When you are sent an appointment for a home visit do you............

[coppertop]

a) Think "YIPPPPPPEEEEEEEEE! I've been waiting for this for soooo long!"

or

b) Think "B*GGER! What am I going to do with all this clutter while they're here????"

The OT has just sent us an unexpected appointment for a home visit to see ds2 and I'm ashamed to say that I went with option B.

Anyone else dread home visits or am I the only one suffering from clutter overspill?

I appreciate home visits sometimes because it means I don't have to drive 30min each way to get to the CDC, pay £2.20 for an hours parking and then walk through miles of corridor with ds2 to get to the actual appointment! I don't think you should worry too much about what your house is like CT - I try to have got the washing up done and the pyjamas put away after the morning's mad school rush but I wouldn't polish or hoover especially . You could always ask the OT to suggest some strategies to help you stop the boys pulling everything out .

nah...give her a duster

Ironically the OT rang me today and arranged a home visit next Thursday. Serves me right eh? .

Repeats anxiously "I do not need to hoover or dust, I do not need to hoover or dust".

I asked my friend who has been a Social Worker for 30 years about looking around the rest of the house. Bearing in mind that she works in child protection, she says she always looks around and certainly at least at the child's bedroom. She always asks politely and if someone refuses then she won't push it.... but it doesn't look good does it? She says she's seen homes where the parents are living like royalty and the children like dogs! She isn't bothered about mess or clutter, just the general conditions and appearance of care. In one case, she was the first person to look round the house in about 10 years. In her job she would look pretty stupid if something happened to a child and she hadn't bothered to check up. I don't want to freak anyone out, Child Protection is a separate service to the Disabled Childrens' teams but it is interesting.

The thought of someone seeing ds1's bedroom after ds2 has trashed it again is too scary!

I got the impression that the OT didn't really have a lot of experience of ASD or even much of an idea about what life is like with a child with SN. She was here for an hour (when she finally turned up) and I just felt that the whole visit had been a waste of time from our pov. We'd been told that ds2 would be invited to join a sensory group. The OT was very dismissive of this and made comments about how "You wouldn't be able to get there anyway because you don't have a car." Grrrrr! When she was asking questions about ds1 I was tempted to ask her if she'd got around to scoring his sensory questionnaire yet - the one we filled in 14 months ago!!

Ds2's portage worker is coming round tomorrow for a home visit but I don't feel that same horrible pressure with her. She has a far better understanding of life with SN IMO.

Saker - Step away from the hoover and put that duster down!