To think this guidance on the safeguarding network is awful ?

[Nurserypractitioner]

Perplexing presentation and FII :

It states in the guidance for schools to basically be suspicious of parents -specifically mothers seeking a diagnosis of ASD or ADHD and then goes on to say about parents who think their child may need an ehcp??!!

A lot of children with ASD mask at school - so if an educational setting see a different presentation that’s probably due to masking yet they are saying it’s potentially a safeguarding issue and could be indicative of FII??? AIBU to think this is dangerous advice ?

Yes it needs to be considered, it doesn't mean that it is the case but all professionals need to be open to all possibilities.

I have met a family (through special needs workshops) where years later munchausens by proxy was proven, made local news due to prosecution

Even if parents do push for assessment and their child turns out to not have ASD or ADHD it doesn’t mean their intentions were to deceive / FII ?

www.arrowpassage.com/mental-illness-vs-autism/#:~:text=Success%20with%20Autism-,Introduction,also%20have%20a%20mental%20illness.

Adhd and ASD are neuro developmental conditions. Not Mh conditions. They can do exist as in having adhd or asd can affect your MH.

But they are not the same thing.

No I agree. So maybe it shouldn’t fit within the FII term, unless there is an element of behaviour being induced on purpose, which again I imagine is quite rare.

Yep.

When my sons old senco challenged a report during the EHCP tribunal the judge - quite rightly - told her it wasn't her place to decide if a child had school anxiety when diagnosed by a psychologist.

The senco actually said "well out staff have expertise in asd".

If they did - ds wouldn't have had a MH crisis in their care and needed the EHCP 🤦🏼‍♀️

The sceptical side of me, thinks this has come about because of all the children now getting a SEN diagnosis, and it's too costly. Also it will only effect those parents with quiet but struggling children, the ones who go unnoticed because the don't cause a disturbance in the classroom. So it will adversely impact many more girls to boys, because parents mums will be too afraid to be labelled, It's a bloody disgrace, and a massive misunderstanding of MBP....which I thought had been pretty much poopooed anyway? It's just another way to silence women parents.

There is absolutely no incentive whatsoever for a parent to suggest a diagnosis or kick off an EHCP process unless you are a total masochist
Money. If your child is diagnosed you can claim benefits. I know a few mothers who have pushed for a diagnosis for their child because they hoped to get some money out of it.

DLA is awarded on needs not diagnosis so that theory can’t be correct

Has any man ever being diagnosed with FII? Or is it female only diagnosis?

In my experience I have worked with 100x more parents who dismiss or minimise their children’s difficulties than parents who exaggerate them.

I'm guessing you've never filled out a DLA application.

Yes this.

As a society if we claim to care about 'safeguarding' we'd be wanting to get kids appropriately supported.

So much of the safeguarding guidance IMO is about making schools carry the rap for funding cuts in social services, mental health services, family support, youth support.

I’m autistic as are my dc.
Most of my friends are autistic. All of the people I socialise with online are autistic, usually with autistic children.
I don’t know one person who hasn’t been left traumatised by the system when trying to flag up issues, and trying to gather up some support. Many have been directly accused of FII, others indirectly. All have been routinely dismissed and had their worries ignored.
I have lost trust in the services I’m supposed to trust, because they dragged my family through pointless, patronising, and humiliating parenting classes. They simultaneously denied my children’s difficulties whilst pointing out that “being suicidal is normal for autism” (so were they accepting that autism was maybe the case for my 9 yr old? But not enough to do anything because it was clearly my parenting? Never did get to the bottom of that particular conundrum).

One of the best books I have about autism is called Learning to Live with High Functioning Autism. First printed in 2000, I have no idea if it’s possible to get a copy now, but the author devoted much of a chapter to how common accusations of FII (or MBP) are. 23 years ago. We’re still accusing poor fucking families of making up their child’s issues, and being told that it’s about wanting financial gain - what fucking financial gain?
A diagnosis is multi-disciplinary, so the parent’s part of the assessment is only one third of it.
DLA can be claimed, but can only be awarded when there’s solid evidence of the issues claimed.
An EHCP can be granted, but LA’s drag their feet over it to the point where it may take 2 years to finalise!
What financial gain are we getting?
I haven’t worked since ds was 6, because I had so many meetings with yet more people telling me he was fine, at 10 his head teacher lied on forms and lied in her part of the autism assessment - she wrote a glowing review of my son, that he was a hard worker, that they had no issues whatsoever - he was in constant trouble, he school refused, he put his head on his SATs paper and refused to answer any questions - thankfully I had written evidence - follow up emails etc so we knew she was lying.
I’ve read in another thread about inspirational disabilities - very often our children are the unlikeable ones, the ones thought to be insolent and rude, and sadly many teachers get great joy out of pushing these children to their limits instead of helping them.
Ds was home educated for a while as he was so traumatised by school. In his years of school, out of all the teachers and TAs and HTs he had any contact with, only two tried to understand him and actually got him (interestingly both were parents of autistic children so could “see it”). Two teachers out of 20+. That’s really shit. But carry on, blame us parents, keep thinking it’s ok to push so many of us to the brink of insanity!
I know so many people who’ve had similar experiences as we have, every single child has since been diagnosed. Every single one. Can you imagine the difference that could have been made to all these families, to have their concerns listened to and believed? To immediately try basic support strategies which they’re meant to do?
Instead we all have symptoms of ptsd just from trying to protect and support our children.
And 46% have voted that this is ok! Fucking hell!

