Child pressured by *therapist* at school without mothers consent...please help?!

[Littleblue]

ok the guy introduced himself as a therapist..then went on to say with looking at you I can see you have a hard life..I can see you have a mask on but I can see through it..I will not tell anybody what you talk to me about.first question..What is your life like? Then he went on to ask about my health(mother)..about his siblings..Whats is your mothers mood like..what is your life like? He asked one question regarding if DS liked school in preference to home. he asked about Dad..DS says I dont spend much time with him..and he always asks me to do the same kind of things! It wasnt an hour spent but around twenty minutes. *CHILD said that therapist said..I look forward to seeing you next week. I ask school about..they say following last nights consultation we thought it might help DS in regards to how he expresses himself in class. As I mentioned DS got soaked to the skin this morning and I decided to take him home..I had intended to dry his clothes and hopefully get hold of somebody to take him into school..then the school called me around 9.30am and said would you like us to send somebody to pick ds up..To which I agreed..At no point had they ever offered beforehand to help out and at no point did they mention DS having a window with somebody they needed him to talk to that day.

Therapist said he has a son that attends the school..like I said only other kid due to see this therapist was some young lad with a history of child abuse..if this was a class issue why didnt they focus more ion the issues Ethan had in class..as far as his shyness, the eating issue and learning..Focus was entirely made up of time he spent at home rather than in class. I'm disgusted!

and more importantly why was no letter sent home for my approval..teacher I spoke to agreed it seemed odd considering what she had managed to make out that questions had been asked about his home life as well as me not having signed any approval...ds's father is at best a part time parent , and does NOT have a PR agreement...this seems to have come about from discussions between exe and teacher behind the mothers back..ergo hearsay....

You cannot have a therapist with a child at the school seeing other children in the same school; raises serious ethical and technical issues.

However we are relying on a secondhand report of what a child has said. It could all be a very well intentioned attempt to find out if there ARE cp issues.

A depressed mother will have an effect on the child and under some circumstances the child's welfare could be affected.

(By the way adults who have had the experience of a depressed mother make up a disproportionately large group amongst counsellors! They tend to have more highly developed empathy)

Did your friend speak to the head OP? Hope everything is OK.

It may be well intentioned but it sounds rather badly handled. I thought primary schools shouldn't let any non-school-staff see any child without express parental consent. Excluding very serious urgent concerns needing police, social workers etc obviously. And there are usually guidelines about counselling in schools.

I agree mariasalome it sounds very odd.
Could the child's father have given permission unknown to the mother?

OP

How do you know it is not a child protection issue?

Of course no-one is going to tell you that.

OP, there is a chance you are not being told everything by your friend. There must have been concerns from the school about this child, (depression, freezing house, absent DP) you do not know the full extent of those issues (possibly?) and you may not know to what extent the school have tried to engage with the mother or tried to inform her of this appointment/intervention. I hope it goes ok with the HT.

The father has no reason to be on school property or to have ANY contact with the school whatsoever if he has no PR. He has no more legal standing than the man catching the 7.55 train the HT saw at the station this morning. If dear daddy has been stirring a hornets nest thn your friend can stamp on that one straight away - a convo with the police re harrassment should sort it.

The therapist has acted in an extremely unprofessional manner for the following reasons:-

1/ It's really unethical to work with a child at a school where you are also a parent. (Head of my boroughs ASD outreach is in this position with my own son - for anything specific professional code of conduct says someone else from her team has to deal with my son. )This rule is actually to protect the professional as well as the child so you won't find anyone properly qualified willing to break it nowadays iykwim.

2/ Leading questions being asked of the child - these can actually cause a prosecution to fail. A failed prosecution where everyone KNOWS a kid is being neglected/abused is actually every CP worker's worst nightmare.

For the two reasons above I'd want to very clear answers to the following questions:-

1/ What terms of reference did this person have for iinterrogating my child? (eg general concern, CP issues etc, etc)
2/What professional body does this person belong to (so I can look up their code of practice for my own piece of mind!), and qualifications does this person have?
3/What assurances can the school give me the parent that they are taking my child's emotional wellbeing and safttey seriously?

Unless the school feel a child is at real and immediate risk of serious harm there is no reason for them NOT to contact the parent before any "therapist" talks to the child. If the risk is really that serious it's a social worker (responsible adult) accompanied by a lady in blue iykwim , and the child couldn't be returned to the home address. At a minimum the HT would be calling the parent in to speak to them on the very same day, not leaving it overnight in case something happened to the child.

This hasn't happened here so I think some over zealous muppet just owes your friend a MASSIVE apology. Someone up thread said the word "therapist" is used for an awful lot of charlatans - I think she is right.

Actually the father (if named on the birth cert) has equal rights with mother

Doubt it was a therapist, could it be someone from child welfare just trying to find out if there is any truth in false accusations by the father?

Or son could have just said something in passing which school is concerned about which will prob be a fuss about nothing.