0 comment Thursday, July 31, 2014 | admin
Sprog has been listed as a "child in need" since I contacted the social services some time June. We set out trying to get a care assessment for him, and things seemed to move forward. From Citizens Advice Bureau a "child in need" is entitled to the following:
day care facilities for children under 5 and not yet at schoolafter-school and holiday care or activities for school age childrenadvice, guidance and counsellingoccupational, social, cultural or recreational activitieshome helps and laundry facilitiesassistance with travelling to and from home in order to use any services provided by the local authorityassistance for the child and family to have a holidayfamily centresfinancial assistance usually in the form of a loan, see belowrespite care in Northern Irelandlooking after the child, see below.The local authority can also provide the following services to all children in its area, not just children in .need:-day care facilities for children under five and not yet at schoolafter-school and holiday care or activities for school age children.
Guess how much of this I actually get. Go on, I'll give you a few minutes. Did you guess "none of the above"? That would be correct. I get none of this. No help for transport to appointments though it's supposed to exist. No help to after school activities. No respite. No holiday care. No home helps. What I do get is scoffed off whenever I ask.
And, apparently, what I also get is monitoring to see when it's time to take my son away from me and place him in care. That's the other scary bit about having a Child in Need; it seems the authorities are poised to try and take a child away but not to actually put anything in place which might have prevented this in the first place. Because I have missed appointments - these comprise of three hours of preparation for a ten minute appointment of saying the same things over and over again to different people - I couldn't get my son to due to both his and my condition, this is seen as "neglect". My son's behaviour at school escalated to such a degree that of course their first reaction was to blame abuse at home.
I have just realised today - once the social worker called again and said he wanted to "visit" tomorrow - that the care assessment for a care/respite plan is about six months overdue. I have to question what the whole point of this meeting is when it's rather obvious I'm not getting any benefit whatsoever from having them. Just another paper-marking exercise.
I honestly wish I had never looked up the Child in Need thing now...the sheer scale of what I should be getting boggles me.
day care facilities for children under 5 and not yet at schoolafter-school and holiday care or activities for school age childrenadvice, guidance and counsellingoccupational, social, cultural or recreational activitieshome helps and laundry facilitiesassistance with travelling to and from home in order to use any services provided by the local authorityassistance for the child and family to have a holidayfamily centresfinancial assistance usually in the form of a loan, see belowrespite care in Northern Irelandlooking after the child, see below.The local authority can also provide the following services to all children in its area, not just children in .need:-day care facilities for children under five and not yet at schoolafter-school and holiday care or activities for school age children.
Guess how much of this I actually get. Go on, I'll give you a few minutes. Did you guess "none of the above"? That would be correct. I get none of this. No help for transport to appointments though it's supposed to exist. No help to after school activities. No respite. No holiday care. No home helps. What I do get is scoffed off whenever I ask.
And, apparently, what I also get is monitoring to see when it's time to take my son away from me and place him in care. That's the other scary bit about having a Child in Need; it seems the authorities are poised to try and take a child away but not to actually put anything in place which might have prevented this in the first place. Because I have missed appointments - these comprise of three hours of preparation for a ten minute appointment of saying the same things over and over again to different people - I couldn't get my son to due to both his and my condition, this is seen as "neglect". My son's behaviour at school escalated to such a degree that of course their first reaction was to blame abuse at home.
I have just realised today - once the social worker called again and said he wanted to "visit" tomorrow - that the care assessment for a care/respite plan is about six months overdue. I have to question what the whole point of this meeting is when it's rather obvious I'm not getting any benefit whatsoever from having them. Just another paper-marking exercise.
I honestly wish I had never looked up the Child in Need thing now...the sheer scale of what I should be getting boggles me.