Asking For A Friend.....
Prologue (March 2020)
School: "We're really surprised you don't have a social worker, it'd be useful with the girls preparing to leave school and go to college....we'll contact them to set up a meeting, don't hold you're breath tho' cos they'll most likely ignore us and get in touch after they turn 16 so they can fob you off to adult services! No but really they'll probably ring..."
April (2 days after the girls turn 16)
"Hiya! Social work here....sorry we've not rung, dead busy here....oh just noticed the girls have just turned 16....sorry about that, not our problem, bye!"
June 2020
A worker from adult services turns up for a chat and a wee bit of political discourse. He's nice but other than being told we do a grand job having 4 Autistic people in the house nothing is arranged or put in place.
May 2022
Advice: "You need social work to unlock the girls social care budget – or it may be PIP - to provide transport!"
Us: "Great! Hello social work, can you unlock the girls social care budget – or it may be PIP - for transport?"
SW: "We're busy...leave it with us!"
3 months later....
SW: "It's nothing to do with us, you need to talk to magic transport man....anyway they may want to walk/get the bus/fly there....personal choice and all that!"
Us: "They can't travel alone, it'd be really unsafe!"
SW: "But they might want to! Thing is, we've had you on file since 2005 but we thought we'd attempt to send psychic messages to tell you this, you never responded so we reckoned you were OK!"
Us: "Did you think to ring us to see if we needed help?"
SW: *silence*
SW: "To be fair we did once come to your house to say hello to Cassidy."
US: "Yes you did, then you left and never came back, still no idea what that achieved."
SW: "It meant we could tick a box. Box ticking is very important, you wouldn't understand."
SW: "Anyway, we've left this till last thing Friday afternoon* because to be honest it means we can pretend we’re going to be working on it but totally forget/not be bothered and just hope you give up getting it sorted and just muddle on yourself….we’re not totally clueless tho’ and to prove it we’ll suggest that we’ll maybe talk to someone else about it but in the meantime can you just totally re-organise your week so you can take them to college and back?"
SW: "Oh and by we could talk to someone we actually mean talk to you. And by talk to you we mean ask exactly the same questions as last time because we don’t keep notes"
Us: internally screaming.
September
Bizarrely we find out that you're not supposed to ring Social work and ask for someone directly unless you've made an appointment to speak to that person beforehand.
It's that infamous Kafka-esque, ouroboros timeloop again isn't it?
Oh and still no transport budget....but we have another SW…..
And she’s off on longterm sick.
October
Still no budget but we have (yet) another SW (now with added ‘good cop’/’bad cop’ dynamic) who is adamant that:
A. Only neglected children have SW help so we don’t count (this seems a wee bit odd seeing as every other child we know has had SW sort out their transport...but maybe they’re neglected? I’ll ask….but saying that Cassidy – our youngest has a SW now, so does that mean he’s actually neglected but the girls aren’t?
No wonder SW is so understaffed, the rules would drive anyone mad.
B. But promises to definitely sort it all out….
November
Remember how I sarcastically said that SW only ever ring late on Fridays so to give the appearance of work without actually doing anything?
Well, after 2 weeks radio silence we received a call from them…..3.30 Friday afternoon.
It appears that everyone is 'busy' (allegedly) and the ones that aren't don't know about Autism/colleges/transport/the care act.
Or it would seem anything about our situation seeing as I ended up having the same conversation as I've been having since May.
When I point this out (and the fact that the girls situation was flagged 2 years previously I’m told not to be snappy and that they’re aren’t a priority.
No shit.
As a plus point we’ve now spoken to the same person twice in a row.
And as a fun (or frightening) aside I had to explain the social care act to them.
Because they’d not heard of it.
This seemed to make them very annoyed as they quickly said they had to go but would ring back the start of the following week.
Which was 3 weeks ago.
So with still no budget and all of SW have gone missing the whole SW/college/ transport debacle has totally worn me out....partly due to the utter incompetence of so called 'professional' bodies but mainly because you realise that 'prioritizing' cases is shorthand for we can't be arsed/you don't matter.…
It's absurd to me that in 6 months not only has nothing moved on but the whole (explained) idea of Autistic routine and communication seems so unimportant...
After explaining that keeping appointments/phoning when arranged is really key to this we have 2/3 weeks of radio silence then a half-hearted 'sorry been busy'....Aye, no worries I've just sat waiting to hear from you....
On a personal note my communication skills can some times come across as intense or loud (I like to call it passionate!) - It's one of the first things I mention in meetings etc to put folk at ease....
So it's kind of annoying to be told I'm being 'shouty' and to shush and listen....
I'm not angry or 'shouty' I'm just very frustrated that something as simple as attempting to unlock a transport fund can take more than half a year and a dozen highly qualified workers and still not be done.
Especially when they’ve had 2 years notice beforehand.
There's so much more to unpack but to be honest I'm kinda done....if it wasn't so awful it'd be laughable.
Next stop…..a judicial review methinks.
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