home saftey - who helps?

[bochead]

DS needs a new stairgate + a weighted blanket.

According to social services they cannot advise on where to purchase, or provide a stairgate for a sleep walker because of the fire risk . This makes no sense to me whatsover given that virtually every parent of an under 5 in the land is told to go get one by the health visitor & Sure start used to provide them in many areas to disadvantaged homes. I suspect I'm being fobbed off as usual. They don't help with weighted blankets either.

My stairs are spiral so standard products don't fit, & DS has outgrown our existing one, hence why I need expert advice.

I'm too sleep deprived, recovering from flu and fed up with being told to chase my tail to mess about. Is it the children with disabilities team at social services who are supposed to advise where to buy/provide these products or someone else - if so who ffs?

It's a long-shot and very dependent on the area you're in - but OT?

Ours offers advice on just about every aspect of life and give out sheets with lists of stockists for the products they recommend.

Also possibly a long shot but Disabled Parents Helpline. Obviously they are looking at things from the point of view of a parent with disabilities but they have quite a lot of info about specialist equipment. Phone no 0300 3300 639.

we had a referral from the OT to the Children's Disabilities team within the SS team for equipment for DS2 who has CP. I am presuming that it will be the similar route in other LA's.

and yes, you are probably being fobbed off as after the OT referral, it was regular Social workers who came home to do an initial assessment and who then referred us onto the children's disabilities team for a core assessment.

I am going the route of Paediatric OT - referral to Children's Disabilities Team and hopefully some sort of budget there.

Tried getting straight to the Disabilities Team through ACT and then Children's SS and ended up pushed onto a service called Educational Entitlement Service.

It's a bit of a pain in the butt!

Written referrals from neuro consultant, OT, GP & pead to children with disabilities team (who have an inhouse OT team) all in the last couple of months. Children with disabilities team and their OT's have refused to help. I'm finding it hard to believe that 4 NHS referrals from 2 different hospitals (local + national centre of excellence) can all be ignored.

Didn't manage to meet the criteria to be referred to Children with disabilities team 2 years ago via the CP SW team when they did a core assessment .

I get that they don't want to help but surely it's their legal responsibility? If DS has an accident at this point can't the children with disabilities team be held liable for ignoring the NHS bods in some way?

I will of course confirm with the fire service that stairgates are OK to use .

Right, could you have a carer's assessment by ACT and have them look at if from your point of view, your needs to manage as a carer are important and if those items make it easier, then they could perhaps help to fund it?

What does ACT stand for?

Having done a quick google and found out that ROSPA don't recommend stair-gates for children over the age of two, due to the potential for climbing accidents, I'm wondering whether you are coming up against Health and Safety based arse-covering to be honest. No-one will recommend them, even though everyone knows that for many of us they are a necessity.

I did come across an old MN thread and a couple of other sites that recommend using either the BabyDan gate that can be used to zone off an area or surrounding the stairs with a Babyden - but I'm guessing those probably wouldn't be tall enough, given he's already grown out of a standard gate?

The only other thing I could come up with was Spindelpacks, which you use to attach a pressure fit gate to rounded, spiral staircase posts.

The health and saftey arse covering does my head in as SS expressly forbid people to use locks on bedroom doors, & don't provide respite to kids like mine who don't meet the criteria. Last week when I had the flu just one decent night's kip would have made all the difference in the world to me feeling better. It also brought home to me the risks if I do fall asleep some nights - I didn't dare take any flu medication!

He's not a climber but as his co-ordination is a bit scewy he's likely to trip or bump into the gate either sleepwalking or in that wierd state when you aren't asleep, but aren't properly awake either. I'm basically really concerned he'll trip against the gate and take a nasty tumble as it fails to hold his weight. (Not come across any toddlers of 5 stone!).

I've seen dog gates designed to hold up against a 10 stone dog, but can't find one that fits my flipping stairs. Will buy a pack of those spindle packs to see if a dog gate could be used with them to fit. Where there is a will there is a way eh?

They have suggested an alarm but tbh the dog wakes me silently if needed and I worry an alarm would make his noise sensory issues trigger more night time anxiety than usual as he tends to sleepwalk when anxious generally iykwim. Last thing I want to do is make his sleep problems worse as I'm regularly up till 5 am with him as it is. An alarm is likely to be less responsive than the dog as she lets me know what state he's in (eg sleepwalking or wide awake and very upset etc).

I'd love to see some of these santomonious H&S jobsworths cope on as little sleep as many of us have to deal with. I know they'd be crawling over themselves to play the blame game if he were to hurt himself one night despite my best efforts.

We had one of those extra-tall, extra-strong dog gates for our 9 stone boxer gsd cross. It worked really well for him. Unfortunately our current lurcher just leaped straight over it.

Hope the spindle pack thingys do the job for you.

boc - maybe there is a local carpenter who could make you something?
might work out cheaper in the long run as they could build it to be big enough to last your ds growing

The adult care team, sorry. I think you can have a carer's assessment, there will be more information on your local council website, but you don't need to be disabled yourself to receive support here, you can ask for them to assess your needs as a carer of a disabled person too.

Any type of home adaptation like this has gone directly through our OT, and she organises it through whatever agency she needs to contact. She has been absolutely brilliant.

Hope you are able to get someone to assist you in getting it sorted quickly.