Hi , first time here posting here, I would appreciate any advice and direction towards helping my 15 year old daughter. She has been unwell for awhile ,anxiety and low mood, starting to get worse beginning of this year. She is on the spectrum, diagnosed in primary school. She is not attending school at the moment with severe anxiety, stopped going in by February. She is getting online CAMHS therapy for a couple weeks now, early days. I will write the back story below but to get to the point where I need help with, I am going to have a meeting next week with school Educational psychologist, I would appreciate any advice how I should prepare for it to get the most out of it and I would like to hear from anyone who is willing to share their experiences with similar situations in secondary education, their kids not school what to expect and do next . Thank you so much for reading.
Just to give more information
My daughter is under the school’s SEN for ASD. She is and has been affected by anxiety all her childhood but not to the extent she is experiencing at the moment. She had received different talk and CBT therapies through school to manage anxiety in the past but none of them she has found helpful. She had a difficult start in secondary school with transition and adjustments, bullying, finding it hard fitting in and making friends, the usual challenges with most autistic kids. But , by year 9 she was doing well academically, catching up with her peers and in a friendship group with a few girls who are all very academic. In her current Year ten she managed to move up to top sets in most subjects. And then after Xmas break last year, she started having severe anxiety symptoms usually triggered just before any kind of assessments and school had to call me a couple of times to take her home because she couldn’t physically calm down, too agitated. It did get pretty bad quickly after that, she couldn’t attend lessons but stayed in the school, trying do lessons by herself, struggled to catch up and finally stopped going to school since February. School has been supportive, they have offered reduced time table, a slow build up to reintegrating my daughter back into school. None accepted by my daughter. She is totally disengaged from any kind learning and she doesn’t think she will ever go back to school. She keeps telling me she is unwell and I am not understanding her. To be honest she is right but I am trying. My focus so far has been getting her some support for mental health while encouraging her to work on her GCSE. But she is waiting to be cured first, her words. Understandably I am worried about her education and future.