Autism outreach team today

[debs40]

We have our long awaited visit from the Autism Outreach team today - a teacher from the local ASD unit is spending 45 mins in class and then will speak to me and SENCO afterwards.

I was wondering if any of you have any experience dealing with your local ASD outreach team and what sort of things they will cover. I know they are there for teaching strategies but is it ok to raise issues about social communication and dealing with playground problems etc?

Can't help, but will be interested to hear. We have been referred but cannot get hold of anyone to find out when we will get the help (and the phones at County Hall are all down today )- desperate as DS refusing school all together now.

Mmm, well she didn't have much to say basically. She also told me that we wouldn't get a Statement and would be causing ourselves stress by applying. This is after telling me that she isn't there to assess his needs as that was as an Ed Psych's job.

How do you not be rude when you say 'it's not really your job to tell me I shouldn't apply or won't get a statement'?

She may well be right but honestly, trotting out the LA line - it's very difficult to get statements you know - is not really her job even if she is trying to help.

I don't know, school always seem so wonderful when someone comes in, and then the rest of the time you're having to argue to get him included. What about when the spotlight is 'turned off'.

She was banging on a load of old rubbish about theory of mind as well......grrr....he hasn't even had a proper SALT report to identify problem areas, so how can they address those.

No one has even seen an Ed Psych report so how can they possibly tell me he doesn't need a statement.

Or.....am I going mad?

You are not going mad, but I know how it feels like it. I have actually become convinced that I am inhabiting a parallel universe ... this morning I even thought the lines were down at County Hall on purpose so no one would have to deal with my call The line about statements must be what they are taught to say all over the country. Our ed psych said exactly the same, with the addition that he would not get a statement unless he needed 1 to 1 full time so there was no point. We have had a dx from a paediatrician but no one (SALT, CAMHS, OT) would attend the multidisciplinary meeting because apparently none of them are commissioned to diagnose autism in school age children - I have that in writing!!!!
It is hard isn't it because each time we meet someone new the hopes build up that they will be the person who can finally help sort things.

Thanks for that! I kind of expected they wouldn't be much help which is fine in a way as they're only teachers with a bit of experience but I do get a bit peeved when they start peddling their LA wares in front of teachers.

Interestingly, she asked me 'how far' I was prepared to go.....mmmmmm.......all the way missus I said . What even after you've had a SA turned down (bit of an assumption that one )? Yes I said innocently.

That will be very stressful for you she said.

I agreed, and it will be stressful but then you have to do what you have to do for your child and being a lawyer means its a little less stressful for me perhaps than others...

Cue gulp from SENCO.....

Oh I am going mad repeating silly conversations.....

ASD Outreach went into ds's school on Monday to observe him in the lunch hall and at playtime.

She phoned me yesterday and told me he appeared 'happy' at the lunch table. Oh lovely says me, so why do you suppose he doesnt eat!

During playtime there were a couple of incidents involving other children and these were dealt with by staff.

Great, tell me something i dont know.

Just another lot of recommendations, that the school wont follow. ASD Outreach = pointless in my experience.

But im just a big ole cynic

Yes, I spoke to a mum who is a few years further down the line than me with a boy about to go to secondary school and she said it's a 'tick box' exercise so schools can say 'we've done that'.

Stretching her brief a bit to warn me off statementing ....but she was, I think, trying to be nice. It is a lot of stress. But I wonder what she would do if it was her child.

I always forget to ask that one..doh!

I was supposed to get a call from the diagnostic team which has taken over our local CAMHS today too. We even agreed time slots.....guess what? Still waiting...just got an email - can I call you tomorrow? Er no, I've told you I'm out.

God these people are all so rubbish.

OMG!!!!! I take it all back. New diagnostic team have rang and we will be offered an appointment by the end of May.

My experience of autism outreach has been that they do tend to toe the party line tbh. So plenty of nodding but not much substance when you read their reports.
Mine was pretty ignorant hence my asking SENCO to forget to invite her to AR (statement says input at school request )
Tried to tell me that now dd was 6 I shouldn't be too concerned about the self harm because in actual fact it was a positive development because she was obviously more aware of her surroundings
Then was patronising and told me she had experience because her daughter was diagnosed AS at 16 so she had had nearly seven years of ASD experience at home as well as in a professional capacity.
Decided then to be petty told her I'd take the AS and raise it twice because I had two children with moderate autism and had been dealing with it for 12 years so I wasn't new to this nor ignorant enough to believe the rubbish she was spouting.
Have to say she then had to leave pretty quickly to be at her next appointment

Useless waste of time has been our experience. Put us off statementing - told us DS doesn't need fulltime 1:1 - we got statement with fulltime 1:1!. Told us not severe enough for special school and "horrified" we are even considering it for DS - Ed Psych says DS is eligible for special school (but by then we'd moved on to ABA); mainstream nursery said happy to keep DS but had to point out outreach support had been inadequate and they needed to come much more frequently - have come less frequently; obsessed with TEACCH style approaches eg signing, PECS, low stim environments, visual timetables - lots of stuff that it is easy to put into place but totally avoid the difficult stuff - actually teaching DS new skills, dealing with challenging behaviours, repetititve behaviours, eating problems etc all ignored. Ours is in the pocket of the SEN officer who decides what provision DS gets. Only get trained on approaches the LA actually want to pay for so forget anything post 1970.

