When J started at the school, in Reception, he had a fortnightly social skills group (1 hour per week) with a teacher from the Primary schools Behaviour Support Service. She was very positive about him and also very supportive in terms of offering us advice for his behaviour at home. He had full time support in Reception, 23 hours from the statement and the rest subsidised by the school.
In Year 1, the school and I disagreed about how much support he needed - I felt that half an hour a day unsupported to try to build independence was OK but only if there was a back up to make him safe, but when the school wanted there to be much more than that, we disagreed. I was also told by a parent who helped at the school that this cutting of hours was a money saver as they wanted to use his TA elsewhere . They got this PBSS woman in to a review to state that J needed more independent time and then at the next review, she sent her colleague (who'd never met J), who was really unpleasant to me and said how lucky J was to have 23 hours support and most children didn't have that much and did I want him to be statemented forever? errr no, but if he needs it, he needs it!
At subsequent reviews, the first woman (who I'll call Emma) was very dismissive of me and openly scornful about things we were trying with J, like reading books with him about ADHD. She just kept stating that J needed to learn to risk take and needed to be more independent. I kept saying that wanting him to be that way doesn't make him so. She was unimpressed and showed it. I was slightly bothered, but not massively; I know that I know my son best!
Emma doesn't work with J anymore BUT she is on the panel who makes the decisions about SEN statementing hours. I know that she has been instrumental in keeping his hours down because she wants him to 'risk take' and he made so much progress in Year 1. Yeah, but what: risk-take out into the road? Risk-take scissors into someone's face? Risk-take to the extent that he gets permanently excluded? Yes, he did make some progress in Year 1, but the school are now even more concerned at his behaviour and dangerous actions than I am (now in Y2) and are providing 2:1 support at times, and insisted at the Annual Review this year that they agree with me (now) that full time support is essential and ARE providing it, but the Junior school won't be able to take him without the full time support.
So she's holding back his hours, based on having worked with him maybe 30 hours in 2 years. Me and the school...we're with him full time, so it's really unfair that she's able to do this . Again, unimpressed, but not able to do much about it really - ex has written a letter asking that the panel should focus only on the evidence that the school provides and not on random people's opinions.
Then at Christmas, Emma's service sent an outreach worker to 'help me' with 'my problems with J'. What the outreach worker actually did was make it clear that Emma has been slating me, saying how I'm so over-protective, obsessed with changing the statement and just need to treat J like a normal child and not bother with the home-school liason book because it makes him stand out (though I personally think that the spinning, the meltdowns, the running off, the shouting and the violent attacks on everyone at school probably make him stand out more ). These are all things that Emma has said/ implied, so they can only have come from her and her other colleague.
Again, unimpressed, but I just thought, I won't work with this outreach worker if she's just going to use the sessions to push propaganda at me about how stupid I am!
But today, I spoke to J's new social worker, who said she'd spoken to all relevant professionals (but not the consultant bit strange) and now had done the assessment. She also said she'd spoken to Emma! I said, I bet that was interesting and asked if she'd been negative about me. SW said she tries to be objective and wouldn't say and then said I need to work with the Behaviour Support Service outreach person. I explained that I didn't want to work with someone who just thinks negative, untrue things about me. Now, she didn't say i was being paranoid, so I'm guessing Emma did slag me off to her or she would have said no, there's no issue there.
I'm so angry that the opinion of someone who knows my son so less well than I or the school do is having so much power over me and over J and what he gets offered by the LEA and Social Services!
I'm also really really upset that my parenting is being questioned. It makes me doubt myself. SW says I must work with this outreach person because the other autism behaviour team only work with those 8 and over. But I can't work with her with this on my mind!
My question is (and well done for sticking with me this long!), do I write to/ ring this Emma and try to sort things out? We used to get on - she even wrote a report where she said how well I'm doing with parenting J - and I don't get why she's so radically changed in her opinion of me.
If I leave it, I won't be able to stop being upset about it. If I talk to her/ write to her, I hope I can get her to see how things are for J at home and at school and how he's having meltdowns daily and how working with him in a small group is her only basis for saying I'm worrying about nothing, whereas the school and I are in complete agreement about how bad things have got.
What do you think? Thanks in advance for your help...waiting on your replies/ advice to make a decision!