Social Care and Child's Mental Health

[mcqh]

Hi all, new to mumsnet and signed up to ask some questions if you don't mind.

I am a disabled woman who cannot leave the home, in fact i struggle leaving the bedroom to use the facilities. My husband is my full time carer and we have 2 daughters aged 13 and 12. I have had my own share of mental health problems over the years and in 2019 i lost nearly 20 years of my memory while undergoing treatment for PTSD. I have never received any help, i was referred to a local NHS center but that was during the pandemic and since then my case has been closed without me ever seeing anyone. Our eldest daughter started to self harm over a year ago and has confessed to wanting to commit suicide. She has had a lot of problems regarding school and the school while they have tried to assist they don't exactly make it any easier, refusing to take her into school when she's panicking or letting her sit aside and calm down a little, they just tell my husband she can't stay and to take her home again. After jumping through a few hoops and multiple GP appointments we finally got her assessed by camhs. They have given her 6 sessions, most of which have been online via teams rather than face to face and quite a few we have been messed around with cancellations and moving of appointments. We are now awaiting an outcome on what happens next.

The younger one recently had an incident of self harming and we talked to her and she stopped, we've still only had the one incident. A couple of weeks ago it was the last week of term and my husband received a telephone call from the school to say our younger daughter had told the school nurse she was planning to go home and look for medications to take to kill herself. He was told to take her to a local NHS walk in center. He did so and was told they don't have any mental health workers so he would need to take her to the local hospital instead. As he was leaving the receptionist turned to a colleague and made the remark "Thank god we don't have to deal with that!" which is disgusting in my opinion. He took her to the hospital where she spoke to a doctor and explained a few things had gotten to her over the day, she'd had a big fallout with her friends and just felt a bit down. They then called in a camhs crisis team worker who assessed her and advised my husband to bring her back in two weeks for a follow up. At the follow up he was informed they had decided she didn't need help from camhs and they discharged her there and then and handed him a letter confirming the decision.

A couple of weeks have gone by and she has seemed much more herself but a few nights ago my husband was awoken by the local police saying that my daughter had text a mental health service and told them she had taken some tablets and was ending her life and they had dispatched an ambulance to our home. It turned out she had taken 12 cetirizine 10mg (her hay fever medication) tablets. It took over 3 hours for the paramedics to arrive and we were told although cetirizine was unlikely to do her any harm she would again have to be taken to the hospital for assessment. My husband and daughter arrived at the hospital at around 3am and despite being the only two in there they weren't seen by a doctor till 6am. The doctor spoke to her and confirmed the tablets wouldn't do any harm and declared her medically fit and arranged for another assessment with the camhs crisis team. They didn't turn up till after 10am and briefly spoke to her and then told my husband once again she would need a follow up appointment in 2 weeks but they weren't anticipating taking her on and advised him to speak to the GP for a referral to a different service.

Today, out of the blue we had a Social Care team member turn up at the door, she claimed we were informed she would be coming but we were not. She asked my husband to leave the room so she could talk to the children alone. After approximately 10 minutes the children left and my husband was called back in. The social care worker then told my husband she was concerned for the mental health and the welfare of both of our children and said she was going away to arrange a meeting with her manager/boss to see how they should proceed from here.

I am really panicking as to what the outcome may be from here. My husband is doing his best to keep on top of my own and our children's care but I fear for his well being and i have heard horror stories of children being removed from their homes and i always assume the worst will happen.

We do not drink, we do not smoke, we do our very best to care for our children, they are well fed, clean, clothed and have regular contact with family members and friends. Due to my disabilities we are not regularly able to do family outings or holidays but my husband does try and take the girls places and provide for them to do activities with family and friends. Despite the older ones issues with school they are both performing really well and are achieving A's and B's in their classes.

I guess i am just wondering if anyone is familiar with Social Care and may have some information they can provide for me?

Thank you for any answers you may be able to give :)

No advice but just to say feel sorry for you all

Didn't want to read and run. I'm sorry you are all going through this. My daughter has panic disorder and it started very much like your eldest. I had to get her seen privately by a psychiatrist as no CAHMS support that was of any use. She started Sertraline and after a year she's doing much better. She felt suicidal at the time too but has a life now.

Please don’t be worried about social care involvement, contrary to some opinions they don’t remove young people from their homes.
Try to view it as an opportunity to get some help for your children.
Are the workers from the Early help team? If they are then all support is consensual and only undertaken with your permission.
Its likely Chamh have made a referral and the Early help team have got involved and will undertake an Early Help Assessment to understand your children's needs and what support can be put in place to support them.