Exactly AgnesdiPesto. I challenged her lots on the idea that 'social skills groups' were a 'cure all'. I said how can you have individualised support and skills training when you don't actually know a child's needs - I mean even if the skills are appropriate and require teaching, how do you put those into practice and how do you generalise them?

Reply was - step by step, teaching a skill at a time. Yes, but are you teaching appropriate skills based on what an individual needs if you don't know the needs? And really are LAs expecting schools to do all thos out of their own budgets?

Yes was the answer.

Interestingly, she later pointed out to me alone that it was a very big job and there was lots I could do at home to help. Obviously, I said, but it shouldn't be left to me to teach every coping strategy to do with school and how to cope with the playground etc.

I'm sure her report will know focus even more on how school will be able to cope with all DS' problems.

ASDX2 and Agnes, youd didn't find their unhelpful reports a bar to statementing then? I tried to emphasise that we are talking about his needs when applying for an SA and that was something she couldn't comment on.

I'd never heard of Autism Outreach before I started reading this SEN Board. It didn't exist when DS was at school.

So I decided to find out more about this service. Best way to do thsi is to google job vacancies for Autism Outreach teams. That tells you what qualifications etc their workers have.

My conclusions:

The Autism Outreach Teams are employed or are private providers funded by Local Authorities ususally part of the Children and Young People Services Dept of the LA

That would explain why they tow the LA line - hardly 'independant' are they?

Also doscovered quite a few vacancies for team members. They wanted qulaified teachers with min 4 years exp and 1 or 2 points of SEN training. Duties included preparing reports for Statutory assessment (worrying) and quote "keeping up to date with developments in the field of ASD".

So - they are LA stooges that are employed as poor substitutes for professionally qualified Ed Pyschs.

We probably know more about ASD and startegies to support out kids than they do!

the LA probably love employing these teams to give them additional credence when they appear at Tribunals.

I hope that parents ask what specific qualifications these Autism Outreach workers have that qualifies them as expert in ASD?

I bet they have none.

Our outreach team are all teachers at specialist ASD units. They don't work as part of a multidisciplinary team and are very precious about their relationship with school - it is very much a service to the school not for the parents.

This woman was quite old and had clearly been teaching ASD children a long time but this was about teaching strategies and not recognising needs - quite how you can separate the two I don't know? How can you set up teaching strategies appropriate to the child if you don't know their needs??

Anyway, it was clear that she was trotting out the LA line. She said but what if you get turned down, you'll have to wait six months? I said, er, no I'll take them to a Tribunal.

Oooh, that'll cost and be very stressful she says. I said, stressful yes, but I'm a lawyer so that helps. That's the problem, I say, I do keep on seeing these issues through legal eyes.

Cue polite smiles and awkward silence..... and to think they don't even know about my mumsnet army!!

LOL Love it Debs - you can bet the fact that you're a lawyer has been reported straight back to the LA this afternoon. That's how these people work.

You're doing the right thing by getting some independant assessments.
Best wishes

DD and DS had statements before they started nursery so only met autism outreach once they were in school with a statement.
They attend annual reviews if invited by school hence my asking the SENCO to forget the invite.
In our instance I feel they are there to reassure the parents that the LEA and schools are providing sufficient resources and you as a parent have unreasonable expectations tbh.
Outreach did try to reassure me that ds had no need for specialist provision and would be absolutely fine in mainstream secondary when the SENCO of mainstream secondary sat there like a rabbit caught in the headlights and was visibly shocked that she was to try and manage my child in her school(I think the LEA hadn't mentioned the social and behavioural issues to her tbh)Needless to say DS is in specialist provision with full time 1 to 1.
I think Autism Outreach were probably just sizing you up yesterday now they know they have someone with some knowledge and a lawyer to boot (I'm just known as a stroppy cow ) they will be careful about the rubbish they spout to you.

You are clearly much much more than a stroppy cow ASDx2!!!! I am sure you are right that they are almost like a 'shop front' for the LA - making sure it all looks like everything is in order when really it's a case of all fur coat and no knickers!

I quite like my stroppy cow reputation tbh at least I only have to say "It's Mrs asdx2" and don't have to give any further details to get put through to who I want to speak to
When I phoned transport for a rant and the bloody clerk tried to prevent me speaking to her manger I told her to ask Mrs H (caseworker) whether or not it would be a good idea to put me through and then after that tell her manager to phone me back.
Sure enough five minutes later she phoned me and put me onto her manager.
I love my "don't mess with her" reputation

My SALTs first letter to LA said "mum is a solicitor", because that was highly relevant!

