CAMHS and child protection meeting?

[spartacus1]

Hello to everyone on the board as this is my first post. I wonder if any of you could share your experiences good or bad so we have an idea of what to expect. The long and short of it is my 9 year old boy who was diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder around 18 months ago displays some 'inappropriate' behaviour. Some of it is sexualised to a degree and a lot of it is just plain mauling and having no understanding of personal space and boundaries, that kind of thing.

Because we have other children in the home and because as he has got older some of his less than desirable conduct has got worse we got back to CAMHS. What sparked this was him mithering his 2 and a half year old sister and actually appearing to be rubbing himself up on her for want of a better way to describe it in what appeared to be a sexualised manner. We can't ever leave him unsupervised around her or his older brother anyway but because of the type of behaviour we feel that we shouldnt be trying to deal with it alone and he really needs some expert involvement to deal with sort of thing. School say he is fine there and they have no concerns about his behaviour (but they also said he was eating well there when Autism Support afterwards confirmed our suspiscions that he wasn't).

Anyway, the upshot is that I rang CAMHS to ask if they would see us to discuss the matter to try and deal with it and their response was to say that it is a child protection issue and social care team had to be informed. Social services assessment team have now said they need to visit with a child protection police officer as well because of the nature of the incident. We have no idea what to expect from these people, we always do everything any parent could to keep all our children safe-realistically what is it they think they can do because his behaviour certainly relates to his autism and not to anything negative he has ever experienced in any way? Should we be worried by this as I can't help thinking that on the one hand they have to do their job and ensure children are not being abused but on the other are they going to try to blame us for the way he behaves?

If any others here could shed a little light on what happens in this kind of instance and if there is anything we should be aware of that would be great. I am mainly worried that the person seeing us won't understand autism and the way it affects my son. We have not been offered any kind of appointment with CAMHS.

[Sally44]

I'm sorry I have no personal experience of this.

I would recommend you speak with the National Autistic Society for advice about this. They may have information, or be able to give you someone to contact.

I have heard of similar issues, so you are not the first. I just don't know what recommendations or outcomes are possible.

Are you entitled to Legal Aid or Legal Help. Find out, because if you need a solicitor to represent your case you could get that without having to pay.

Even if you are not entitled to any legal help, it might be worth getting some legal advice.

 

You might get some advice if you spoke to the SENCO of a school that is autism behavioural specific or residential.

They are more likely to come across these types of behaviours.

 

I imagine there could be a number of different approaches regarding this.

a) is this learnt behaviour and from whom (hopefull not the route they take due to his diagnosis).

safety of the other siblings.

c) how to maintain the safety of other siblings in the home environment.

 

Has anything been tried before for any behaviours eg. ABA?

 

Hopefully others with similar experiences will post.

 

The only thing our family has had which is similar, is that my sister (moderate learning difficulties/possibly on the spectrum) was given medication to stop sexual urges. It was felt she was at risk and vulnerable of being taken advantage of because she would develop feelings and desires for NT men she came into contact with and (we found out) that some men had encouraged it. The medication worked.

 

However, I think with autism, because of sensory issues(?), the situation might be more complicated, I don't know. But that might be a route to consider.

[JeanneA]

Well you do have my sympathies, I have recently been through similar. My son Glen is 15 and is autistic. He had been doing similar to your son but this was happening at School more than home. Glen was also stripping off at school and wetting himself does your son do any of this at all?

 

We haven't had anyone come to the house but a meeting was held at school with a child protection police officer and the result was there were 'no child protection concerns'. We have been through so much distress with all this which I'm sure you are going through at the moment. Some staff at the school suggested that Glen was being abused at home to be behaving as he was doing, which is totally untrue.

 

The CAMHS should have agree to see you before insisting that social services got involved. Typical CAMHS I'm afraid, I'm not happy at all with them at the moment but I won't go into that.

 

Try not to worry too much, I'm sure it will work out fine and that there will be come to the conclusion that there are no child protection concerns regarding your son. Please keep in touch with me, you can P.M. me any time.

[JsMum]

 

I would defo get legal and proffesional support, ie NAS and a solisitor there may be some children advacacy that come to the meeting to support your son.

 

I can understand why you are worried.

 

Ring NAS as Soon as possible, or Contact A Family.

 

I do hope that things get sorted out soon.

 

JsMumxxx

 

[spartacus1]

Thank you all for your replies. The meeting is tomorrow morning so it's a bit short notice to get any advocacy or solicitors involved for then. We will definitely look into it further if social services wish to proceed beyond tomorrow with any kind of action. All we can do is be honest and see what they have to say. I contacted CAMHS back this afternoon and they have at least now confirmed that they will see my son which is some progress.

Wish us luck!

[call me jaded]

Quite simply the risk that has been identified relating to your young daughter means there is no choice but to call a CP meeting. This should be an opportunity for you to request access CAMHS and some support to ensure your son learns that this behaviour is completely unacceptable.

 

If you agree to work with everyone you really shouldn't have the need for a lawyer, but maybe a local charity or support group can support you in the process.

