To voluntarily put my child into care

[Crumplesock]

We are at the point now where we think we may need to either put our eldest into the care system or seperate and live in 2 seperate homes to keep our children apart for fear that the eldest will seriously harm the younger two children. However, I'm not sure how we will actually finance two seperate homes (even 2 x 1bedroom flats).

Our son is autistic with a PDA profile. We are low demand parenting, and he does not attend school after being excluded and we are following his lead in Home Education. We followed the At Peace Parenting Course (which is amazing and so insightful, if not a little crazy on price!) but she told us we need to radically accept that this is our son's disability, this is part of it and we need to accommodate it. She shared how her family had to live sperately for a while. We are being advised by all the professionals that we are doing all we can for our son's needs and are accommodating and parenting him in line with his disabilities. But I just feel so broken at it.

As our son is getting bigger, his level of aggression is increasing and becoming harder to manage. We attempt to keep the children separated at all times but this is hard when there is only 1 parent at home and all 3 do need to be watched constantly.

Our other two children, and us parents too, are receiving multiple injuries daily.

Our son has taken to doing home workouts, which is absolutely brilliant and I want to encourage a healthy lifestyle but his strength is crazy. I've witnessed him do 20+ pull ups, he can now lift 1.5× his bodyweight in a Deadlift. I spoke to him about this passion of his and he said its so he can always make sure he is the strongest and to make people scared of him.

I know deep down there's a scared boy in there, whose doing this as a reaction to school trauma and being pushed around by school bullies (he had it quite bad). But it also terrifies me at how he is stronger than me and it won't be long before he levels with my husband.

I have spoke to Social Sevices today who has said they'll get a support package and stated that this is Child-on-parent (and sibling) abuse and that they do need to safe guard our other children

Have you tried speaking to Amy White? https://thespectrumsendvocate.com
worth a try. I’m so sorry for what your family is going through.

I sympathise with your MP, having had dealings with her and Suella Braverman over a particularly tricky situation.

Local councillors are listened to too.

I'm not talking about traditional parenting. Go and watch ADHD Dude videos (unhelpful name I know). Ignore everything everyone tells you about sticker charts and rewards at the end of the week. You are in this for the long haul but you need to know about extinction bursts before things get better (go and look them up). It will be a few months from what we experienced. But you have 13 years ahead of you so get it right now and then you will be glad you did.

Also I know he's too young for stimulants but these will also make a big difference when you are able to access them. It's the intervention with the best evidence for ADHD. We were told "there must be more going on than ADHD because children with ADHD are not aggressive" but pretty much all the parents who access parenting coaching from ADHD Dude have had some degree of aggression and pretty much all of them say it has massively improved.

(By the way, it is also worth contacting your council's Cabinet Member for Education - sounds like you've contacted the one re Children's Services but not the one for Education. Your DS should be in a PRU not accessing their services at home. He can only learn how to cope at school by being in a school - this might ultimately be a specialist school but it will still have other children in it - and more than one teacher - etc.)

He isn't diagnosed ADHD, only ASD. (Yes he was assessed for ADHD). Although I have just looked him up... i thought you disagreed with low demand and collaborative parenting? That is what this ADHD Dude appears to be all about.

Also idk who think stickers and reward charts work, they certainly don't. I agree with you on ignoring that advice as that wholly makes it worse. School saw that directly in Year R and 1.

I really understand the reluctance to put a young child on medication. However, my son had a huge breakdown at 9 and was put on fluoxetine, adhd meds and also risperidone. The risperidone was a very temporary measure but it meant we could keep him at home with us. He was on it for about six months. He is still on fluoxetine and adhd meds, though I appreciate your son doesn't have a dx of adhd.

The point is that medication meant that he stabilised and we were all able to catch our breath. I am not at all advocating for any of this, but I really would consider getting another opinion from a child psychiatrist if at all possible. Appreciate that that might be difficult both financially and to get him there.

Hi I came across your post and saw that you are under the same LA. Have you appealed the refusal to assess? I was also going to ask if you are in local fb groups for SEND or reached out to any local charities for support. I actually had support from Families in Focus when we had refusal to assess and IPSEA has a telephone service who have I've used a few times for support especially when ECC have told me things I suspected were lies. The system is truly broken and my heart goes out to you because as a parent of a child with SEND I know how difficult it is to navigate but also how many barriers are put in your way. I hope you have support for yourself and husband. X

Yes, issued a Preaction Protocol Letter whilst also issuing an Appeal to the Tribunal and this quickly caused them to concede the appeal. First Draft is due end of Feb.

I have no idea where I got the idea he was diagnosed with ADHD, as he is so young, I'm surprised they even assessed him as it is hard to tell at that age.

We were as usual told to use stickers and reward charts when our DS was your DS age "because that's what they use at school". Because he can't see far enough in advance, it's no good saying "you'll get a sticker tomorrow if you go to bed now".

