Well. So. Yeah. Since my last entry things have been difficult to say the least.....I do hope you're ready for a mammoth update because I need to vent it all out....
Firstly the Camhs appointment; I may have been hoping for a bit too much from that....well, actually, I was hoping for too much from it. I really thought that maybe we'd be given a solution, that help would be forthcoming. But, sadly not. The upshot of the meeting was that altho A will be tested for ADHD she is doubtful that he is far enough along the spectrum for help to be available. Even if he was to be eligible for that help, it is not as comprehensive as I'd hoped. It appears as though A falls between two areas; he does not have a mental health issue (so Camhs can do nothing) and he very likely is not affected by a spectrum disorder. Fundamentally we are on our own, at least from an official point of view. The letdown from that meeting lasted a long time. As did the fact that she told me how concerned she was that A is becoming dependent on Camhs, in that he (in her view) plays up to get a Camhs appointment...she fears that he is suffering 'learned helplessness', that he sees Camhs as the solution every time. He was certainly upset when he realised that he wouldn't be going back, wouldn't be having his own appointments. Time will tell whether or not we will get help, but I'm feeling very down about the whole thing. I feel as though because A is not a typical case, for either mental health or any other help, he is falling through the cracks and I don't know what to do now. I'm angry, because he clearly needs help, he is crying out for help, and yet it feels as though they're using the excuse of him not fitting a category in order to deny him help. It's very frustrating and infuriating...I know that funding is an issue, but it feels wrong to me, that children can be written off and denied help like this. I can't do this on my own, I need official help, and so does A, but we're not getting it...and I'm scared and angry....
The afternoon brought some better news on the JSA front....I went into the job-centre and finally spoke to people who were a) competent and b) nice. To cut a very long story short, I now have the money owed to me from the 20th August onwards, and should be receiving JSA from now on. The reason I hadn't been getting that money? Well, incompetence and farce really.....when the original suspension was applied to my account the code used was basically made up. When they then updated my claim, instead of noting and sorting out the problem then, they simply set up and updated a new suspension....still with me??? Good....the original (incorrect) suspension remained on there, and this blocked payments - it also explains why nobody knew why the claim was still suspended...because the coding was totally wrong. As a result it took several people, a very long time going through all the codes in a vain attempt to cancel the original suspension....in the end they had to shut my claim down, and then pay me clerically...fingers crossed the claim has been reset ok, and I won't have further problems....
Tuesday night was horrific.....I'm not particularly proud of my actions and I hope you'll understand why I'm not willing to give more details here...Suffice it to say that A and I got into a knock-down, drag out fight when I finally snapped, fed up of being spoken to as though I was something he had trodden in. The end result was that A ran from the house at 10:30pm, the police were called and fortunately they found him..although it took an hour. He went to P's house, and I calmed down eventually. I'm not sure whether Tuesday night impacted on what happened at school on Wednesday, but it wouldn't surprise me. At 3pm Phil texted me to say that the school had rung him and said A was behaving badly. I rang, and spoke to a teacher who told me that A had been sent to IE, had refused to go and had then spent the next 2 hours running round school, jumping over furniture and shouting and swearing - all the while being chased by 3 teachers. They had finally managed to get him under control and, needless to say, they were furious.. I was as well, along with being embarrassed. They rang later and said that he was excluded from school for two days (today and tomorrow)....
Phil and I spent a long time talking to A last night, as we have done so many times before...We will have to take him into school for 11am on Monday, at which point we will all meet with his head of year etc., and hopefully get some sort of resolution...
Right now, I'm feeling numb....no matter what P and I do, and I'm sure that there is more we could do, A just carries on. The bullying is not helping, but because of the way A is behaving, the school is less sympathetic about that than we would like. It's a huge stinky mess and I hate it. I'm so angry that we're being left to deal with this alone, that they're ready to condemn him but the official help is not there. He has contact with MABS but that is clearly not enough and I know that help is out there - it's a matter of knowing the right words to say to get it.
So that's where we are.. I'm still trying to work things out in my head, and to understand what I need to do next. Feeling angry and helpless and trying to work through that as well. Confusion reigns I'm afraid, and I apologise for this....I just needed to get it all out on paper (screen?) and hopefully this will help...
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