Sending you all strength ♥️

Thanks for the replies all. We don't actually know which team she is from. As i mentioned we didn't even know they were involved. I have to say she was quite abrupt when she came. She was very insistent that we knew she was coming, saying the hospital would have told us about their involvement when my husband was there with my daughter and that their involvement is mandatory when a child is taken into hospital with mental health or suicidal issues. She was claiming she had telephoned to tell us she would be visiting and had left a message on our answerphone (we don't have an answerphone, just my husbands mobile which has voicemail turned off) and she was quite abrupt in telling my husband to leave the room to speak to the girls alone. Obviously we would like our children to get help but as mentioned i always jump to the worst in any situation and just wanted to reach out for information.

I don't have much faith in camhs to be honest, as i already said my eldest was messed around for the 6 sessions she's had, on top of that they told us they would like to assess her for some kind of autism but they then came back and said that assessment was rejected by their pediatrician team. We did ask about medications as it was suggested to us by the GP they might help but were told flat out that because she's under 16 they will not prescribe medication unless she requires an assessment from a psychiatrist and only they have the ability to use medication.

I will try and update the post as we find out anymore.

My daughter was seen by someone in hospital who asked me to leave the room. It's standard practice post self harm. I didn't worry it's good practice.

Hi all thought I'd add an update. So apparently it's social services not social care (they definitely told us social care at the hospital).

Anyway they have visited our home today and again told us they are very concerned for both children's mental health and their welfare in general. My husband is a video game enthusiast. He plays pc games online with his friends on Monday and Friday evenings from 7-10pm which we consider his downtime. He also has a few old consoles and computers that he enjoys playing retro games on but social services have told us today that they are clutter that is not helping with the children's mental health and that they want to hire a skip and clear them out of our home. Surely they cannot force us to remove these? They have also said that they don't believe my husband can care for myself and our 2 children effectively by himself, despite doing it for a number of years, and they have suggested having independent carers come in to care for me or me moving to an assisted living facility to help him out. They said they will have a meeting with their manager on Monday to discuss their suggestions and get back to us on Tuesday. I am starting to panick again..

Social care and social services are the same, just different names from them. You may also hear them called children’s services. A referral is normal procedure in your circumstances, as is speaking to DC without the parents present.

The majority of GPs won’t prescribe MH medications such as antidepressants to children and young people because NICE guidelines state they should only be initiated following an assessment by a child and adolescent psychiatrist and only in conjunction with therapy.

There’s more to this, a skip isn’t suggested when the only issue is a few consoles.

Anyone would struggle to effectively care for 3 people on their own without any help. The suggestion of help shouldn’t be taken as a negative.

We're not against help and if there is more to it then they're not telling us. They are not generous with the information they will tell us and they do keep separating our children from us when they visit to talk to them alone and one of our daughters has told us they've been asking about abuse and if my husband gets angry a lot (he grew up in a home where his dad but his mum so he very rarely loses his temper, he has never hit myself or the children and if he does get upset he uses the computers or consoles to relax and calm down, he doesn't even stay if an argument breaks out and walks away to another room). The only thing they mentioned when they suggested a skip were the computers and consoles which again they called clutter and said would have to be removed, he does have quite a few as he's been collecting for a number of years and some of them are in a state of repair cause he likes to tinker and try fix or upgrade stuff. There is also some rubbish in our garden which I suppose could contribute to the skip being suggested but they never mentioned that themselves.

I'm sorry to say that if social services are saying it's cluttered, and suggesting a skip, then it must be pretty bad.

It's possible that because you and your husband are used to it, that you don't see how cluttered things have become. The threshold for 'good enough' has always been quite low in my experience- and it seems that you're not meeting it, so you do need to listen to what the social worker is saying.

The social worker's focus (quite rightly) will be on your children.

They would not be suggesting home care support for you unless they were worried about your girls.

I assume that the house is very untidy and cluttered which certainly will not help kids mental heath at all and will make services think you cannot cope with kids if you cannot keep a house tidy
If they are saying you need a skip it is not just a few games consoles is it
De-clutter and show them you can

Honestly op
I have to say it does sound poor. Both girls have mental health issues , The house is clearly very messy if they are suggesting a skip, you struggle to leave your bedroom and your husband games every night .
Im assuming the girls can't have friends over etcI think in the kindest way possible it's very clear that something needs to change here.take and embrace the help they suggest.

