Who should I invite to CAF meeting?

[smugtandemfeeder]

Me again

CAF meeting has been scheduled for mid august. HV wants to know who I want to invite.

Options are

1. Pre-school SENco
2. Sure start play worker
3. Social worker (who thinks we are anxiety ridden label chasing parents but has signed us off so presume dont NEED to invite them)
4. Pead (who is basically a GP and has sent us on a parenting course.)
5. Portage (we are in the holding group for portage, just attending meet and play sessions so far)
6. Ed Psych (says they wont see DS until he goes to assessment centre)

I dont really fancy having the paed or the social worker there.

Should we invite unhelpful people or exclude them?

What is my objective at the CAF meeting? (thinking aloud...)

What I want is someone to help me with dealing with the challenging behaviour we see at home. Someone to help me have fun playing with DS. And a hurrying up with the assessment centre. People who can help me work on DSs social and emotional problems. Play therapy?

Still need to contact home start, they sound very helpful to my objectives.

Portage should be good for play therapy.

i know with mine that the pead and ed psych are invited as courtesy but the have always sent apologised. I found the portage and HV the most informative again set your agenda with your HV and ask HV to bring discussion back to the points on the agenda when or if parenting issues or other waffle is being spoken. Also I found that at the meeting waiting list and other children are mentioned where I always remind that this meeting is about my child and what help is he going to get. Use timelines the lasted your child can be assessed ideally asap so preparation for school can begin. August is a strange time and I would of thought the HV would have sent invites. Get her to ask for confirmations asap so if too many appologies are sent and the meeting will not provide the answers you needs you have the option of delaying till sept.

I have just emailed my local Home Start. Will invite pead and Ed Psych then. The meeting was going to be in September but the HV has just brought it forward.

Portage will be good for play therapy but there is a years waiting list so we may never get it. We have had two months in their holding group where we go to a sure start centre and sing songs and have snack time and other such standard stuff.

Should I invite Area SENco or early years inclusion person from LEA? The early years person is supposed to be useful but when I requested visual aids from her she sent me two printed off sheets with 8 pictures on rather than the 40 or so laminated ones I requested.

Does your LEA have a child development team, I have had a representative of the team at meeting but I am not sure about the invites as I have never had to send them.

This is what my LEA does. Bit of a joke isnt it. Hundreds of thousands on two ABA courses. Next to nothing on portage. Autism outreach suggested I should start mentioning ABA to them to get them to jump out of their seats to help!

.....................................................................................................

In response to your request, please see below:

The LEA is currently funding 2 ABA programmes. One is costing £23871 per annum; the other is costing £6639 for the period April to December 2011.

The total cost of the two programmes is £30510, average cost £15255.

7 day placements, range £72678 - £134980; average cost £87091

5 Residential placements, range £93348 - £129638; average cost £103727

6 x 52 week placements, range £147114 - £210299; average cost £186959

The Early Years Inclusion Support Service (EYISS) only has a small Portage Home Visiting Service to support children with additional needs at home ? the term ?Home Education? properly applies only to children of statutory school age and above.

There is no specific budget allocated for pre school children with additional needs who are in the home setting. For details of services provided by EYISS please see attached leaflets.

Oh Im very happy for parents who do get it and they very much should get it. Im not suggesting they shouldnt get it im really not. I have read much about it on here and how helpful it is and think it would very much help my DS. I requested details of the budget for future reference for myself!

I just wish they would spend a bit more on things you dont have to go to tribunal for!!

Thanks Justa. I have 45 days of maternity leave left and zero pay and then I will be back to work and accountant pay. So in future I will be able to pay for things. This hasnt helped me for the year I have been without pay though and that is why I have been needing more help than normal. It has been very hard and this last 45 days or so will be the hardest.

I still need to fight for the assessment centre though as there are lots of parents locally in the same position as me who have been waiting without a firm date for assessment who have been told that they have been taken off the waiting list as they no longer think the child needs an assessment. I cant let that happen.

However, also ironically, when I go back to work this will bring even greater pressure on us as DH is the person who looks after the children while I am at work. He is an excellent father but it will be very very difficult for him to cope with DS and DD while I am at work. We want to have the children at home. We dont just want to stick them in childcare. We beleive our little ones are best off at home with us rather than in childcare. However we are finding it sooooooo difficult.

Gawd, its like a counselling session today!

You have to remember that those who have got to tribunal have generally had years of inadequate provision and needs /deserves the extra funding as their child has failed in the normal system due to cut backs, old fashioned style of teaching methods and pure ignorance and arrogance of the system. it is a horrible system that you learn the hard way that being a competent parent can go against the help your child gets.

No I know we wont get help quickly, so I dont even know why I am making such a fuss. Maybe I should just focus on things I can pay for myself once I am back at work. It just seems wrong.

I dont know how to cope between now and going back to work. I dont know how to cope once I go back to work.

Shocking shocking system.

Horrid Henry was debating who to invite to his birthday. None of the children were nice to him, but without invitations there would be no presents. 'Oh bother, let them all come' he decided.

You aren't Horrid Henry . But the advantage of inviting everyone, is that they each may find they need to offer something in order to justify their attendance. And having health, education and social care in the same room does at least stop each one saying it's the other service's job to sort things out.

As justa says, having a wish list of what you need from the meeting is helpful. The key to success for any of these is really to have a clear agenda, a minute taker, an advocate or friend to back you up and someone helpful to chair the meeting. At best you could walk out with a clear recognition of who thinks what, and what type of help will be forthcoming in the next 6-12 months. And just as usefully, you'll know what you'll need to organise and resource yourself.

If your worst fears were realised and all concerned were to gang up on you and say you're a label chasing loon, whose obsession is harming your poor dc.... even that would help a lot. It would give you the prefect excuse to insist they all work together to get a very speedy, thorough, specialist multidisciplinary assessment whose findings you could all rely on (and you obviously know that a full evaluation should demonstrate the issues you've seen).

ds has a caf, the last one was just me, the hv, the surestart family support and salt...the community pead was invited but he hadnt met ds then and hv told me they rarely attend just send a report.

the next caf there will be me and 2 hvs, family support, salt and the report from community pead (oubt he will turn up), i found it useful if im honest that many things and appointments i forget what people are telling me or get muddled, i.e salt said they where stopping home visits so i thought they meant his salt was ending, this was raised at the last caf by hv and salt said they would be continuing salt at clinic x

Loving the Horrid Henry reference

So where do I start with making an agenda? Ive never done one for my son!

Phoned home start but their volunteers dont work over the school holidays so wont be until September.

So far they have all said they arent responsible for challenging behaviour, my lea doesnt have autism outreach and the best they could come up with was sending us on a parenting course.

Ive already asked for play therapy but they said that the CAMHS person who signed us off is the play therapy worker. Portage waiting list is a year.

A family support worker was mentioned but didnt materialise.

i got the family support worker at the sure start centre, my health visitors also do behaviour stuff too... who is leading the caf? can you not sit with them, my hv fills out all the forms and come up with it together x