Can't get help with sister in law

[peetieswie]

I was wondering if anyone had any advice.

My sister in law (lets call her Amy) has learning difficulties. She lives with her twin who has autism (let's call her Jo). My husband manages the Jo's benefits but Amy won't let him manage hers. Jo pays all the bills and Amy contributes nothing.

Amy is having a mental health breakdown. She phones the police most days, threatens to jump off a bridge, spends all her benefits in one day and demands money off family, invited a homeless addict to stay in their house and said he was her boyfriend, doesn't clean her teeth and has sever infections. She's constantly phoning us demanding things and if we don't give her things money she calls us evil and says her family don't support her. She's up all night constantly manic.

The twins mother has a diagnosis of bipolar and I'm certain Amy has it too.

Amy won't take any meds. We managed to pay her to go the doctors and have a mental health assessment today. The doctor says she hasn't got any mental health issues. The police won't section her. We don't know what to do. She's costing us a fortune (I'm pregnant and will soon be on maternity leave and have a newborn) and we're also concerned for Jo's safety with Amy allowing random people in the house. Jo is extremely stressed.

What do we do? The social worker is useless and doesn't reply to emails. The crisis line says there's nothing we can do without Amy's consent. We have no idea what to do now. Any advice?

Anyone?!

They both sound like vulnerable adults.
adult social services need to step up here, can you escalate this case via managers?
can you and your DH request carers assessments too?

Maybe you should try a safeguarding angle from Jo's point of view. Should would count as a vulnerable adult who is at risk in this situation. Perhaps that would get some more action from social services.

God, this sounds so worrying. I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Is Amy's father around?
Could Jo go to stay with anyone short term to help her out of a distressing household?
Do you have a tel no for social services - the social workers manager?

Does Amy go to any activities, work, clubs, etc?
What does the GP suggest?
Are the police pressing for action? They must be getting worried about the number of calls.

I hope you get someone to listen and take action. Sadly, from experience, I know that agencies tend to pass the buck due to staffing and financial restrictions. But you might catch lucky by speaking to the right person at the right time.

Say you can’t manage everything, except Jo’s money, let ss sort it out

Thanks for replies. We may finally be getting somewhere from the police route as they are tired of the constant drain on resources and pushing for a mental health assessment. Still very hard work even to get her to attend meetings and I'm pregnant and so stressed by it all. I'm constantly emailing social services and copying in people higher up but we have had no luck getting anyone to commit to any action from that side yet. It's ludicrous that no one is willing to help in such a crisis situation and it falls on family who have limited resources too.

Write a letter to your mp with evidence of your correspondence with social services... if the mp writes to social services on ypur behalf I guarantee you will get a phone call the same day. Also when you write to social services start asking them to look at this under s42 of the care act (safeguarding section) as Amy self neglects and places Jo at risk through financial abuse (I know the working might feel awful but you will get help)

@peetieswie you haven’t said where you live but if you’re in Wales, get in touch with your AS rather than MP.

keep on, don’t give up.

You are pregnant. Your priority needs to be your health and that if your baby’s. I say this really kindly - you need to step away. Allow others (who are not pregnant) to deal with this. Allow the inevitable crisis to happen.
Stress is really not good for pregnant women and their unborn babies. That must be your priority. I say this from experience. I was so stressed by the behavior of mentally unwell relative that I didn’t go into labour until they left my home. Please look after yourself.

You make an Adult Safeguarding referral to your local authority team eg this is Manchester

www.manchestersafeguardingpartnership.co.uk/adults/

If they still don't respond - you need to back away a little and allow the situation to falter to force the local authority to respond - right now they will be classing both your SILs as having an existing and active support network

Is it possible to get any help for Jo? Maybe she would be safer and happier either living on her own with support or some kind of supported living arrangement.

Thanks for the advice. The stress is getting to me but we also don't know what else to do. We can't really walk away as she pushes it and pushes it and has no money for food and then it impacts on the sister.

She keeps insisting she wants to move out but has no way of budgeting. She moved out once before and we had to pay for everything as she never had electric, food and refused to budget. Also, they both get very lonely on their own.

We are pushing for a diagnosis of a mental health issue and for us to manage the benefits but I think that will bring about its own issues of her constantly asking for money. She's spending money in ridiculous ways currently, such as buying a new mobile phone and then taking it to a pawn shop the next day.

We have thought about contacting the MP. We're both so exhausted. We are recently bereaved and deep in grief (I don't want to go into details but it's the most painful loss someone can go through) so we're really struggling anyway. This is a really hard time in our lives and we just wish social services would step in more given our situation.