My husband does not game every night. He plays games on Mondays and Fridays 7-10pm as already mentioned in one of my replies above. I don't think 2 nights a week is excessive. He does have old and computers and lots of game consoles but they are stored on a sideboard and a bookshelf. I struggle to leave my bedroom because i'm physically unable to, not because i don't want to. I would love to contribute more. Saying this however we haven't heard anything about the skip since they first mentioned it back at the start of the month. The social worker is quite difficult to get hold of, doesn't answer phone calls and text messages can take days for a reply. When we do finally get hold of her our interaction is so brief. We have had minimal contact with her since the beginning. She has given us a "contract of expectations" which in the very first paragraph accuses my husband of neglecting our children in favour of myself. It then says that we don't regularly feed our children but then contradicts itself by saying they are excessively eating. We have an ICPC meeting this morning via teams and the chair called me yesterday to introduce herself. She told us we were supposed to have a copy of the report from the social worker so we can read through it before the meeting. We hadn't had the report and the chair was not happy about this and had to ring the social worker to get her to send it to us. The report says that i myself get angry at the children and makes no mention of my physical health issues or anything about my memory loss, just states that i don't get out of bed. It says that i have never tried to seek help for my issues which is completely untrue and i have letters from the GP and NHS centers for the 14 years i've had problems that directly contest this. She has also said that we have been uncooperative and refused help when its been offered which again is untrue, we have over the years had the house adapted for myself, we have been involved with Camhs for 2 years for my eldest daughter and my younger daughter has been rejected twice by camhs in the last year but none of this is mentioned at all. I know you only have my word here but with the many errors and missed information in the report i believe this is why we didn't receive a copy to read until the chair rang her to send one. I believe our assigned worker has been quite poor, come in very heavy handed and i'm really disappointed in the system.

If you are at the ICPC stage you are minimising the concerns that have been raised.

What is your medical condition that has caused you to be bedbound? Presumably you're under the care of a hospital specialist?

I suffer with symphysis pubis dysfunction, fibromyalgia, mental health issues, PTSD and memory loss. I'm not fully bed bound, I can get from my bedroom to the bathroom next door but require help. I am unable to get downstairs, occupational therapists have adapted the house a few years ago with walk in bathroom but they said our stairs are too narrow for a stair lift. They got us placed on the housing list for a move but after 4 years there's been no progress on that front.
We were in the care of specialists at the local hospital but was discharged a few years ago and told medications to make any quality of life going forward.

The result of the ICPC conference is that they are concerned the children doo too much to help look after myself. They are not worried about them being harmed physically but mentally they are concerned. They scored us as an 8 on some scale with 0 being highest risk apparently. They have told us with the evidence we've provided that the social services report doesn't match up and that we have done the best possible job we can do as parents in our circumstances but need some outside professional caring help for me. The thing is though we have spoken with adult services this week who have told us their only option is to send the occupational therapist back but they rang us and told us that there is nothing more they can do, just keep pushing for a house move.

Going forward we will be getting a different worker cause the chair said she didn't seem to have our families best interests in mind and someone will work with us to help clear the garden and try and get adult services to do more

Can I ask, with no judgement whatsoever, why can you not go downstairs to see your daughters off to school/cook a meal etc? I just don't understand what holds you in your room, unless morbidly obese/bed bound or with a broken bone, I can't imagine what stops you with your (already very compromised) children.... ? (Sorry, not trying to be nasty, just please be honest)

If you dont go downstairs do you think maybe it's worse than you think in terms of the consoles ect. You seem pretty sure it's not but if you dont go down I dont understand how. I am sorry you are in this position it sounds like you have been massively let down by the services you need the most. I think you should accept all the help offered especially if it will help your children.

No need for apologies. As stated above, the SPD and fybromyalgia are the main factors that stop me. Basically SPD is a pelvic issue and is incredibly painful. This combined with the fybromyalgia my pain reaches a point where i just cannot take the steps. I am able to make it from my room to the bathroom which is next to our bedroom using a wheeled frame or two crutches with my husband assistance but even that tires me out and is painful. I take 8 tramadol along with a cocktail of 6 other medications which makes a total of 18 tablets plus oral morphine four times per day to make the pain more tolerable but it is a constant pain and very tiring. I understand that people question this as its not something that can be seen and a lot of people, professionals included, never know what SPD is and i have to try and explain it. I've had some very nasty comments over the years. We have been to both the hospitals within our city lots of times over the years and we last attended six years ago when the DWP referred us back to the hospital to see a gynaecology specialist as part of a PIP review and the referral lasted no more than a 2 hour appointment where the doctor went through all my notes and told us that they don't have anything they can do to help us. This led to the DWP telling me that i am basically a write off which upset me greatly. We have kept copies of all the letters from the hospital, pain clinic, physiotherapists, gynaecology, adult services, occupational therapists and other professionals we've seen over the years. We also have copies of my medical notes that the doctor would share with me.

