Moaning thread number 2 for today ! This one is a bit long, sorry.

[Ineedmorepatience]

At Dd3's tribunal the LA rep told the panel that children with Asd in my LA are supported by the EP service. I doubted this as Dd3 had her diagnosis for over 2 years before she saw an EP.

Anyway one of the reason I wanted to meet the EP today (see my senco thread) was to ask her if this is in fact the truth.

So I phoned her and asked the question, "Are the EP's responsible for Asd children in our LA" to which she answered "yes". So I then asked her "Do the schools still have to call in your service" To which she answered "yes".

I then said "Do the schools only call in the EP's when they are having problems with the children with Asd?" To which she answered "yes"

So then I said "So actually the EP's arent really supporting the children with Asd until they fall apart, are they and it is still up to the schools to decide who will be seen and who wont?" Which of course she answered with "Well yes it is upto the schools and we dont know about all children with Asd and of course not all of them need to see an EP"

It gets better..

I then asked her if Dd3 will automatically transfer to the EP who is assigned to the secondary school when she moves and guess what... No she wont be automatically transferred, she will need to be referred to the new EP by the school!!

So the either the LA rep was lying or the EP service arent doing their jobs properly. Either way no one is responsible for supporting the children with Asd in mainstream schools in my LA

Not a great day

Presumably they will say the class teachers are with support from the SENCO as it is a high incidence need and therefore all mainstream schools are experienced in managing children with ASD?

What the EP service means when they support all children with autism is that they are a service available to schools for all children as and when the school deems it necessary.

Bloody annoying that the LA rep made out that they are supporting all children with Asd at tribunal.

Hopefully the panel will see from my evidence that they have only been involved with Dd3 for a very short time!

I can't post anything that is useful, Ineed, but just wanted to 'check in'. In fact, I've not been able to post anything useful on this board for a while, because I'm just so disillusioned by the whole 'education system.'

Thanks lougle I appreciate your post. I am feeling very low today and have just typed a massive complaint to the SENCO at school.

I am waiting for advise from the advocate as to whether to complain about the LA rep

I know what you mean about being disillusioned

My LA got rid of the advisory teachers about 3 years ago in attempt to save money.

We have no autism team at all, our neighbouring authority has something called a CAT team but not us

dont have anything useful to offer but sorry your'e feeling low and its so bloody frustrating isnt it

Oh Lougle you don't know how sad that makes me. The system does stink but make sure you remember that many of the people in it don't know that. It doesn't make it ok, but don't become disillusioned with humanity as well. You often remind me of that so make sure you don't forget.

Even the autism advisory service that our LA has isn't an automatic referral on diagnosis. It's up to schools to refer. They can respond quite quickly in an emergency (DS1's tested that a few times) at least with phone support. Referral still needs to be made to the regular EP service for statementing purposes, though and, since the reorganisation a few years ago, that's a long waiting list. Both boys were referred to ours in July 2012. DS2 had a KS transition coming up and we had concerns about DS1 and wanted to explore a change of placement. It took her meeting DS1 having a meltdown in the corridor in December for him to finally get seen in February. After speaking to us about DS2, he wasn't assessed any further.

I just think that we are going to be forced to remove Dd3 from school altogether. We cant stand by and watch her fall apart again.

On Tuesday morning she resorted to lying face down on the dining room floor to avoid going to school, she is too big to move, doesnt respond to bribery positive reinforcement nor threats. No matter what I offer her in exchange for going to school she will not take the school option.

She wants to learn but believes that she can learn better at home.

Part of me wants to just take her out and keep her safe and support her myself but I dont think I can give her all the skills she will need to cope as an adult!

I am sick of the way LA's treat children with disabilities and special needs, they only look at cost and budgets.

Every child matters, except when they dont

Star, thank you for your post - I'll try to remember that.

Ineed I am so with you - DD2 is 'back'. Still the same DD2 as always, but she's back with us. Hand-sucking is vastly reduced, she's started skipping along outdoors, she's talking again, just has a general 'lightness' about her. The only thing that's changed (and it is a remarkable change - people are commenting on it) is that she's not at school.

I wonder how many times I can force her back into school, knowing that the girl I know and love recedes behind a veil a few days before school starts and only emerges once school has finished for a holiday.

We have a 'Team Around the Child' meeting at the end of April. I'd love to believe the rhetoric that we are all a 'team' around DD2, working together to help her. I can't help feeling that it's actually a 'Team Around the Parents' meeting, where we're told that we're imagining her difficulties and harming her for suggesting that she's struggling when clearly she's happy in school because she smiles .

It IS a team around the parents meeting. I used to joke that it was really a meeting to get around what the parents are saying their children need.

In reality I think that the meeting is seen by the professionals as an outreach opportunity to impart their expertise on poor emotionally fragile parents who are confused by their children's behaviour and it is seen as the vehicle of support for the family and to show they care. That was my experience anyway.

I learnt to ask in advance who was going to be there and why they were going to be there I.e what they were expecting to offer. I think it is a reasonable question though from the answers you could tell a)they felt it was a) cheeky and b) hardly anyone could actually say.

This is far more tricky, I think because we know the SALT thinks she's fine. The Paed thinks she's ok. The SENCO says she's fine (except that they've had to give her a nurture group to get her to participate in class, but that's been glossed over).

