Transport Update...

Well we gave Social Work till the 22nd December to sort out the whole transport debacle before we go the legal route instead and surprise, surprise...absolutely f*ck all has happened - not even the much promised phone call.

To say I'm a wee bit annoyed at the whole situation would be an understatement, the total lack of professionalism, care and empathy is really unbelievable.

But all black clouds have a silver lining (except mushroom clouds obviously, that's not silver it's Strontium 90) so I reckon this is as good an excuse as any to repost the whole sorry tale (but with added sarcasm) as it appears that anyone remotely involved with social care/Scottish politics can't follow Twitter threads.

Or understand that putting the words 'inclusion' in your job description/Twitter bio isn't enough in itself, you actually have to 'include' all groups...not just the ones that make you feel/look good/or because it's 'the fashion'.

Just saying.

 

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 2020 (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 

Girls are offered and accept places at City of Glasgow College to study Personal and Social Development.

Advice given: "You need social work to unlock the girls transport budget!" 

Us: "Great! Hello social work, can you unlock the girls transport budget?" 

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 and to be honest I just want to go home but we could think about maybe talking to someone but in the meantime can you just totally re-organise your week/work so you can take them to college and back?"

SW: "Oh and by we could talk to someone we actually mean talk to you." 

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 (for about a week).

 

October Still no budget but we have (yet) another SW 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).

 

Saying that tho, Cassidy – our youngest has a SW now, so does that mean he’s actually neglected but the girls aren’t?   

 

B. But promises to definitely sort it all out….

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' 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’d now spoken to the same person twice in a row.

 

As for being 'snappy' I'd already pointed out previously that being Autistic, sometimes my manner comes across as a little intense/abrupt at times but why let a hidden disability get in the way of being patronising/faux offended?

 

Anyway my Autistic manner 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 actually means (in Social Work parlance)    "We'll not actually ring you at all."  Well we've been waiting for over a month for a call back now so reckon it must be the case.

 

Meanwhile we're having to escort the girls to and from college whilst making sure Cassidy is getting to and from school whilst trying to work at the same time....but we're not a priority so we can't complain.

 

And if I'm honest - and this is a scary thing to say -  I'm pretty sure the not ringing back is to teach me a lesson for not being grateful enough....oh and the oft-apologized for Autistic way I communicate.