@tootiredtospeak My husband and children have both told me that the computers and consoles are stored neatly on a sideboard and bookshelf, as you've said i don't go downstairs so cannot verify this for myself but i also have no reason to doubt my husband or children.

To be clear to all, we are not trying to get rid of the social services, nor are we trying to minimise the concerns they have. We understand that there are concerns with our children and myself and we are open to any help they may be able to offer us but in our experience every time someone says go here and try this or contact these people it usually starts with us having to explain all our my problems and usually ends in "we can't help you". The chair has told us today that she believes we have done the best we can do with our situation but she does think there is concern for our children. She said that maybe with social services on board they may be able to push our local council in regards to a home move and Camhs a little harder (my youngest daughter has been refused twice and my eldest is closing on two years of being passed between workers and no actual plan yet) for some help with the girls.

so the children have no adult supervision form 7pm to 10pm, twice a week.
that could be making them feel quite anxious; children know deep down that they need someone adult to be in charge, however much they may kick against authority. add this to the fact your husband is your carer, they may be feeling quite sidelined. why do you not like the idea of professional careworkers.

My husband is still in the house and my children are 14 and 12 years old, they are still in the same household, most of the time in the next room and they can approach me or their dad if they need to. My husband plays with the same 3 friends on the monday and friday evenings, not random strangers and they all understand he is mine and the childrens carer so may need to step out for a few minutes (or longer if required) at any time. I am not against professional care workers but as silly as it sounds although i require assistance from my husband i have a small amount of dignity left and i just feel i would lose that by having some stranger come in to help me shower and toilet etc

Lots to unpick here.
Firstly, can I ask how PTSD treatment caused 20 years of memory loss?
Have you had physiotherapists input for your SPD? I can relate as I actually have SPD, Fibro, PTSD, severe anxiety, and chrons. I'm on quite the cocktail, but thankfully I manage to get about without help and I'm not classed as disabled as I function normally.
There are several exercises etc for SPD- have you tried going down the stairs on your bottom and using crutches/trolley to walk? If you're unable to get downstairs I can see why they think you need outside care. With the conditions described, as awful as they are, you should still have quality of life. Being upstairs in one room is not going to help you, your Dh or your children, and if I'm honest, it sounds as though you're all in a rut and depressed.
The house must be bad if they're saying this - there's no two ways about it. It's really concerning you have no idea what state it's in downstairs. Your children aren't having their needs met, and that is through no fault of yours, but you do need outside support. They desperately need outside support. Your husband needs a break, your children need to have a clean functional house. At the moment they have very cut off lives which is absolutely contributing to their mental health.
As a plan of action, I would -
•Sort the house. Get yourself downstairs in any way you can, and be brutal with de cluttering.
•Get yourself out that room. Call for a physio assessment. Ask again and again for a stair lift, can you move to a bungalow? There are ways around this, and kindly, you've given up and accepted it the way it is.
•Weekly therapy for both girls
•Rather than gaming 3 hours a night, spend that time all together, watching a movie, playing a board game, helping with homework, whatever.
•Ask If there are any clubs they would like to be a part of for their social lives to improve.

It seems incredibly daunting when everything is piled on top of you, but it is possible to take steps to change this.

In November 2019 I was receiving something called EMDR therapy for the treatment of PTSD due to trauma as a teenager (i won't go into personal details). I do not understand how it caused the memory loss, i woke up one morning and didn't know my husband or my children. It took me a long time, even after seeing our marriage license, the kids birth certificates and lots of photographs to believe i was actually married. I was told this is my brain trying to protect me from the traumatic experience and that i would likely regain my memory but so far not so much. I was referred to the local mental health nhs center to see the crisis team, i was told that i would need to be assessed by a psychologist. A few weeks went by and we had heard nothing so we tried to chase it up but unfortunately we were told Covid was causing delays and they would get back to us as soon as they could. We continued to chase this regularly and in June 2020 we received a call from a psychologist who said he would be taking it on. That was the last we ever heard. We did again try and chase this but it has been delay after delay and eventually i will admit i felt i'd been shelved and gave up. It has been nearly 3 years since the memory loss and i am now at a point where if something is constant (i.e. my husband and family) i can remember them fine. I have a small notebook i make reminders in but sometimes i cannot even remember what they mean. Something that isn't constant is a problem, for example my i can watch a movie with my husband but after a few days i do not remember the movie at all.

