Dd & college. ASD & attendance.

[siliconcover]

Dd is 18 & just started College (Scotland). F/T course 1 level below HNC (so A level/Scottish Higher equv) Access to Heathcare. Involves a Placement which involves DBS (paid for as she receives a small bursary of £50/wk due to my circumstances). She s Autistic & Dyslexic. Part of her dx is situational mutism. She wants to be a Paramedic (doesn't sound obvious choice with dx but she has already helped SAS deliver CPR training to 1200 people & been out on Obvs shifts & they say she is great ' v. focused'.

Bumpy start to College. Course Leader off first 1st 5 weeks. Back for 1 day. One 15mins 'meeting re needs' with Dd whilst we were having lunch in cafeteria. Now left again so no CL. Support for Learning on long term leave, so nothing. Dd missed a couple of lessons as the topic was Cardiovascular (inc dissections). Last summer her big brother was in heart failure & I am waiting on an Angiogram so she got tearful & left. We told College she was struggling (& why) & asked about Support/ Counselling & were told '5m waiting list, don't bother'.

Half term & she's quite down. She had a lot of support at School & now has none. She's thinking of leaving. She just had an email that her bursary is being cancelled for 'non attendance'. I explained the above via email & Appealed it. Reply is 'No, & any further absence needs email plus we require a GP letter to confirm'. Our GP takes 8 weeks & charges £90 per letter. She HAS a diagnosis.

Do College have any duty of care towards this student or is it 'take it or leave it' ?

It’s a hard one because if she wants to complete the course she needs to attend & complete the content. Are you sure you have all the info- it seems hasty for them to be cancelling a bursary over just 2 missed lessons?

No, colleges do not have a duty of care as students are adults.

@Jellybunny56yes I do. She got upset & left lesson & phoned me to collect. We explained & signed her out at Reception.

@wisbech.yes, but a disabled adult who surely has Reasonable Accommodation?
The irony of missing a lesson on stress management as she had collapsed on the car park (witnessed by student support who brought her on and treated grazed knees) & then having her bursary stopped is crazy.

Why did she collapse?
In all honesty, it sounds like this course isn't right for her. She missed important lectures due the subject being deemed too close to her personal circumstances.
You say she also has selective mutism? A job as a paramedic does not sound like it is the job for her - how would she cope with the pressures of the traumatic circumstances she meets?
She has so far demonstrated that she has no reliability to sticking with the course and certainly is not capable of being trusted with the important responsibility of managing someone life when they are in a critical and vulnerable situation.
Whilst the college do have a duty of care for all students, that does not mean she should be coaxed and pulled through the entire course. They can only offer support to enhance someone's performance, ie extra time for completing assignments etc.

To be a paramedic would require someone of sound mind to be able to make judgements in a nano second. Can you hand on your heart say your daughter has the makings of one?
Personally I feel she should be as far away from life and death situations as much as possible.

What reasonable adjustments do you want?

the type of reasonable adjustments offered at college is usually along the lines of extensions to assignments, permission to write on computer rather than handwritten etc.

my DD (AuDHD) did a catering course and reasonable adjustments won’t extend to missing lessons due to the topics being covered.

the support given at colleges is significantly less than at schools. Does she have an EHCP?

@Octavia64 We are in Scotland & EHCPs do not exist in Scotland.

@Rainbows41Firstly, she has missed 2 sessions. She spoke to her course Tutor. We spoke to her Course Leader (the one morning she had one, in the 6 weeks so far). Both praised her for 'being self aware about triggers & professional re communications' (told 'self care is the beginning of healthcare').

Secondly, her Mentor is a Senior Paramedic who also has Autism & Dyslexia. As she has worked with him to deliver training & on an Obvs shift, I trust his judgement of both her current & potential abilities. I hope if you ever need a Paramedic you wouldn't find his 'mental ilness' deems him unsuitable to provide it to you.

I work in a training department that trains HCPs (mostly the on the job side of it). I'm also AuDHD and am aware there are lots of ND blue light professionals.

A lot of healthcare courses do have fairly strict attendance rules, and some sessions may be compulsory. Missing 2 sessions in 6 weeks of the course may raise concerns about a student's capacity to complete the course/cope with the content, especially if she was unable to complete one or more sessions because she was upset on personal grounds. Yes, it is responsible and self aware to not work/come to class when you are not fit yo practice, and it's a skill of a HCP to recognise that. However, patient facing healthcare roles do require a level of robustness and ability to contain your own stuff while working directly with sick and scared people. You can't decide as a paramedic not to attend a heart attack because it's personally triggering - that's the reality of the role. However, she's early on in her journey and has time to develop skills and resilience, it would be too early to say she's not capable of doing the actual job further down the line.

It seems unduly harsh to cancel the bursary with no discussion about why, or what support is needed especially as she is only at access level at the moment. I wonder if there has been some mistake or a breakdown in communication where the college think she hasn't followed the right processes for reporting absence or has disengaged? It might be worth going back to the course handbook or similar, check the attendance requirements, policies around absence reporting and the college's disability/EDI policy which should state about reasonable adjustments.

Are there any formal reasonable adjustments documented and in place for her to support her learning?

Don't twist what I said into something completely different. Don't do that.

