Initial appointment at CAMHS ?

mandragora_2

I'm not saying you're right, but if you feel you may have some difficulties yourself, one of the best things you can do for both of you, right now, is to fight just as hard for yourself to get the support and help YOU might benefit from as you are fighting for your son.

Adult services are out there, but you will need to find out about them, and ask for referrals where you (and your GP, if possible) to service/s that you believe could help you. Sorry I can't be more specific, as it's youngsters' help that I know more about, but someone who knows more than me may be able to help with exact details, perhaps.

jobbingmusician

Two things - firstly, I think there are a lot of aspie mums on here who could possibly tell you lots of useful stuff. Sorry I can't remember their names ATM but I'll post again if it comes to me. In the mean time, just read everyone's signature as well as their post as that's how I know

Secondly - come and join us on the 'just wanted to be heard for a little while' thread and you'll get loads of support from lots of other people with mental health problems, who really help keep each other's spirits up

Nicki

You won't be part of your son's problem although feeling rubbish yourself may make his difficulties harder for you to deal with. But if he is or may be on the spectrum or have other difficulties they won't have been caused or made worse by your depression and from what you have posted you've been doing an amazing job to support him already.

Agree with others who say to access help for you too and if he does get a diagnosed from CAMHs consider having some help for yourself to come to terms with that. My DD was diagnosed just as I was recovering from a long period of post natal depression and CAMHs who were aware of this out on place counselling for me too and it was very helpful for us all at a difficult time.

Hope the appointment goes well and you get some practical advice and some measures in place to help your son

dawyldthing

The school should and will help as they are on your side to try and get funding incase a ta could be funded plus other things that might be able to be put in place. Ask for a meeting with the senco and ask how you can help. There might also be a school -parent partnership in place to help

Savvy_Sue

DomRavioli wrote: »

Statementing only happens once you have a diagnosis, you're getting way ahead of yourself here.

That bit's not quite right, diagnosis isn't necessary. It's enough to have the difficulties recognised.

Parent Partnership may be helpful (google that plus your local area), also IPSEA.

freddiesmum09

Again thank you for all the replies. Really helpful. I am still waiting on hearing from the resilience worker - hoping that will help things. HV is being really supportive but having real issues with getting the school to actually provide the help we all agreed was necessary at the last meeting we all attended.

No sign of any speech therapy despite being told he needed this and the class teacher saying the school should be able to provide it, and also no sign of him doing the social skills class he was meant to start back nearer the start of Autumn term! The work he is doing with the school nurse on relationships and feelings will end at xmas as she can only work with children on a short term basis. Luckily she is going to write me some stuff on what shes found working with DS to show CAHMS and she is going to try to get his teacher to write a statement of ds's difficulties in class. hopefully that will help.

I am losing all hope with the school and I am massively frustrated they aren't taking it as seriously as they should be. On a bad week he can go days where they just plonk him in front of a computer (they admit to this !)
When I went into the school off guard last week I found his behavioural report hadn't been filled in after each session either which is disappointing - might as well not be on it. Most of the time nothing if followed through - was meant to have a communication book ds comes home with so his teacher can communicate any issues with me without ds over hearing - this has yet to happen despite our discussion about it and teacher suggesting it over a week ago. DS has also told me hes moving onto yet another behavioural plan - this will be the 'third' this year if its true so I need to discuss with his teacher ASAP as its not fair on him to just shove him on a new plan every time their is any sort of difficulty - plus his teacher isn't filling his one in now correctly and ds often tells me they haven't filled it in or discussed it at all during the school day. I feel like im kicking up a huge fuss by complaining. Arrghh!

