What does a welfare officer do?

[Ipsos]

Hi,

I have to go to a meeting with my son's headmistress and the welfare officer this week, and I wondered if anyone might be able to explain what a welfare officer does? I'm mainly wondering if he has any power to help, or if he is just there to wield a bit stick when families are not trying hard enough.

For context, my son gets a lot of viruses, so his attendance isn't at the level that they want. He had obstructive apnoea as a baby, and lost a lot of sleep and has food intolerances. I'm not sure how this connects with the viruses, but I'm working very very hard on figuring it out. Ds's attainment in class is very good. His reading is very advanced and everything else is in the top of the normal range, so they are not worrying about him falling behind academically.

I get the impression that the headmistress is under a lot of pressure from the welfare officer.

Thanks!

Jennifer

There's a vertical test for coeliac. It's a blood test. You can get a false positive with it but not a false negative, so it's well worth doing. DD had it because I (and the paed) thought it was unnecessarily harsh to make a young child suffer for a possible diagnosis via blood test/biopsy

Oh! That's very encouraging then. We should probably both be having that, since wheat does most peculiar things to both of us. I'll ask about that when the time comes. Thanks for letting me know.

No problem! I'd read up on it first though - not all GPs know about yet, though it's been around for a few years.

My ds has gone through some brutal test as a child. But if your dc is admitted to hospital every three months and became so underweight you can see his heart beating through his skin, I had to agree to any suggestion from consultants to figure out what was wrong with him. He still has allergy and chronic illness and weak immune system, but he is a lot healthier now. It did worth it. And good thing is he doesn't remember any of it.

Gosh irvine that does sound hard. I'm glad he doesn't remember it. My ds has been through a lot and though he doesn't remember the specifics, he does remember that he doesn't trust people at all, especially adult strangers and men in suits in offices. I wish I could just keep him out of medical treatment for a few years and let him get his trust back.

Hello! We had our meeting today and it went well. I had all my notes all straight and I was able to explain to the EWO the parts that were important without taking up time with other stuff that wasn't. The EWO was happy for ds to have afternoons off to get his energy back in order to avoid actual illness and was pleased to hear about the pediatrician visit. So now I have to try to figure out when ds needs afternoons off in order to stay health - too few and he will get ill, but too many and he will lose his place in the games in the playground. That's going to be interesting. Fingers crossed we will manage it. Thanks so much for your help apple especially.

Great news! And good luck with paediatrician.

Could you arrange to collect him just after the afternoon registration? He gets to play at lunchtime, gets a tick in the right box so when he is ill the other absences don't matter as much. They never seem to mind if it is after registration. In fact I have started arranging dr appt for 9.30 - drop them in one gate, go round to the office and pick them up after the register. A bit of a farce but seems to work.

That's brilliant to hear - I kept checking back to see if meeting had happened. Sounds really positive, especially with the offer of flexible afternoons

shouldwestayorshouldwego Thanks yes that's what we're doing. It seems to work well. I love your morning registration trick. I will remember that.

Apple Thanks so much for checking back. I must admit I was so worried about all this but I really feel grateful now to the EWO for getting the school to listen. I got the man's direct phone number just in case I ever need him again.

The next thing is to go to the GP and somehow push past the "8-10 viruses are normal" party line that they always come out with, but I will do my best. The school gave me a printout of the attendance records for this year and last year, which should help.