The evidence is clear to me: Every time term starts, it's like I package her off to boarding school. I get her back again each and every holiday. That can't be coincidence.

It's not. It is the experience of so many on here you'd think the experts/professionals had twigged/had training/knew the score by now.

But they are busy people (not necessarily busy doing meaningful things imo, but busy nevertheless) and your child is just one of many and all they want is to know whether their workload is going to increase and if so, whether their boss is going to take off another child from their list to compensate, and whether that is reasonable given the other child is actually causing a number of staff to pester them on a regular basis for intervention.

You compare your child to an NT child. You consider the fall-out of NOT getting intervention now.

They compare your child to children with more difficulties and justify focusing their limited resources there.

But their resourcing problems are THEIR fight. They shouldn't be yours and your daughter is not collateral. However, you do have to understand that they are not BAD people, but they will, and do retaliate if you make them uncomfortable for the position they have chosen and you have to be prepared for that.

Ineed Can you remind me which year she is in?

We have never had a TAC or TAP meeting, at the last IEP meeting the Paed was invited but didnt make it, there was no SALT or EP invited

That was why I asked for the follow up meeting [in senco thread] but that failed too, I have written a mighty stroppy email to the senco but no point sending it until they go back.

It is very hard when Dc's put that smile mask on when they go into school lougle I so get what you are saying. I do finally feel like enough Proffs have put it in writing that Dd3 is very anxious but unable to say anything that it backs up what I have been saying for years. If anyone pulls the doubting face now I can say, EP has written xyz or SALT has written xyz or Paed or all 3.

It has been a very long road to get here but at least people do actually believe me now even if they dont actually know what to do to help us, or in the case of the LA dont care!!

Dd3 is in yr 6 star, and yes I know I should have started this at least 2 years ago

That won't help Ineed. I'm sure you made the best decisions with whatever lies information was available to you at the time. I don't think there is a single one of us who didn't wish we'd done things years earlier. It doesn't work like that. You weren't negligent you just didn't yet realise how the system could be.

You have documentation to back up your position. The LA may well ignore it. LA's with EPs who make quantified and specified recommendations still often make parent go to tribunal because it is a numbers game.

But you do have documentation, and that gives you leverage.

No you are right I believed in someone that I though had Dd3's best interests at heart, only to find out that that person sits on the SA panel and is as thick as thieves with the LA rep!

I just have to wait now for the tribunal decision. And then continue to battle on. Of course when you realise that the LA are more than happy to lie in tribunal then you know you have to keep fighting but that you need to have your wits about you.

Yes I have documentation but it doesnt show that Dd3 isnt making progress, we based our tribunal on the evidence that she is only making progress due to the huge number of extra provision that is in place.

It is in place on paper but the school arent actually doing half of it. so I had to sit in tribunal and tell them how much wonderful provision is in place and yet still Dd3 is extremely anxious and school refusing! But of course all the time I want to scream, if everyone would just do their damn jobs properly she would probably be fine!!

It's that high functioning bit that I can't get over. If indeed DD2 has ASD....it's not a given. It's just a hunch.

We have a new carer for DD1. Lovely girl, young, but looks quite a lot older because of her choice of makeup. She has a dark complexion, which, tbh, isn't entirely natural (make up/fake tan/sunbed...not sure).

Anyway. We went to Paulton's Park on Monday and I thought all 3 girls woud be out for the count. But, to my surprise, DD2 didn't settle. I was mystified. Lovely day out, no school, nothing to worry about...it didn't make sense. By 11pm I was begging her to go to bed so that I could. No result. She couldn't/wouldn't tell me what was up. Finally, at around 00.15, she burst into tears and said she couldn't possibly tell me what the matter is, because it was so very, very, rude and I'd be so very angry and sad with her.

Eventually, I coaxed out of her the problem. In her words: "I only like people who have the same skin as me. Peach. X doesn't have peach skin." So we had a big chat about how she could tell me her worries, as long as she didn't say them in front of the person and told me privately. I suggested that she could be in her room reading or in the dining room doing lego when X arrived, and I'd tell her she was having a relax and would say hi when she was ready. We also talked about 'stranger danger' and how sometimes you have to be rude, even if you wouldn't normally. All sorted, she said 'I'm going to let you go to bed now'.

The next day, X, came. DD2 was a bit taken aback, because she hadn't had time to get into the dining room/her room, but indicated she was 'ok'. She joined in with X's games a bit, then retired to the lounge to watch TV/play on the IPad while the others played. All fine.

Tonight, we were discussing a sleepover at her cousins, and she seemed fixated on going on Tuesday. I said 'Why Tuesday??' and she said 'You know....skin?' and I said 'Oh, you're not happy with X still??' and she said 'shhh....you didn't have to say it loud!'

I said 'but last week you looked like you were having fun....' and she said:
Mum, you know ages ago, you told me that thing about 'being happy even if you're not enjoying something...'? I said 'do you mean pretending to be happy?' and she said 'Yes. That's what I was doing. It's polite to be happy even if you're not really enjoying the thing.'

The poor child is being penalised for following my stupid social conditioning to the letter!!