily. You have a Family Support Meeting every few weeks where the family plus all professionals working with the child come together to review progress and think about how to support the child going forward. As Parents you have the right to decide who attends the Family Support Meetings, what's recorded in the minutes and what support you want to engage with. It can be really useful because at the end of each meeting there should be defined targets and actions for each agency to complete ahead of the next meeting, so it's a good way of holding people accountable.

You may be assigned a Family Support Worker (if you want one) and you can access additional services for all members of the family. For example, I'm currently working with a family where the DM has been assigned a Family Support Worker to help with Housing issues and support her around managing the behaviour of the youngest child. One child now has their own youth worker who meet with him in school and is getting him involved in sports activities in the local community, one child is having Art Therapy and one is recieving 12 sessions of mentoring by a charity who works with young people at risk of CSE. All these interventions have been organised and funded via the Early Help process.

If there are school attendance issues then it can be useful for the Early Help to provide a link between home and school, to ensure that lines of communication remain open even if the child is not attending.

I would say you have nothing to lose by giving it a try, you can always ask for it to be closed if you don't find it helpful.

In our area there are specialist education emotional well being workers to help teens with low attendance for mental health reasons. I think this is through education rather than social care.

Watching with interest.
My DD has also been suffering from anxiety / feeling overwhelmed. School attendance has dropped and school suggested the possibility of ASD but said I have to go to GP for referral and it's a 2.5 year wait for diagnostic appointment or I can go for private assessment for £1850. No mention of early help self referral .
Her older sister was referred for counselling by school which I believe was early help, it was linked to cahms. Tbh I think she had more ASD traits than younger sister. Counselling was a disaster she wouldn't open up or even attend so was then discharged.
Not sure where to go from here.

runner that sounds so hard. Dd2 also has some asd traits. She did attend a cdc when much younger but was never really a big thing aa so high functioning.
Good luck

Ds is 15 and recently diagnosed with autism, with zero post diagnosis support. He was referred to Camhs by our gp for his mental health difficulties but his referral was rejected.

His school referred him to the local authority access to resources team, although the referral form also did say 'early help' at the top.

The access to resources team offered 5 in school counselling sessions for Ds with a counsellor from a local charity. The local authority paid for half of these sessions and the school told us that we had to pay for the rest, which we have done. We can't seem to access any support for our autistic Ds that isn't going to cost us a significant amount of money. It's really sad there is nothing more available, even our gp apologised for the lack of support.

Ds has 3 sessions left. I've never met the counsellor and they are of course confidential sessions so I have no idea if they are helping him or not. Not even sure how well Ds is engaging with her.

The LA offered nothing else and the counselling sessions they did offer cost us money (which I obviously don't begrudge if it helps Ds, I just mistakenly thought it was a free service). Once the counselling has finished will be very much coping with this completely on our own again.

Hope you can get your Dd the support she needs Northern. At times it can feel like nobody wants to help at all.

When they don't go into school, phone as for a normal medical absence and say it is for mental health reasons. You will not be fined. you may get the EWO come out, but they may even be able to provide help - and at least provide an extra referral to CAMHS.
I'd probably contact Young Minds too for more help/advice.

Thanks Molly. The school won't approve medical absense without cast iron evidence once attendance falls below 90% and apparently proof from CAHMS that she suffers from anxiety is not sufficient. Not had any correspondence from school or EWO. If I had than maybe more support would have been forthcoming.

That is rubbish too pun
The irony is that she could have counselling at school but doesn't qualify as on waiting list for CAHMS.

The school is acting illegally, but understandably as they are under pressure to keep absenses down. But they have no right to do anything but mark her in as medically absent.
This gives some advice
The government advice
Mental health absense from school
Or this advice from IPSEA

If they are not noting the cause of her absences they they also will not be putting measures in place to manage her return to school.

Yes schools are under pressure - but if they try to fine you - which is done by the LA not the school, then if it was taken to court a judge would not just ignore medical evidence.
Schools are being forced to ask for medical letters, when Doctors will not provide them and do not want to see a child with recurring stomach bugs, flu or migraines.

Hi I work in Early Help the school should of offered you an EHA straight away and invited the school nurse and your local EIPT who deal with fines etc. We have a support for parents called IASS for parents who need to navigate school bs. They can also point out to the school what they should be doing legally. I am in Northamptonshire if you need help.

Louise

When my son missed school die to anxiety - he has ASD too - his school recorded it as unorthorised absence and refused to record it as sickness absence .

Also with early help - if your child doesn’t engage they are pretty quick to close the case.

Until your child is 16 they don’t need consent from the child.

Whilst your willing to work with the school EIPT are reluctant to fine. If you call your school nurses team they can support too and be the lead on an EHA. For a child I worked with they called in Action for children.

Thank you everyone. The school have totally faoled to follow their own absense policy buy marking it authorised for a long time. Than suddenly without warning the abseenses started appearing as unauthorised. This of course makes it impossible to get proper medical evidence for histiric absense.

Getting hold of a school nurse should be fun. After ringing several different numbers and leaving a message I still didn't get a call back.

Referral gor early help going though. Hope I made right decision. Thank you for replies.