The Outreach report for statement said very little - just a summary of what they had done to date. The needs and future provision boxes were actually left blank. I think they have a lot of influence with the SEN officers (who rely on them for advice as they never meet your child); but less at tribunal etc where ed psych is god i think. They have avoided saying anything about their provision that isn't totally vague. They don't want to be pinned down to saying they will use set approaches or visit for set hours etc. Mine see themselves as a school service. They just go through the motions of pretending to engage with us. They like to deal with teachers because they are just so grateful for someone to come and give them any advice. Unless you get a good one most of them won't see your child often enough to individualise the programme to your child anyway.

Blimey Agnes...I didn't realise you were a solicitor too....! Did you do all the statementing/tribunal stuff yourself?

I can quite see how they can influence the statementing process but not so much the Tribunal as, after all, the Tribunal will see them as teaching strategists not experts in identifying needs.

Interestingly, when I met the woman yesterday she told me that she would write up a report whilst in situ and leave it in the book bag at home time.

That was before we spoke. I've still not had it. Must have taken her longer than she thought it was going to!

Agree with AgnesdiPesto that Autism Outreach see themselves as a service to the school but at least our school realise they're pretty useless. The one who covers our school said she didn't think we'd get a statement so did the child psychologist part of the team who did ds1's diaganosis but lo and behold we have a statement and it will be f/t 1-to-1. They speak with the tongues of vipers.

My experience with Autism Outreach was mixed. Yes, they defintely force the LEA view that inclusion works best and they are heavily restricted by budgets (in our area they are so overwhelmed that they only work with children who have a confirmed dx), and are quick to underplay any problems the child presents so as to limit unnecessary spending. Few kids around here get the support they need.

We had an amazing set of reports from our AO teacher, highlighted all ds's problem areas and recommendations for support - all of which were ignored by school. That is part of the problem - AO can advise but not enforce so to a degree it can be a waste of time.

Ds did get a couple of social skills groups but frankly they were counter-productive because teachers then assumed that as he'd had a couple of half hour sessions he should know how to behave now . There was no continuity of support in the classroom, he was just expected to know what to do without any guidance.

I also got the 'no point in applying for a statement' line several times. Two schools refused to back an application and in the end when I applied myself it was rejected on the basis of a one-line report from an Ed Psych who hadn't met ds, had never attended a meeting about him and to my knowledge hadn't even seen a report about him. The senior AO's report was highly dismissive of me and more or less accused me of being over-sensitive and reactionary, despite earlier reports confirming all ds's problems as being genuine and significant.

In the end I got fed up with the whole lot and we home ed now. It's far less stressful .

That is interesting streaky. I got the report through on Friday and it was at least quite helpful as it listed all the things that school should be doing to include DS and assist his SCD. They are all things I have been saying for a year but it was kind of good to have them written down - a sense of feeling slightly vindicated perhaps.

I pointed out the AO teacher that schools do not have the skills or capacity to deal with this sort of thing without additional resources and it is very unfair to see that what largely goes on is a dance between the LA and schools about this issue.

LAs say schools should deal with these matters without statements and within their budgets but schools know they haven't got the funding to do so. This only becomes a problem as far as I can see when children cause problems for schools e.g. disturbances in class, which means schools really are compelled to access greater resources and fight for statements.

The rest of the time, if the only thing that is being effected is the child's education, the school will do nothing and you will constantly be chasing your tail to ensure that they dip into budgets for support money.

Hi, I stopped practising as solicitor some years ago except for a few locum stints. Education is not my area. I expected to find statementing easy but have found it really tough. We do have a LA who seem prepared to go far lower than most others; we have done most of ourselves - we got the statement for 1:1 ourselves but for ABA tribunal are getting bits of legal advice here and there as its such a niche area and I found it hard (save for sitting in a law library for days) to find out the inside story on caselaw etc for ABA. I haven't decided whether to represent myself or not, when its your own child its so different.

My own view having seen some really expert autism therapists via ABA is that LA teachers and TAs are very low skilled. I sat in on a session the other day and walked out in tears. It was a small group session designed for my son and he was allowed to sit there and stim for 90% of it and then at the end the TA told me she felt it had gone really well and he'd met her targets for him. I don't blame her she just doesn't have the expertise. After 6 months working on my son's programme its apparent that I know more about autism intervention than she does. I just have not seen the eclectic model work for any child I know. I would think that in a special school that used pure TEACCH you might see some progress but when you are just picking and choosing bits of a method to apply without any coherent plan behind it I just can't see it would achieve much at all. If I left my son to the outreach team he would be going backwards. I also think their expectations are set really low - because DS is making good progress at home with ABA he's exceeded what they expected and they don't seem bothered to find out what we're doing thats working so well they just want to dismiss it and let us get on with it while they do very little.

I think they are better on the sensory side and advising schools on how to adjust things; but thats not an issue for my DS and they seemed a bit lost when we said we didn't need to go down the low stim, visual timetable route, it seemed there was nothing left in their repetoire.