Advice from NHS SALT - After 24 hours I haven't stopped tittering

[Iceflower]

Hello, I have posted previously about trying to get SALT help for ds, AS and 9 years old (have modified my name to suit weather).

Yesterday I had an email from the head of service advising that she had considered what I have said and she couldn't see what the service could offer ds. Basically, if you have asd they don't help .

Anyway, she asked if I had heard of the ???*$£ Autistic Society (naming it would out me) and that I could get support from a local group that been recently set up.

I have been restraining myself so that I can draft a suitable reply to say that it was me that had set up this local support group .

love to see the look on their face reading it!

Well looking on the bright side, if you went to a tribunal with that in your bundle and ther was real need , then you would get salt from the Tribunal.
Which may be a comfort - of sorts.

Complaint disguised as compliment.... thanks so much for promoting my group to the families you work with; I set it up cos of the lack of alternative help. Even with the scarcity of resources, i was not aware that asd children were specifically excluded from local NHS provision. Sadly my little endeavour is no substitute for proper slt interventions; can you suggest how to plug the gap?

and well done for setting it up too.

Thanks for your comments . mm great letter, if only I dared .........

Go on , you know you want to and we want to hear the response

lovely letter, mm :)

send it, iceflower. apart from that, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. I don't think my DD would be getting any help if I would not have fired off my complaint letters about the crappy provision.

to exclude your DS because of an AS dx is just . I would not have that!

I too would be soooooo tempted to write and thank this person for 'signposting' you to this wonderful organisation which you set up yourself due to the lack of support from the statutory services. At least she was aware of your group - bonus point to her for that.
In the same letter, however, I would be asking for a meeting with said Head of Service in order to discuss exactly how they can help your DS and others like him - as clearly this level of service is not acceptable when it excludes a whole group of children. Just because they 'don't do it' doesn't mean they 'can't do it' - it just needs them to think outside the box and look at how they can put provision of some sort in place.

The legend of the "caring carrot" lives on!

Why don't you write to her asking her why she has recommended that organisation and if it is because she or any other SALTs do regular clinics there, and if not, why has she recommended it etc etc.

Star - great idea.

Good grief, SALTS treat children with ASD in other parts of the country, DS2 had treatment for a pronunciation issue and social skills groups. Make her squirm a bit!

Thank you for all the comments, I am reading them in between trying to keep my dc apart, and taxiing my dd to and from her hard won place at an independent ASD school. She returned to school in Jan after 18 months at home, and she is still settling in.

I still dare not reply to the email as I am afraid of writing something I might regret . I need to turn this to my advantage....... .

I love mm's letter and Star's idea. My group is only an asd support group so I may invite the SALT head of service to come and do a talk.

wiggly can you let me know where you are? To be fair to the SALT, it was probably not her decision how the asd care pathway has been drawn up in my PCT. It would be good though to be able to quote a few PCTs that actually support dcs with ASDs. Yours sounds very supportive.

Just write a letter clarifying that they don't support children with social communication disorders such as ASD.

Deliberately excluding a specific disability is akin to saying they won't treat Polish people etc.

I'm in Scotland where things are different, if not always better.

Wiggly I'm in Scotland too, but can't get SALT for DS, dx AS, 10 yrs. Used to get some when he was younger. He attends an ASD unit and many of them have been signed off from SALT .

Well DS2 is signed off too now I was talking about when he was a bit younger and DS didn't have a language delay so didn't need a lot. He had a couple of assessments, a few sessions on pronouncing certain sounds and about 12 social skills sessions (Which he tholed). They have said his case can be reactivated if necessary but i am rocking the boat by applying for an out of catchment high school place over a county border so that will probably be that. TBH I was relieved when he was signed off as I did NOT like the SALT, whom I found patronising, she was always doing a special concerned face that seemed false IYKWIM.
My health board is Forth Valley by the way.
SALT involvement seems to be mostly a paper exercise after the initial assessments (not that different from EP involvement).
What would you like your DS to get?

Yeah, blame the pct, you might get her on side to challenge the exclusions

Wiggly How to hold a conversation, including conversation cues, how much info to give etc. That's in their remit too.

I would start a thread asking for suggestions for good books/resources for social stories and do it yourself, the SALT social skills classes and materials i saw were pretty basic and common sense, well within the capabilties of most parents. If you DIY you can go at a pace that suits your DS and choose times when he is not too tired. (DS's social skills class was after school when he is usually ready to flop which was not ideal). He did one block when he was about 7 which he struggled with due to tiredness and lack of concentration (they are generally not that exciting either) and another when he was 10 at which he was top of the class! This was after he had been attending "Helen O'Grady" drama classes for abouit a year, they were excellent and made a big difference to his confidence and ability to speak up and he found them fun(They do a lot of improvised role play and movement activities.).

I had an old Richard Scarry book called something like "The please and thank you book" which was excellent about manners and social rules.

Salt provision really seems to concentrate on younger kids.

Wiggly thanks for the tips. I've managed to get someone who's just finished their SALT training who's going to give me other tips. I've also arranged for her to go into DS's school and am just trying to arrange a meeting with the unit co-ordinator to introduce them to each other. TBH by the time I've done the "normal" daily stuff, I just don't have the time or motivation to do anything else during term time.

Yes its difficult, I often feel like I should be doing more but there's music practice, swimming lessons, scouts, three children's homework...

I have finally replied to the head if SALT. I asked for confirmation that the PCT believed that children with SCD did not require SALT input, that no such input was being given, and if there was an ASD specialist in the service.

And oh, I invited her to a group meeting and asked for details of clinics they are running at other groups .

She replied immediately, offering to send their ASD specialist to the next meeting. She said they would address my questions then. Drat! I wanted them in writing