 

ETA: Good luck!

Edited November 26, 2009 by call me jaded

[JsMum]

Thank you all for your replies. The meeting is tomorrow morning so it's a bit short notice to get any advocacy or solicitors involved for then. We will definitely look into it further if social services wish to proceed beyond tomorrow with any kind of action. All we can do is be honest and see what they have to say. I contacted CAMHS back this afternoon and they have at least now confirmed that they will see my son which is some progress.

Wish us luck!

 

 

sos for suggesting solisitor and advacacy didnt realise it was tomorrow, Let us know how things go and if there is anything your unhappy about in the meetig we will try our best to support you.

 

Good Luck.

 

JsMumxxx

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[Kathryn]

Good luck for tomorrow spartacus1, and I'm glad that there's some progress with camhs at least.

 

K x

[spartacus1]

A quick update and big thanks to all who replied after my last visit here.

 

Well, we had the meeting and from what I can gather there is going to be no further action. If they had thought that we weren't able to prevent and intervene in these things it may have been different, but we do and had asked CAMHS for help straight away so I think they feel that beyond that placing my children onto the Child Protection Register would not be of any benefit to them.

 

Interestingly I had quite a number of people who I spoke to prior to the visit expressing alarm and concern that they thought that my children would end up on the Child Protection Register. I pointed out afterwards that I seem to have this winning formula for getting rid of social workers and that's to ask for help and input from them at which point they head for the door and we don't see them for dust

 

So the upshot of this in a nutshell is that social services have done their usual of running a mile when I mentioned scary words to them like respite and we now just have to wait for the CAMHS appointment, just as I had originally requested.

 

Still, I am glad that they bothered to make the visit because I suppose if they do this with us it equally means they are doing the visits and checks on other families where kids may be at significant risk-something we should be thankful for I suppose.

 

Thanks again guys and dolls

Edited December 2, 2009 by spartacus1

[JsMum]

A quick update and big thanks to all who replied after my last visit here.

 

Well, we had the meeting and from what I can gather there is going to be no further action. If they had thought that we weren't able to prevent and intervene in these things it may have been different, but we do and had asked CAMHS for help straight away so I think they feel that beyond that placing my children onto the Child Protection Register would not be of any benefit to them.

 

Interestingly I had quite a number of people who I spoke to prior to the visit expressing alarm and concern that they thought that my children would end up on the Child Protection Register. I pointed out afterwards that I seem to have this winning formula for getting rid of social workers and that's to ask for help and input from them at which point they head for the door and we don't see them for dust

 

So the upshot of this in a nutshell is that social services have done their usual of running a mile when I mentioned scary words to them like respite and we now just have to wait for the CAMHS appointment, just as I had originally requested.

 

Still, I am glad that they bothered to make the visit because I suppose if they do this with us it equally means they are doing the visits and checks on other families where kids may be at significant risk-something we should be thankful for I suppose.

 

Thanks again guys and dolls

 

Did they really ignore your requests of respite? ss shoukd be assessing your needs for respite, if you do want to pursue more practical support from social services Contact A Family will help you throw the process so do contact the also.

 

Is there any time scale for the CAMHS?

 

My son was referred to them for severe anger issues and we didnt get far with them, even though he was referred for play therapy and a clinical child psychologist, and went on a waiting list, in that time we fighted for a special school and with the help of the psychiatrist with supporting letters and his agreement J was on the ASD by the time we finally won the school placement and in it, he has since been discharged leaving us with nothing other than medication.

 

Good Luck hope your more succussful with any behavioural and thearapies that might just be available in your area.

 

JsMumxxxx

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[Sally44]

I've tried for 2 years to get SS involved and assess my son and myself/family.

Every time I phone I am given another number. Never managed to actually get through to whomever would actually do the assessing. I assume that my son's assessment would be different department to the carers' assessment???

Not seen hide or hair of them since. No phone calls ever returned.

Am in the process of getting school to do a CAF form. That was over 5 months ago.

 

 

[JsMum]

I've tried for 2 years to get SS involved and assess my son and myself/family.

Every time I phone I am given another number. Never managed to actually get through to whomever would actually do the assessing. I assume that my son's assessment would be different department to the carers' assessment???

Not seen hide or hair of them since. No phone calls ever returned.

Am in the process of getting school to do a CAF form. That was over 5 months ago.

Sally a CAF form from social services have a set time scale of 22 weeks, so Id look into the CAF straight away.

 

Now it was interesting to learn about the Carers Assessment because I asked for the assessment throw my Council direct and then the Adult carers contacted me, when they realised my son was under 16 they said that is the Child Care team, we have been with the child care team for years, so why wasnt we given an assessment earlier.

 

I have requested a carers Assessment again and were doing everything by the book with the help of Contact a family and A legal solisitor as J and me are not getting our needs met.

 

I would urge you to contact a family who can help your throw the process as Im afriad it means writing complaint letters and going all the way, just like education.

 

Good Luck.

 

JsMumx