Letter from School Health Service - wwyd?

[noodle6]

I received a letter from the School Health Service. I'm not quite sure how to respond but clearly the LA had informed the Health Services (or the other way round?). Only my eldest DD is "known" so far - I withdrew her from school 2 years ago, and I now have another DD who turned 5 last Sept so I am guessing they are writing that because of my younger DD. This is so stupid because we have been using the GP services for any queries and health-related matters for the 2 years we have been home educating. We have had no need for any further meet-ups with health staff. Why would anything need to change now??

The letter, which is sent from a neighbouring Children's Centre which we never used, says :

"I am a Child Health Practitioner working within the Integrated Children's Team, working with children aged 0 - 19 years. I understand that your child/children is/are being homeschooled.

I would like to visit you and your child/ren at home on 09/07/12 at 14:00.

This will be an opportunity to discuss our service, offer any screenings and provide support with any health-related issues.

If this appointment is inconvenient I would be grateful if you could contact mee on the above telephone number so I can arrange a more suitable time.

Kind regards

Yours sincerely

XXXXXXX
Child Health Practitioner

(signed) XXXXXX - Assistant Practitioner"

How should I respond? I think I'd better respond in writing. I just need some ideas. Should I say "Thank you for your offer, but we have been using the GP's services for support in health-related issues and are very happy to continue as such. I do not see the need for any additional health-related services."?? Or is there a better way to put it?

Any suggestions or thoughts about this appreciated. TIA.

Schools will miss some abuse, but some abuse is pretty obvious. One child I taught started smelling and falling asleep in class. We raised concerns. SW got involved. He was eventually removed from the home. He would have been one child who would have fallen through the net if he had been at home with no checks. One check from the nurse at home and it would have been obvious he was being neglected which surely is a positive thing?

Or would posters here have preferred a situation where his mother could have kept him at home, never let him sleep and never washed him?

School nurses don't go into schools to check the place of education though, Sidge. They go because it is an economical way of doing health checks on lots of children all at once. The same is not true of visiting home educated children, so it would make more sense for home educated children to be checked at a clinic.

Children are emotionally, physically and sexually abused in their homes by the people who should be caring for them. Children suffer neglect.
That's an unfortunate fact of life.

Children who attend school have the protection of being seen regularly by adults outside the family circle. Children who are HE may not get that.

Parents who use schools have regular contact with education professionals, are introduced to the school nursing service and can readily access that if needed. Parents who HE may not have that.

This letter is an attempt to ensure that you and your child have access to services you could find useful. You don't want to meet the nurse, go ahead and cancel but I'd think about your approach before you do so because the way you're coming across on this thread is highly hostile. Perhaps you could ring and have a chat with the nurse over the phone so she can hightlight a few areas with you?

My eldest is 16 my youngest is 9, they had a couple of hearing tests under 5, but only ones since via the GP when I requested it. I wish they would do the regular hearing and sight tests we had at school.

Noodle, Gathering evidence of abuse, and monitoring to ensure abuse isn't actually taking place are two very, very different concepts, you do realise that?
You seem hung up on "guilty until proven innocent" as if you've already been put on trial, why is that? Just why are you so defensive?

Northernlurker I will write to them. Nothing hostile about that. A bit formal, yes. How's that hostile?

Floggingmolly Explain the difference between "gathering evidence of abuse" and "monitoring" then. Because it does start to sound like they are one and all the same thing from the way some of you are putting it. I'm not defensive, I'm open to reason.

As I said in my previous post, some school health teams don't have anywhere you can go as they based in an admin block. There will be nowhere for them to see children.

When I was a school nurse we were based in an office block, and had no allocated rooms to use for clinical contact. Heck, we were hotdesking and didn't even have our own space to work in let alone see children and their parents! All our equipment was kept in a cupboard and we travelled to schools/homes with our kit in the boot.

Caramel I never said they go into schools to check education; that's why I said school health teams don't care especially how the child is being educated they just want to ensure their health needs are being met. Many school health teams CAN'T do checks at a clinic as they have no access to clinics. GP services and clinic/hospital provision has nothing to do with school health.

How can they gather evidence of abuse if there is no abuse noodle?

Sidge Okay. I'll see what they say.