Regarding SPD, i have had physiotherapy, i had also some electrical probes (similar to a tens machine) therapy, i have seen a gynaecologist specialist, been to 3 different pain clinics and seen my GP to the point that we could be considered friends now instead of doctor/patient. I do use crutches and a wheeled frame to get around the limited space upstairs. I understand that people say i've just accepted our situation and to a degree after 14 years of pain and problems and chasing for help that's just not been helpful i probably have accepted it cause there is only so many times you can build up your hopes that this next appointment is going to help before being told yet again "sorry we cannot help" and crushing me.

As i've said throughout the post we are NOT against help, we have been chasing help from the GP and Camhs (both citywide and community) for the last 2 years for our eldest daughter and our younger one has been referred to camhs twice and twice been rejected.

With regards to your plan of action, with all due respect it does seem nobody seems to be reading my replies as i have stated a lot of this already.

1 - The house is being sorted my husband is reluctant to remove some of his things but is accepting that it needs work and is working with the social worker regarding the skip and clearing out.

2 - Already mentioned that we have had referrals to Adult services and occupational therapists. They have told us they have made adaptations to the house, walk in wet room, extra rails but they cannot fit a stair lift due to the stairway being too narrow.

3 - We are on the local council housing list for a move, we are listed as requiring a bungalow with 3 bedrooms on medical grounds but these do not become available, in fact most weeks we are met with a page that says there are no properties available (see the attached picture for this weeks listings) and it has now been 4 years since we first started bidding. It isn't even like we are holding out for local properties, we are happy to move to another surrounding area if need be.

4 - We have been chasing for support for our eldest daughter for nearly 2 years our younger has only started to have some issues this year and has been referred to camhs twice and been rejected.

5 - My husband does NOT game for 3 hours every night, he games for 3 hours twice a week. During the week he does try and help the children with school work, we do eat together as a family, albeit in our bedroom. We did do a movie night on Saturday evenings until the children decided they were no longer interested in this. We do ask them but we also cannot force them. He attends all of their school events, he reads with them, he tries to get them involved with the household chores but this is difficult when they don't want to. We live up a lot of steps and have had trouble with shopping deliveries so he goes shopping and asks the children for help, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. If am completely honest i do see how much he has on his plate and it does make me feel guilty. He is an amazing husband and i honestly don't know how he manages as much as he does but he does it with a smile on his face.

6 - My eldest daughter has massive panic attacks about school and socialising but does visit grandparents and friends, not as often as we like but she does. her problems all seem to revolve around school, during the recent holidays we had very little problems but as soon as it was time to return we had huge panic attack, anxiety, refusal to even get up. We tried to get her involved with local activites but she doesn't want to and we can't physically force her.

The younger one is involved in after school music, learning the piano and has been offered guitar lessons too. She also visits grandparents and likes to bake with grandma.

Both children are also enrolled with Action for Young Carers and have been on day trips to Skegness, Alton Towers and a local cinema in the past but no longer want to get involved in that.

I DO accept that we have some problems, i DO accept that we need some assistance, i DO accept that social services have our childrens welfare in their plans (although i dispute the first worker we were assigned was right for us). Myself nor my husband are NOT against outside help and are willing to work with anyone who may be willing to offer it but thats the thing, the offers just haven't been there, there's just been a very long list of "sorry we can't help you"

Forgot to attach the picture. This is pretty typical of what we see each week when looking for available properties that we qualify for (3 bed bungalow)

The DWP don’t make referrals to hospital consultants.

No the DWP do medical reviews for DLA/PIP at a local medical center and it was during one of these reviews that i was told i needed to go back to the specialists again. I don't wish to sound rude but i do feel i'm going round in circles and repeatedly having to explain myself. I thank all who have responded but i think my post has run its course. I looked for some information regarding social care and received some replies. We have had the ICPC meeting and got an outcome and a plan going forward with a new social worker so i feel my post has run its course. Thank you to all and have a nice weekend.