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Sally44

How to get Social Services involved

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Finally got a reply through the post today admitting that my complaint was valid and apologising! It also states everything that was agreed and apologised for the delay in dealing with my complaint and hopefully I no longer feel the need to escalate it! I knew they'd not moved it to stage 2 even though I have it in writing that they had!

 

Also they've dated the letter the 30th July and no postmark on the letter so it makes it look like they dealt with it a lot quicker than they did!

Edited by Sazale

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Had confirmation today defo not been moved to stage 2 as requested. They want me to tell them which parts of my complaint do I want escalating to stage 2 and what do I want to acheive by doing so! I've replied requesting for someone else to deal with my complaint and an explanation as to why they've failed to follow the complaints procedure and misled me about the stage my complaint was at.

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It is also useful to think about what you want to achieve through your daughter being assessed and by having a carers assessment ie. respite, direct payments so that you can buy in care when you/she needs it, social worker involved etc.

 

Have they even began the core assessment yet?

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They've not began anything yet! I'm still carrying on with my complaint that the manager says my dd doesn't fit the disability teams criteria even though according to their criteria she does so I'm asking for more clarification. Also they agreed to a carers assessment but old me it was only a paper exercise where they send me out a form and then register me as a carer - I'm asking for more clarification on that as well as everything I've read says that's not what it should be!

 

It's turned into a right farse. I put the complaint in 58 working days ago and still no further on apart from a visit to try to get me to drop my complaint. We're managing ok ATM and dd accessing short breaks for 3 hours once a week so part of me wants to walk away from it all but the other part of me says no! She only has 3 weeks short breaks left and then back on the waiting list and it's the stress it's all causing my other kids and they could do with Mum time and support. Will see what today brings! Angry doesn't come near!

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Got an email now from the quality and performance manager now apologising for any misunderstanding, saying how hard the staff are working to sort out my complaints and offering to meet with me to decide the best way forward. Why won't they just follow the complaints procedure and move it to stage 2?

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Just keep all this paperwork [and make sure everything is on paper.] You never know when it may be useful.

 

You could send in a letter with everything condensed ie.

[date] I was told xxx by xxx and that is untrue.

[date] at meeting with xxx I was told xx would happen and it did not.

[date] I lodged a complaint with xxx and was told this would be investigated.

[date] telephone conversation [or letter] with xxx who told me my complaint would be raised to a level 2 which I understand to mean xxxxx.

[date] informed my complaint is not a level 2.

 

 

etc. Then ask them to write setting out in plain English who is going to do what and what part of the complaints system you are currently at and ask them to give you a timescale within which you will have a response to your complaint. State that if this does not happen that you will send all the correspondence to the local governments ombudsman for them to investigate.

 

And do that.

 

If the LGO investigate and find that the LA has to complete a certain procedure, or if you have to do something, they will inform you and tell you that once that has been done you can resume your complaint with the LGO if you wish. But involving them might get some people to actually sort it out.

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Thanks Sally. The manager said that they'd hoped that the meeting would have resulted in me withdrawing my request to stage 2! I have everything in writing/e-mail. I was thinking of relaying the events so far to her. She's not in the office till Tuesday so going to send her an email.

 

They're doing everything they can to stop this complaint moving to stage 2 and have been a bit devious about it. I just want it concluding and it needs to be stage 2 as I'm disagreeing with a couple of the responses from the social services manager which means that it needs an independent person. She says dd not eligible for their services but their eligibility criteria (that she gave me) says she does. She says that the carers assessment is a form for me to fill out to then put on a database to register me as a carer and that's it. I'm saying that a carers assessment is meant to more than that. I just can't believe the way it's been handled and their refusal to follow their own complaints procedure.

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A further update.

 

There is going to be a meeting between the LA, Health and Social Care to discuss funding this 2-3 night respite.

 

I have spoken to IPSEA about it because although a Statement is binding on the LA, it is not binding on the NHS or SS.

 

What I have been advised is that if there is a proven 'educational need' - and the definition of 'education' in SEN law is very broad ie. any kind of learning that helps the child to become more independent or reach their potential or make progress - then the SEND Panel will make the provision of this respite legally binding on the LA; and then it would be the LA's responsibility to claim back any part of that cost from Health or Social Care. I have been told there is a precedent in case law, so I know that that is the decision the SEND Panel will make as they have to fall in line with previous decision.

 

I'm still waiting for the Decision letter from the LA after the Annual Review [which was held in June]. I am not pushing for them to make a decision yet whilst discussion and meetings are going on. But if the outcome of this next meeting is stalemate, I will write to the LA asking them to send their Decision letter so that I can lodge an appeal.

 

Hope it does not come to that again.

Edited by Sally44

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I'm about to complain as I requested an assessment of my daughters needs and was told that because she accesses an ASD specific youth club once a week, I don't beat her, I protect my other children from her, no ones reported any concerns, she's not in special school and "only" has mild/moderate ASD then she won't qualify for direct payments. I didn't ask for direct payments, I asked or an assessment to see what support, if any, was available. She asked me to give an example of her difficulties so I said has not developed age appropriate self care skills. She actually asked me why I can't teach them to her! When she asked me what I'd like to be able to do I said to leave my house with my dd and DS and not need a 2nd adult due to her refusals to walk ad DS only being just 5. Her response was well if she won't walk for you she won't walk for someone else! I replied I can deal with the refusal to walk/meltdown but I can't also keep my DS safe at he same time! I said what about a carers assessment instead and she said I couldn't have one because dd not entitled to direct payments!!! She didn't speak to anyone apart from the autism communication team who she said sit behind her and all they knew was that she went to the youth club so she couldn't be that bad or they would be working with dd so therefore I should go to them for support. I then explained that ACT only support educational needs and only school can refer and that they hadn't referred as under Ed Psych and getting a statement so their input couldn't add anything. She never even read the CAF! She also didn't know that CAMHS don't support ASD as its not a mental health issue! Freaking useless!

This sounds very much like what happened to me, they said our circumstances weren't life threatning so we were not eligable for support ( just like to add I'm suprised you got away with the word Freaking):-)

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Well to finish off this thread, I thought i'd better update it with the result.

 

We have managed to get the LA to agree to one nights respite funding which will be at his current school. He is a day pupil there, but they do have boarding facilities. Our argument, which was backed up by the social worker, was that this was the only suitable place for him to have respite, and was also a place where he was making progress.

 

The Social Worker had recommended 2-3 nights in their report. But I feel that if I go to tribunal yet again, that we could spend another 6 months preparing for it, and the outcome could be that the Panel recommended he stayed another night.

 

So, on advice, I think it would be better to see how he does with this one night, and if it is positive, then we may have a good argument later on for him to go residential part time or full time.

 

So, I just hope that my experience, and how I have explained in this post each step of the way, will help some of you out there to achieve the same thing.

 

As with most things it is about finding out what the law says, and then being very methodical in getting the professionals involved to go through the structures and processes that are already in place.

 

For me, the hardest part was getting social services to even carry out a core assessment or carers assessment. But once I knew about the complaints procedure, that meant the LA had to follow their procedure for complaints, which made them instruct a social worker to come and assess him.

 

So, I can hang up my boxing gloves for the time being.

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