You said your daughter has situational mutism. You also said she has chosen to not attend the sessions to do with cardiovascular due to triggers. Whilst I understand triggers do exist, it is important going into the medical field to realise that she will very likely have alot of dealings with people who have heart issues. It's important therefore that she deals with her trauma around that before even thinking of becoming a member of the first response team like a paramedic.
Having autism or dyslexia has absolutely nothing to do with the issues you have mentioned, so why you feel the need to wrongly accuse me of finding a medical professional with such conditions as being incapable of carrying out their role is judgemental.
As a medical professional myself, I do work with many neurodiverse people, who are very capable of their chosen profession. The point I made was to do with your daughter collapsing, which you still have not explained why this occurred, along with her avoidance of certain lectures and practicals due to how it makes her feel.
You do realise if she is not participating with her course work, she will not pass the exams and find it very difficult to write any related assignments?
As I said in my previous post, the college/uni can support by offering extra time for deadlines and course info support but your daughter sounds like she first needs to come to terms with whatever caused her to collapse and also with the trauma surrounding what happened with her brother because with all of that weighing her down, she will not pass the course.
I don't think this is the right time for her to be studying. She needs to work on herself and consider coming back to it next year.

@Rainbows41you said: "to be a Paramedic would require someone of sound mind" ( & logically implied my Dd isn't). You then said she "is not capable of being trusted" & "has no reliabilty". I don't need to 'twist' anything you said. Your opinion is very evident.

@siliconcover I think I can see where @Rainbows41 is coming from here. The delivery may seem harsh, but that reflects what training and working in most frontline healthcare professions is like. Patient safety comes first. Inclusion for any and all disabilities or health conditions is not possible in healthcare where that condition or impairment would put you, or the public at risk. You can't be a paramedic if you have uncontrolled epilepsy, for example. You can't be a surgeon if you have tics. You can't be a medivac pilot if you are visually impaired.

Autism isn't a barrier, dyslexia isn't a barrier, and neither is selective mutism, if it doesn't present a barrier to effective communication with patients. Skipping classes because a student can't emotionally cope with the content and needing to be picked up, however, is a potential issue. The student then won't be able to complete the assignments on that subject. They then cannot be assessed as safe or competent to work with patients who present with those issues, therefore can't pass the course. In clinical education, it has to be pretty black and white, we do have to fail people if we don't think they are safe enough for frontline work, because the alternative is we put the public at risk. I appreciate that's tough to take on board, but it's important that you do understand this, and there's no point sugar coating it. As parents of SEN kids and young adults, we are their main ally, support and champion. It's possible to do the heavy lifting through school and get them through on sheer parental tenacity, but that won't work in this setting. No clinical educator will pass a student who isn't able to deal emotionally with a key aspect of the clinical course content, no matter how much the student wants it and no matter how good they may be at other things.

If she can work on this and overcome the blocks, and get to a point where she can engage with that content, then that would be a wonderful outcome and I hope she can become a great paramedic, as she and her mentor believe she can. But if she can't, you may need to be prepared to support her to think about alternative pathways.

It might not be nice or what you/DD want to hear OP but there quite simply are some jobs that not everyone can fo.

If your DD cannot even sit through a lesson on these things without collapsing into tears then no, I wouldn’t want her to be the one coming to help my parent/friend/colleague in heart failure because she cannot just opt out of that. If she can’t sit through the lesson, she can’t responsibly do the job, she’s not reliable- she can’t just hop off shift in the middle of an emergency.

@CrazyGoatLadyI do understand that. My Dd left 2 sessions early (with the permission of her Tutor). She has caught up the work (& went in & finished the dissection after class)
She is a capable person who has helped deliver CPR training to 1200 students, taking her own groups. She has had no support from College re her ASD or Dyslexia & had her bursary stopped re those 2 classes which is what my post was largely about. ASD & Dyslexia support should be standard. IMO Removing a bursary for 2 classes is harsh.

I do agree with @Jellybunny56 and @Rainbows41
At present she is not in the right place for this course and I'd be worried it go all go very wrong for her due to current circumstance, however if she is able to get support to get through these issues she could sail through.

@siliconcover ok - that makes a difference, if she's been since able to complete the work. Your OP gave the impression that she wasn't able to deal with the topic at all for personal reasons. Which couldn't be a reasonable adjustment. Unfortunately, allowing extra absence is not always possible as a reasonable adjustment either on a HCP training programme.

You say you want them to provide adjustments for ASD and Dyslexia - fair, but everyone with those diagnoses will have different needs. What adjustments have you/DD asked for that they are not currently providing?

@CrazyGoatLady there can be no Disabled student plan made as there is no disabled student staff available (long term sickness & role not covered). So, arrangements such as extra time for assignment or assessment etc. There's no course handbook, the course title & staff changed just before delivery, the course leader absent (& a stand in provided just did ice breakers' & continues to hand out worksheets instead of teaching so most of class are going home). Everyones bursary was 4 weeks late & no ones placement (meant to be starting next week) is yet arranged. Its a mess. On a personal note she politely left the room on 2 occasions, was told she'd behaved professionally & was then sanctioned by a different college dept. The disorganisation & lack of consistency disproportionately affects her. She already has resilience & responsibility - qualities she will need in a future HCP career. My question was whether College should provide support for Disabled students & MH support for all. I think it should, especially on a HCP course rather than less so because it's an HCP course, but clearly some others don't.

@CrazyGoatLadyi appreciate your input, thank you x

Finally heard back from College. Bursary reinstated.
'Sincere apologies for lack of support for this disabled student during whole course. Severe staff shortages in Subject Dept, Student support, SEN support, Disabled student support. Actively working towards full cover with supply staff & hope to be able to offer full support in near future. If X wishes to re-start year next year on medical grounds (GP letter required) it will be fully funded'.

It sounds to me as though College is doing their best but support may still be quite bitty. Dd also just missed a week due to a nasty ear infection (drum burst)

I've spoken to GP. They don't think it is strictly 'medical' (I agree but I guess this is how college justifies funding?) but may provide a letter (£80, 1-2m to do).