What did you do in the war dear ?

[willowthecat]

www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/people-with-learning-disabilities-wrongly-housed-with-elderly-1.1072633

Just shows how inadequate and dreadful care for adults with learning difficulties can be !

It is so worrying for parents like me whose child is reaching the age where residential care has to be contemplated.

In a local LA respite home, they mix people of 19 with those in their 60's. They have very little in common needless to say. I can only presume the attitude underlying such poor decisions is 'they won't notice anyway'

This is a disgrace......

Would David Cameron have placed his son in a home with the elderly? I think not. One rule for them and another for us.

I don't want to be controversial knowing that their young son died so recently but, I worry constantly where my boy will "end up" when I can no longer care for him. As a parent, this is only natural.

I'm already finding out how much of a postcode lottery care and provision really are.....

Wendihouse, I am with you on this - I don't think it is insensitive even with their recent loss.
My son is 13, has AS and is currently in a residential school.
All fine whilst I am around to advocate for him and access services but what happens to him when I am dead - quite feasible when he will be aged about 40.
I am frankly scared for my child's future. We are a normal family (not millionaires like most of the current cabinet) so cannot afford to buy him a flat/set him up with a carer etc.
I don't have anything other than the 'normal' parent worries for my other child but for my son I carry around a constant bellyful of worries.

LaydeeC..... Not to suggest I am suicidal but I recently had a discussion with a person who felt I was in need of serious help. I said that the woman who took her 12yr old autistic son up to the Humber Bridge before jumping (both of them) was not to be condemned since it was an act of supreme love, not despicable cruelty.

I am 48 now. My son's only 10. He has no siblings. So yes, I wonder where he will be, who will show kindness to him, not take advantage of him and his naivety, will he be ridiculed as people do now, when they think I haven't noticed.

Yes, I understand that woman's despair. And I live with it, as do you and countless others, every, single day.

Thanks for your reply LaydeeC. I recently lobbied my MP, who was very understanding and has tried to help but, it's all money.

Some of the lives the people I work with have lived are truly horrific.

Attitudes are changing, slowly, but they are. Things that used to be swept under the carpet are now in the open. The shame once heaped upon the victim is now heaped upon the abuser - and prison sentences are imposed.

The people I work with have independent advocates, and some are involved with Social Services (I hosted a SW visit today, she was thrilled with how my dude is settling in and how happy he is - I was shocked that she seemed like an actual human being!)

Funding for residential care is from Social Services and the NHS. Companies like the one I work for make a fat profit - but at the expense of staff wages, not residents. And there are a fair few people like me around who do it because quality of life for them means quality of life for them. I don't get much above minimum wage, but I only work 7 days in 14 and have spent the last week building the stage set and making the costumes for the Christmas Nativity play - on their time. On Friday I'm working overtime and will be making Christmas cakes with 3 more able residents to give as gifts to the other houses in group - we're all friends and visit regularly.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to say that there is a little hope out there for the future. DNiece is lucky that she has 2 uncles, me as aunty-out-of-law, and a younger brother. Not everyone has that. And some form of supported living may be best for her further down the line, who knows?

This is one part of the case for going to residential placement before adulthood. Establish need, establish peer group as well as other factors.

Need and peer group get lost after age 18. It is then whatever is cheapest for the LA/CC.