So frustrating and I feel like I am hitting my head against a brick wall with it all!
I know there is a class of 30kids and my son can't have one-to-one attention but it is SO frustrating to hear that what has been agreed in meetings isn't being followed up and they aren't taking their responsinbilities seriously. HV said it is pointless having the meetings when the school cant be bothered to do their bit and she is so right! She seemed pretty annoyed with the excuses made by the school when I question why ds still hasn't started speech therapy/time to talk etc etc


On a positive (I think?!) note I heard back from DLA yesterday only one week after sending it off. DS was awarded low rate mobility and high rate care, which will make a huge difference and mean we can afford to do things that will really benefit him.
I have questioned the amount and asked the man on the phone to check it as I am not sure my son qualifies for high rate so I am waiting to hear back from them, but the guy checked ds's claim details and said medical evidence and letters provided were sufficient.
They are get another decision maker to quickly go over the form and check there hasn't been a clerical error but the guy advised me not to appeal it if they agree it should be higher rate as it could take another 6 months. I guess maybe he is eligible to that much, I just want to make sure before I start to look at how the money can be used to help him. Will ring them on Monday. Quite reassuring as I was really preparing to have to fight to 'prove' he was entitled to the extra help.. I know I am lucky as most people have to wait months and then have read a lot have to then also appeal, so I am hoping ive avoided all that stress, one less thing to worry about.


Will hopefully meet resilience worker this week and they will come to cahms meeting with me for moral support and to also be another pair of ears to take in information for me and to talk on my behalf if I do get emotional.
I am trying not to worry about it too much as I know it will be fine, just not sure how emotionally ready I am to hear a formal diagnosis if they do make one, I feel totally exhausted. In a way it is a huge comfort, and in other ways a huge moment I hoped would never happen. I feel sad he has to have so much intervention in his life.
Sorry to ramble. Nice to get it all out and its nice to know people have been in this position before me and got through it.

Armorica

How old is DS?

It does sound like the school isn't pulling its weight - but it's not clear what the reason is - the school in general, one particular teaching, or simple lack of funding/too many students etc. It may be they are serious but deeply lack the resources.

If helpful, then it may be possible to get speech therapy delivered outside of the school system. Some may be accessible via your GP. Or look at http://www.helpwithtalking.com/Default.aspx for an independent/private - you may get lucky. (Searching on my post code, for example, there is one local that offers a free initial session)

inkie

An initial appointment with CAMHS will be an assessment appointment. As a result if that, they will be able to identify who is best to deal with your situation. You will then go on the waiting list for that type of intervention. Eg our situation was initial appointment in Feb, and then vacancy for intervention came up in September.

tom9980

freddiesmum09 wrote: »

Again thank you for all the replies. Really helpful. I am still waiting on hearing from the resilience worker - hoping that will help things. HV is being really supportive but having real issues with getting the school to actually provide the help we all agreed was necessary at the last meeting we all attended.

No sign of any speech therapy despite being told he needed this and the class teacher saying the school should be able to provide it, and also no sign of him doing the social skills class he was meant to start back nearer the start of Autumn term! The work he is doing with the school nurse on relationships and feelings will end at xmas as she can only work with children on a short term basis. Luckily she is going to write me some stuff on what shes found working with DS to show CAHMS and she is going to try to get his teacher to write a statement of ds's difficulties in class. hopefully that will help.

I am losing all hope with the school and I am massively frustrated they aren't taking it as seriously as they should be. On a bad week he can go days where they just plonk him in front of a computer (they admit to this !)
When I went into the school off guard last week I found his behavioural report hadn't been filled in after each session either which is disappointing - might as well not be on it. Most of the time nothing if followed through - was meant to have a communication book ds comes home with so his teacher can communicate any issues with me without ds over hearing - this has yet to happen despite our discussion about it and teacher suggesting it over a week ago. DS has also told me hes moving onto yet another behavioural plan - this will be the 'third' this year if its true so I need to discuss with his teacher ASAP as its not fair on him to just shove him on a new plan every time their is any sort of difficulty - plus his teacher isn't filling his one in now correctly and ds often tells me they haven't filled it in or discussed it at all during the school day. I feel like im kicking up a huge fuss by complaining. Arrghh!

