Where to access ASD specific counselling?

[mintleavesandthyme]

My DC Y6 diagnosed ASD suffers with anxiety and phobias. She would like to access some counselling specifically for this. How do I go about finding this sort of thing? The GP?

By all means speak to the GP, but depending on the level of anxiety and phobias, this may not meet the threshold for referral, and even if it does, there is likely to be a significant wait.

In some areas, there are charities or other organisations who offer free/subsidised support. It is worth looking if your area has anything.

Some schools have a counsellor. Although not all have experience of adapting their support for autistic DC.

Does DD have an EHCP? If so, this is something that could be in there.

Some go private.

Hello. Thanks for the reply. No ECHP so far. We have no idea what we’re doing really. We have some funds from private insurance for this and go private to a point.
she doesn’t want to have counselling via school as it’s a small community and lots are parents are staff etc.
would the senco be able to advise on this?

You could ask the SENCO if they are aware of any charities or organisations locally or if you want to go privately, if they know of anyone.

If DD would allow you to, you might want to ask around locally too. The local parent carer forum &/or groups for DC with SEN might have some suggestions.

@mintleavesandthyme

Are you in the initial stages of obtaining an EHCP, OP?

@TheSquareMileno, at the moment the school say no accommodations needed other than some support with friendships. They agree she has ASD and pushed for the diagnosis.

she has a long term little group of friends but they are all ND and fall out all the time. I suspect it’s just that they are tween girls and the ND just is an added complication. She is academic and polite so as far as school is concerned little is needed.

we did the assessment over concerned about transition and high school. Her main problem is anxiety and all this seems to have spiralled since the diagnosis.

The problem I’m having is I don’t know what an EHCP would involve. Would school say ?

You can request an EHCNA yourself. This involves making a request for an EHCNA yourself to the LA. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use. The LA will then decide whether to assess or not. If they agree to assess, advice and information from various sources will be collated as part of a needs assessment. If they refuse to assess, you can appeal.

IPSEA and SOSSEN’s websites and the SENCOP are good places to start learning about EHCPs.

Do you have a school nurse?