I suspect you are looking at the wrong coach - here's a video on child to parent aggression.
We have not done the Announcement - though we have done it bit by bit - it's a key feature of NVR which is what this approach is based on.
What we had to learn is to stay away and say nothing if DS is being overly aggressive.
Because he is now less aggressive overall, we are able to talk about what he did and how he can put it right, but to start off with we just shut down on being in the same room and separated everyone. Us with DD keeping her safe, DS somewhere else.

The second link is to a video about setting expectations.

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Oh @Crumplesock . I have followed your thread since November. You have been through so much, have so much to bear and are trying so so hard. I am so sorry you are in this awful fix, it isn't right and it isn't fair.

Do you want to start a follow on thread @Crumplesock ? This one's nearly full

@Crumplesock apologies if you have already seen a child psychiatrist-maybe you did to get the diagnosis. If not, please make an appointment as soon as you can. Look for somebody who is a specialist in autism. It sounds like the people you are dealing with have absolutely no grasp of the reality of your situation even though you tell them. My heart goes out to you and your family.

I missed your message because I took ages writing mine. That is at least good news, well done.

It is but unfortunately the EP report is lacking any specificity, everything is so wooly and the EP just says "this should be available to child through the day"

We did manage to make a psychologist add in hours for a 1:1 after the report was written so that's worth a try?

@Crumplesock I have only just come across this thread and so sorry for everything all of you, including your eldest of course, are dealing with. It sounds horrendous for each of you.

I can't believe the number of times I've seen you have to repeat that non-low demand patenting makes things worse!

If you've reached the end of how far you can go with contacting local authorities and politicians, I'd suggest looking up journalists. Specifically those with a history of covering disability and asd care, who've written for the broadsheets (what's left of them) or investigated for programmes like dispatches.

💐

Hi OP. I was one if the posters who experienced violence from a sibling as a child and posted a while ago. I want to say I am very sorry to see how incredibly ridiculous the system is failing your family. You do sound like a great mother.
As the last poster, I wanted to come back to mention the media, the press, radio, even Netflix. I would be definitely be approaching them. Please consider it.

I have already been in the local news once with this, and have just contacted them again following the LA refusing to acknowledge ASD and ADHD as disabilities. Not sure when that will be made public.

It's absolutely mad how hard this is to get support. It no longer surprises me that children and parents, who were known the the LA, end up dead because I bet they were families in similar situations to us where things feel incredibly impossible. I'm honestly so scared that our eldest will end up killing one of us.

@Crumplesock

I wish I knew what else to suggest, Crumplesock.

Could the National Autistic Society help you?

https://www.autism.org.uk/contact-us

I just remembered I had the link to this website:

https://www.partnershipprojectsuk.com/

They are a provider of NVR (the approach to aggression on which the ADHD Dude, several Connective Parenting coaches, and the SPACE anxiety treatment are all based) and they work with the Post Adoption Support Fund - who we are supposed to be working with but they won't take account of our views and insist on us doing things that we have already found don't work.
They are however available privately I believe.

Well done for contacting the media. This situation beggars belief. I would recommend contacting the news desks of national newspapers, now.

I am wondering if child protection charities could help. Have you spoken to the NSPCC? They may be able to advise as your other children are at risk. Well done for fighting, you are being an amazing advocate for all your children.

[email protected], the head of children's services in Essex, wrote to her explaining the situation with correspondence added as evidence, then from hereon in copy her on everything.

I've been doing that already, even directed 2 letters to her highlighting the key issues and how Essex CChas been failing its duty and acting illegally. She doesn't even respond. She is actually useless and there's plenty of evidence she is useless. Essex CC have been losing appeals and JRs at a higher rate since she's been Director and somehow she's been having pay rise after pay rise. Her wage is actually disgusting considering she does nothing but direct pain towards families and children

2nd thread here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5265622-to-start-a-2nd-thread-as-still-need-support-and-advice

No matter how you look at this I would go wih the scheme of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Not that your son should just be shoved anywhere but you, your husband and other children deserve to live a life free from walking on egg shells and abuse. The only way is if your son is out of the family home. You are doing your best but you other children could eventually start to view violence as normal and for me I would worry that they'll accept being hit or abused by future partners. It's not okay. He needs to learn skills to cope with his feelings and outbursts. He has a right to a happy life but not at the expense of everyone else.
My parents danced around the needs of my autistic sister although she wasn't violent we never went out, never went to the beach coz she didn't like the fucking sand, never allowed music on, only allowed to shower at certain times per day, had to eat when she would allow. Although they did this to keep a peaceful house. I resent her, her needs, her temper, her selfish attitude. She has grown up to be a high achieving adult with an independent life but now that are parents are getting older, dad has cancer mum is facing a Alzheimers diagnosis. I should be able to rely on her but I know I never will be able to.