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Assessor went into school today unknown to me!

Denise63

Please can someone help me to understand this or to give me advice/reasons why this happened today.  Am i being unreasonable etc etc.... I am not a happy mum today.

Ok here goes...

As in my previous thread Amy my (now 16 yr old) daughter has been struggling for a lot of years... friendships/social skills and the feeling of "not being there". Amy has researched and researched this of late and is convinced she has "de-personalisation or diss-association"

OK today - she came in from school and said she was called out of class to go and see a lady who had come to see her. This was a woman from "speech and language department"... and had come to ask her questions and to talk to her - i presume about our last appointment with a consultant 3 months ago!!!  I wasnt informed she was going to the school to see Amy, i would have wanted to have been there as there are also things i'd like to ask her myself - even if i sat quiet and then asked her later when amy returned to her lessons.

To say i'm rather upset about it, is an understatement.

Amy was asked:

  • who she lived with (she lives with me, dad, sister)
  • relationship with mum and dad
  • who is at home usually and can she talk to her mum
  • is mum at home during the day usually (yes, i work p/t)
  • what are her hobbies (dance class, dog training/showing, cinema etc)
  • what hobbies and interests do we all do as a family (lots)
  • do we work
  • does she like school (answer no)
  • does she like the teachers (some no)
  • has she got friends (yes a few)
  • has she been bullied (yes on and off for 5 yrs of secondary school)
  • what was the bullying about
  • AND MANY MORE QUESTIONS WHICH I CANT THINK OF OFFHAND.

Amy said she was in about an hour talking to the therapist?? or whoever she was.

I had absolutely no idea they were seeing her at school, she was in on her own, no teacher, no one...! i really think that given her age she should have had an advocate in with her... or am i being wrong here? i really dont know to be fair.

Maybe they wanted to know about her home life on her own incase of anything underlying there, and i fully respect that. 

What i object to is the fact i wasnt aware that my 16 yr old daughter was going to be pulled out of class at school.  She then had to go back to her lessons ....

She said she could talk to the lady (who was roughly mid to late twenties in age!!)

She said she may go back and have another "little chat" to Amy again.  No mention of having mum in with her.

I was under the impression that her consultant was to be sending an appointment out for Amy to attend the hospital.

Has this happened to anyone else? have parents not been informed?

am i being unreasonable?

I telephoned speech and language dept up when she came in from school, no one could give me any answers as to why this woman went to the school, the staff member on the other end of the phone said unsure why this has happened and she understood my concerns.  she said that they will get back to me tomorrow about it, that she'll get the staff member concerned to phone me with what happened.

I have so many questions and even amy was asking her things and telling her how she felt and the therapist (or whoever she was) said "oh thats strange" "i've never heard of that before" - this was when amy said she was having the feelings of de-personalisation (feelings of not being there)

The therapist was taking notes when she was asking questions, but not once when amy was trying to explain how she was feeling.  The therapist even said, she hadnt heard of de-personalisation before.

I am so worried, confused, angry and extremely concerned.

Should i be???

please - anyone out there - please reply with what you think x, thank you so much x

Denise x

 

 

 

 

  • Hi, My daughter is also 16 and was diagnosed with Aspergers at the end of last year,she see's CAMHS and various other people,the day she turned 16 everything changed from being involved in meetings or told some of the content suddenly everything was confidential and we are told nothing,people go into school to see her and we are not notified only find out when we she gets home.We only want to help our daughter so a few clues would be a great help ie whats bothering her at the moment etc,we all have to live together as a family and need to make it work for all of us,so frustrating and dont get me started about school ahh....

  • Hi again - I agree with Silver100's comments.  Amy + yourself were given no notice at all.  To me that's bad practice, apart from being rude.  I think anyone (autistic or not) would find that situation disconcerting, but probably more so with autism.  Have you heard anything else yet?  I continue to think what happened was out of order.  I'd also ask what they mean by "urgent" + if you hadn't got in touch, when would they have contacted you about things or would you have had to wait till the nxt Consultant appointment?  Whether this is their usual practice + the consultant forgot to mention it to you when you last saw him, I wouldn't know but I think it should have been mentioned if that is the case.

  • I think Amy should have been informed someone was coming to see her and the purpose of the visit so she could have someone with her if she chose to. I think GPs etc. will see someone of 16 on their own if that is what the individual wants. I don't think they need your consent, but I do think it is not good for them to just turn up to visit someone who is/maybe on the spectrum without prior notice and the opportunity to have someone with her - I would have found it very disconcerting.

  • I rang speech and lang again this morning, they had nothing on the system to say any apt had been made nor was there any report logged.

    I asked if it was normal practice to visit a school without a parents consent or seeing a child without support or a representative in with her and they said they are within their rights to do that. I mentioned there was no confidentiality regarding this, as the man who shows people around the school came for her and told her who it was (no idea who in front of to be honest)... so he knew!

    They said the whole thing has now been passed to head of service as URGENT..

    What do other mums think of this? and where do i go from here.

    Apparently they have now tracked down who the person was who visited her, she still hadnt picked up the URGENT email sent to her yesterday afternoon and she is to ring me back with her "whys and wherefores" and to let me know her "findings" of yesterday.

    -.- not a happy mum.

    I said we are talking of a child who you are assessing for autism who could possibly have been very vulnerable and needed a representative or some support.

    They had no idea about Amy, they didnt know her needs, if she needed any.

    Luckily she was fine, but its the fact that when this assessor was asking the questions she was writing down the replies, but when Amy tried to explain how she was feeling with the depersonalization/derealization, she said it was strange and she hadnt heard of it!

    what on earth!???

    :( x

     

  • Thanks for your reply Crystal, I will certainly let you know tomorrow after i've spoken to them.

    I'm not happy at all about the situation.  She is a minor and to not be even consulted as her parent is just not on at all.

    I'll contact her consultant too about this see what he says.

    Will be back tomorrow, thanks again.

    Denise x

  • Hi - I'd feel the same as you.  This is out of order.  For a start your daughter is not an adult, no-one in the family knew this was going to happen, she didn't have any support at the mtg etc.  So yes, I'd be seriously bothered about it.  Please let us know what speech + language therapy say when they get back to you.  I think you have cause to make a formal complaint.  Is this anything at all to do with the consultant - might be worth checking.  They may have got their lines crossed but that's no excuse.  Not on, in my opinion!