I’ve included an interesting couple of photos of the book above. Insightful words.

That’s terrible. It’s a modern day witch hunt isn’t it and for what purpose? To save schools money ?? It’s awful

Oh that old chestnut 🙄

Have you ever seen a DLA form? Do you know the mountain of evidence you need to provide? You can’t just make up a load of bullshit and it’s taken on merit, et voila, loadsa money!
What a load of bollocks.

@CampCroc very affecting post

It’s thankfully in the past now, but then a thread crops up like this and you see the ignorant posts from people who don’t have a clue, and it comes flooding back.

Ok. So I've not rtft so huge apologies if this point has already been covered. But, my role involves both safeguarding and SEN and I've had this covered in training a lot. The contents here is that this is not supposed to be in isolation but in conjunction with other concerns, forming an overall suspected pattern of behaviour. I've worked in education for 15 years and have never seen anyone 'diagnose' or even allude to FII when a parent is committed to achieving a diagnosis or EHCP. I have raised concerns when a parent had a history of sending their child for blood tests, moving doctors frequently, medicating their child with their own medication and pushing for an EHCP. All a part of the same pattern of behaviour, all in the space of under a year.

It can be a sign. But never on its own.

*context. Not contents.

My son is autistic but we went through a lot of heartache and turmoil to get him diagnosed as such. His first primary school refused to even consider he had any Sen needs whatsoever, they flat out refused. I fought with them for 2 years trying to get support and trying to get him referred for an assessment. They eventually referred him but when the paperwork came through they added a covering letter when they filled it out to essentially say that my son had no issues and all the problems stem from us as parents. We were basically accused of fabricating everything.

when my son had his assessment it was a very lengthy one due to the covering letter the school had sent. We were allowed to stay with my son for the assessment but we chose not to be due to what the school had said. The team did do one meeting with us as a family group but the rest were separate.

My son was diagnosed with ASD and the professionals involved were furious that my son had zero support up until that point due to the school laying all the blame on us as parents. They confirmed there was no doubt in anyone’s minds that my son is autistic. The paediatrician involved in my sons case made a complaint about the school to OFSTED. When OFSTED contacted the school they asked why the school believed it was FIL and they stated that because we pushed so hard for a referral they believed we made it up. The school refused to consider the fact that children ‘mask’

we pushed because my son was drowning, we pushed because my beautiful boy was disappearing in the system, we pushed because my son desperately needed the support. We pushed because our son deserves to be fought for and we will always fight!

suffice to say, we removed my son from the school and started him at a wonderful new one who couldn’t do enough to support him.

sometimes It’s helpful to hear stories like ours to see the damage careless use of words in policies can cause

I’m so sorry you went through this it sounds awful and it’s exactly the scenario you describe that I worried about when I read this guidance, it’s clearly going to punish the parents who are trying to get the support their dc need ? It’s awful.
I did think as well - are children ever removed for suspected FII? Does that happen? The damage could be horrific - a child with SEN who needs stability being removed from a living family aware of their needs and then potentially removed and told they are ‘fine’ ? I really hope that doesn’t happen ??

Which is why teachers (realistically SENCO not class teacher) should challenge medical professionals. FII is all about deceiving medical professionals.

They see the parent/child for what? 10 minutes at a time, months apart? Where as school staff see them daily, pick up on things the child says, notices when the parent builds up symptoms but is unable to produce the reports to back it up.

The school staff obviously can't/ won't be the ones to diagnose FII but their view would be vital to building the 'bigger picture'.

Remember, FII is very rare. This isn't suggesting every SEN parent needs to be treated with suspicion.

More like a parent that school already has concerns about, suddenly, out of the blue, sets their sights on ASD/ADHD as their next 'goal' for their child who already has a long list of medical conditions (completely asymptomatic in school but surprisingly life threatening at home) that have little/no paper trail or supporting evidence.

This happens. Rarely, but it happens. And much of safeguarding is the rare, couldn't imagine it ever happening scenarios.

And much of safeguarding is the rare, couldn't imagine it ever happening scenarios Not sure it should be. Most of safeguarding should be the ordinary and the everyday - not enough food, not enough care, not enough safety, too much fear, too much violence, too much chaos.

For every 1 with a parent with FII there must be 10,000 missing meals.

This country's gone mad. Chasing the exceptionally rare while 4m kids live in food poverty.

I tried to get help for my undiagnosed SEND child, referred to safeguarding, got accused of FII. I'm a lone parent and it totally took away any voice or power I had. I was investigated by child protection, and placed on a CIN plan. My child got no support, and it set us back massively. It is one of the most horrible misogynistic disempowering experiences of my life. Eventually the plan got closed and my child is finally on the pathway to diagnosis, but it's left both me and my child with PTSD, and my child is now a school refuser. It was a great way to shut me up, and I am terrified of social services input now, which is a barrier to getting my child and family things like respite and other things which we need more being economically disadvantaged (I can't work due to my child's needs being so high and not attending school).

Sorry, I didn't write that clearly. I meant from the safeguarder's perspective, you should always consider it may be incredibly unlikely, but what if?