CailinDana Well, you've kind of answered your own question there.

So they visit, find no evidence of abuse, and leave. What's the problem?

CailinDana Well, that's a waste of time and resources then. In my view, anyway. I know you feel that it's justified to spend all that time and resources on a tiny percentage of the population (i.e. the ones who HE) just to weed out possible cases of abuse even though you admit 20 minutes is inadequate and even the authorities cannot always spot signs of abuse in the children they care for. I suppose this is taxpayers' money well spent eh??

I don't like letters written in this way I.e giving a time rather than asking to arrange one.
I did just want to reassure you that quite a few profs do it and not just for HErs.
HVs do it in this area and quite a few of the therapists I work with.
I don't.
But I would visit you at home and it would have NOTHING to do with checking up on you. More services are home based because its easier for families and workers don't have access to clinic, office, meeting space.

I understand HErs anger at the Khyra case being bought up. She wasn't HE so much as whipped out of school.
Victoria Climbe is often used as an example of Kinship Care going horribly wrong (kk is children going to relatives rather than into foster care). In fact VC was no more KK than Kyhra was HE!

Surely a meeting could be arranged at a local children's centre or somewhere else? Even a school with a meeting room?

Well that's an idea Sirzy.

MrsDeVere Thanks for the reassurance. I'm generally very happy with all the different advice I've gotten on this thread so far. Given me some things to think about.

Ok you'd rather some children were abused than to waste money helping them. I don't agree. Let's leave it at that.

CailinDana I am not okay for children being abused. But I'm also not okay with resources and money wasted over such home visits on a tiny percentage of the population just because they HE. There must be a better way, or at least, keeping the law as it stands is good enough.. with the admittance that no matter what the law is, it will not be perfect, and even if routine monitoring of HE were to take place, it would not be a good use of money to tackle this problem of detecting abused children.

If you check the back of your red book it details the contacts the health service have with children. At 4-5 years/ reception entry they have vision, height, weight and hearing. Then nothing until 12-13 for HPV Vaccine and 13-18 for booster imms.
So basically nothing you couldn't arrange yourself through GP.

Sirzy not necessarily. There are issues with insurance etc where the people wanting to use the facilities have no link to the establishment. But of course it will vary between areas and some health teams will have links with premises.

I appreciate the OP feels railroaded into meeting the HCP but honestly I think you are looking for an agenda where there isn't one. Of course you can write/phone and decline the meeting, or ask to meet elsewhere.

Surely they should have access to somewhere to hold meetings, they must have to hold meetings with other proffessionals and families where meeting at home isn't possible?

And if home visits give such an accurate indication of if a child is being abused why isn't every child under 16 visited at home on a regular basis?

Home ed children can go for years without outside contact. There is a fine line between being ecentric and having a child trapped in an enviroment where the only human contact is with someone who is mentally unhinged. Or a child who is cut off from the rest of the world so that they do not mix with people who have different religous beliefs.

Teachers gets to know their children and families. They know which families may well need monitoring over the holidays. There are systems to monitor at risk school children.

Would it not be better for home educators as group to manage safeguarding? Or do you want the freedom for a mentally deluded and paranoid person to cut their children off from the outside world. Prehaps home educators who regularly attend an education otherwise group could be left alone. There would be more resources to concentrate on those who are a cause for concern.

as I said up thread, why aren't we insisting that schooled children are visited at home during the holidays. A 20 minute visit to me by the LA would be a good couple of hours round trip for someone, as we live at the complete opposite end of the county to where the LA are based. Presumably that waste of time is worth it? And at that time there were only two or three HE families living nearby covered by that LA (we're right on the border of two other counties), so visiting all of us even in one day, is an entire day spent on 4 children, none of whom were in any danger from their parents whatsoever.

ReallyTired It shocks me that you seem to think someone who is mentally unhinged deserve as much attention from the authorities than people who don't let their children mix with people of different religious beliefs! But apart from that, I also disagree with you that teachers get to know their children and families. I hardly was allocated more than 15 minutes once a year with my DD's teachers every year for the Parent's meetings. And that was just about the only time the teacher could be bothered to really get to know anything about me. The rest of the time she just looked busy or even at times, non-plussed.

*than = as