Team Around Child - has anyone been their own child's 'lead professional'?

[hazeyjane]

ds's lead professional (she is the early years support worker) has gone awol, we haven't heard from her since oct, and she hasn't returned our phone calls. so much has happened since we last saw her, some progress and lots of issues arising, appointments needing sorting and problems galore - i have been sorting everything out myself, so am thinking i may as well be his nominated lead professional.

or am i mad? should i nominate someone else to help guide us through all this and act as a link with all the different threads of support?

has anyone been their own child's lead professional - how is it?
or chosen not be - why?

sorry all a bit waffly, am sleep deprived!

thankyou

I haven't been in the position of having the medical stuff to juggle, as I primarily dealt with SALT, but if you feel up to diarising/logging/chasing then I think you may as well carry on being the "lead professional" as you will be far more motivated to progress your child's appointments etc than someone who may have an overwhelming caseload (thinks of kindest explanation for your keyworker disappearing).

Yes, I nominated myself and then cancelled all TAC meetings telling people I would be in touch as I/ds needed them. It can be helpful ti have links with the original Lead though as they know the policies and the forms.

I once asked if I could go on the TAC Lead training course but was refused. It is only for professionals apparently

I seriously considered it, would have gone ahead, but found a fab one in the manager of the special needs group ds went to. personally I would have a think if any of the other professionals involved with dc are any good, if so nominate them, if not, yeah do it yourself...

I liked being able to poke people at arms length, IYSWIM (for example school were late with annual review, I poked lead professional and she poked them..)

yes you certainly can be your own lead proffessional. You need to ensure you have a good relationship with the proffessionals your working with, otherwise it can go very wrong.

Thankyou for your thoughts.

It is a tricky one isn't it, on the one hand I know that if something requires an afternoon of phonecalls back and forth being passed from one dept to the other (yes Speech & language, I mean you!), then I will do that, because in my mind I am ds's advocate and my main priority is to ensure the best of what is out there for him. Whereas ds is one case of many to his keyworker.

On the other hand I have no knowledge of what is out there and what is available to us. My guide in all of this has basically been Mumsnet and the wonderful people on this board.

I can see exactly what you mean SignandSmile, about the poking by proxy. I can get very emotional about all this stuff, and being able to keep it at arm's length would certainly be better for my sanity!

That is something I hadn't really considered, lisad123, so far the majority of people we have come in contact with have been great, but if someone gets my back up, on a day of little sleep the night before, then gawd knows what could happen.

Hmmm, I'm going to have to consider all this stuff very carefully. The other options of lead professional all seem to have very busy agendas, so I'm not sure how proactive they will be if things need doing.