Children with disabilities socail worker and what they are there to provide

[WhiteJellycat]

My son has ASD and has a sw for about 3 years. It was extremely hard to get a disabilities SW. The first one was lovely. We had regular CIN meetings with school with the specialist independent school home link worker. All good.

Then the pandemic hit. The home link worker went from monthly contact with me to zero. No idea why that stopped and didnt go to zoom or phone calls but I haven't had any contact with a home link worker since.

Then I had a new SW. He seemed ok. I asked him to take our respite package back to panel to get agency care as I couldnt find a PA. He said he would but after six months of chasing him he told me that he hadnt and couldn't explain why but he had just lied to me. Then he immediately left. I am in the middle of a complaint but I have been told already he has gone so not action can be taken.

Anyway sw number 3. My son is at key stage transfer and we had a annual review. Sw was invited but didnt turn up. No apologies nothing. I emailed her and said it was a shame as she would have learnt so much from the meeting. She replied that we need a CIN meeting.

So two questions.

I dont see any point repeating what I'm struggling with as it was all covered in the review. Its doubling up my workload.

There is no one to come to the cin as never met the new hlw

I dont want the CIN. I have three ehcp annual reviews at once this week for three of my kids.

What is point of a disability socail worker? She is a box ticking presence that does nothing

Is the home link worker provision not in the EHCP?

What is in section H of the EHCP? Have you asked for the EHCP to be amended to account for the respite changes you want? Have you tried approaching the closest universities and asking them to advertise with their medical, nursing and teaching students? I and others have had success with this method.

Sadly SWs often don’t attend ARs, a bit like LA caseworkers often don’t.

Well the point of the social worker is to enable access to respite provision. A CIN review may enable you to get the changes you want to the support you receive made.