Not sure where to post but feel this covers the more important areas atm, this may be long but bear with me, there is soooo much history that I can't go into it all but will try and highlight the main points
dss (13) has just moved back in with dh and me. He lived with us from age 6 to 12 after Mum's drug addiction became clear. Little contact with Mum for 4 or so years.(her decision) My and dss relationship was ok while he was younger but once contact with Mum started up again it deteriorated (psychologist who saw him for years put his problems with our relationship down, in part, to his guilt about Mum - wanted to love me as 'mother figure' as that what I was but couldn't as he had a mum, whether in contact or not) Contact started again about 18 months ago (she was clean) and after a few months of contact dss wanted to go back to Mum's-Grass is always greener syndrome! we were 'too strict' Mum has few boundaries etc. Against our better judgement but in the face of a very determined young man last summer we gave it a go. He ended up moving in with his maternal grandparents after a few weeks as Mum started using again. Imo It was not going brilliantly, he was in trouble at school constantly, in trouble with the police and generally left to get on with it. But he had a social service involvement who (apparently) weren't too concerned.
dss has, unsurprisingly, always had some behavioural issues but achieves well academically - he is a very bright boy. We had tried to have him statemented a couple of years ago as we (and his school)felt he needed more support than was available to him on SA+ but were unsuccessful as he was doing well academically. Whilst away from us he has spiralled out of control and been expelled from school and is now attending a behaviour support unit.
Child and family services had been working with dss for years before he moved out from our home. He puzzled them but was just about to be re-assessed for possible asd and although he was passed to the services nearer him when he moved, they signed him off (?!) and referred him for counselling, which was not followed up
But he has just come back to us, rather quickly as in was here for contact and we got a phonecall an hour before he was going home to say nan and Grandad had had enough.
He is clearly going to need emotional support. Dh and I are also concerned about a possible asd, as we were for sometime, and his educational needs. I know you will all be wondering why on earth we let him leave our care in the first place but that is such a hard thing to explain, it seemed it really was the only option at the time, it was as if we had reached the end of the road with dss. While I don't think this will be easy I hope that now dss has tried living with Mum, and seen that it wasn't what he thought it might be, he can stop focussing so much on where else he can live every time he doesn't like something dh or I do!
Personally, I am relieved he is back home. I am apprehensive about the future -dss is very difficult, which given the fact he has had such a troubled life and has poss asd is understandable, but still a scary prospect! We have 3 other dc's at home: my ds (13 also) Dh and my ds (3 also with asd) and Dh and my dd (1)
What I want to know is how best to move forward with help for dss?
GP for new referral re asd concerns and separate referral for counselling?
Behaviour support unit for possible statement application? Ed phsyc report?
Hope I have explained enough to make some sense of this!