So frustrating and I feel like I am hitting my head against a brick wall with it all!
I know there is a class of 30kids and my son can't have one-to-one attention but it is SO frustrating to hear that what has been agreed in meetings isn't being followed up and they aren't taking their responsinbilities seriously. HV said it is pointless having the meetings when the school cant be bothered to do their bit and she is so right! She seemed pretty annoyed with the excuses made by the school when I question why ds still hasn't started speech therapy/time to talk etc etc


On a positive (I think?!) note I heard back from DLA yesterday only one week after sending it off. DS was awarded low rate mobility and high rate care, which will make a huge difference and mean we can afford to do things that will really benefit him.
I have questioned the amount and asked the man on the phone to check it as I am not sure my son qualifies for high rate so I am waiting to hear back from them, but the guy checked ds's claim details and said medical evidence and letters provided were sufficient.
They are get another decision maker to quickly go over the form and check there hasn't been a clerical error but the guy advised me not to appeal it if they agree it should be higher rate as it could take another 6 months. I guess maybe he is eligible to that much, I just want to make sure before I start to look at how the money can be used to help him. Will ring them on Monday. Quite reassuring as I was really preparing to have to fight to 'prove' he was entitled to the extra help.. I know I am lucky as most people have to wait months and then have read a lot have to then also appeal, so I am hoping ive avoided all that stress, one less thing to worry about.


Will hopefully meet resilience worker this week and they will come to cahms meeting with me for moral support and to also be another pair of ears to take in information for me and to talk on my behalf if I do get emotional.
I am trying not to worry about it too much as I know it will be fine, just not sure how emotionally ready I am to hear a formal diagnosis if they do make one, I feel totally exhausted. In a way it is a huge comfort, and in other ways a huge moment I hoped would never happen. I feel sad he has to have so much intervention in his life.
Sorry to ramble. Nice to get it all out and its nice to know people have been in this position before me and got through it.

Sorry your struggling, my wife has 32 children in her class with multiple SEN children. She has one TA who is supposed to be 1-1 for one child but that's not the reality. She also has another teacher join her for 7 of her 20 teaching sessions during the week. It's taken until this past week to get a bit more help and she has been asking for months, simply because the school is stretched.

Often a school will agree to provide support but fail simply because the do not get nearly enough funding or have the staff trained to provide all that extra support. A few hundred quid per SEN child doesn't buy 1 to 1 support for that child but parents and government demand it anyway, ignoring the on the ground reality.

Speech therapy is normally done by someone outside of the school they come in to do sessions, the paper work and funding can take weeks to prepare and organise. Likewise ed psych costs the school £500 ish each time they do it which is a lot when budgets are being cut. This may explain why teacher says they can do it but then the head teacher takes there time finding the money to actually pay for some of the support.

Some teachers are better than others at managing difficult children, most get a few hours training during the pgce and most almost no practical experience at all dealing with a difficult child. I'd imagine the teacher finds he calms down on the PC and they can at least get the other children to progress. Imagine dealing with your son and 20+ other children and parents all wanting and demanding your attention. It's not good enough clearly but understandable given the resources SEN children require.

The communication book and behaviour reports with the best will in the world can be hard to fill in regularly when you have so much other work to do. It's simply not efficient to spend time writing a report for 30 mins when you have so much other work to do, when it can be done with a three minute conversation. My wife gave up doing something similar for this very reason.

I hope you can understand this is not easy and many teachers are as frustrated as you are. I hope you can work together to get things sorted and it works out well in the end.

jodles16

Just wanted to pop on and say that I used to be a CAMHS nurse, please dont worry we are all a pretty good bunch! All CAMHS are different and may offer different interventions or even operate in a slightly different way, first appointment will be an assessment. If you want to talk 1-1 with the nurse this should be fine as long as either DS is old enough to wait alone or you take someone with you who he can sit with. If there are concerns around ASD and the history you provide seems to highlight this as a possibility then where I used to work you would be placed on the Assessment waiting list for a full assessment. Obviously that was one tier 3 CAMHS so it may be different where you go!

I wish you all the best, as for your mental health it might be worth your GP referring you to adult services for further input.

Jodles