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Horrible letter from community mental health team [Removed by Moderator] Merseyside

Mim77

I have received a letter from them after cancelling an appointment as I couldn't face going back there. Their staff have no understanding of autism at all and they have made my mental health worse. They won't accept this or take any responsibility. The letter says it is written by 'autism experts' and isn't 'intended to be patronising'. It is written in very simple language you would use to a small child. I am a grown adult and parent, I am of normal intelligence and have no issues understanding complex information. This letter has really upset me, they have just assumed that I am not able to understand complex information and must be addressed really slowly. I almost feel like this is discrimination of some sort. The letter is unsigned.

[Subject edited by Moderator due to Online Community Rule 2: https://community.autism.org.uk/p/rules]

Parents
  • Mim77 said:
    It is written in very simple language you would use to a small child. I am a grown adult and parent, I am of normal intelligence and have no issues understanding complex information.

    I suspect that what you received was a standard letter written to cater to the lowest common denomonator of peoples understanding. This would be normal practice for an organisation that has to send the same sort of correspondence to different people.

    If you understood it then it did its job.

    If they had sent the letter in a way that was very technical and you could not understand it then I think there would be grounds to be unhappy.

    Mim77 said:
    I have been diagnosed with EUPD

    Do you think that this could result in an over-reaction here? I'm not saying you have over-reacted but am suggesting trying to reflect and consider if your response was reasonable and proportionate.

    Mim77 said:
    I almost feel like this is discrimination of some sort

    Try to think like a lawyer to gauge if this is a realistic consideration. Did they break any rules or make it intentionally hard for you to understand. I would think that intentionally making it easy to understand would establish that it is not discriminating, but I don't have the wording to make such a determination.

Reply
  • Mim77 said:
    It is written in very simple language you would use to a small child. I am a grown adult and parent, I am of normal intelligence and have no issues understanding complex information.

    I suspect that what you received was a standard letter written to cater to the lowest common denomonator of peoples understanding. This would be normal practice for an organisation that has to send the same sort of correspondence to different people.

    If you understood it then it did its job.

    If they had sent the letter in a way that was very technical and you could not understand it then I think there would be grounds to be unhappy.

    Mim77 said:
    I have been diagnosed with EUPD

    Do you think that this could result in an over-reaction here? I'm not saying you have over-reacted but am suggesting trying to reflect and consider if your response was reasonable and proportionate.

    Mim77 said:
    I almost feel like this is discrimination of some sort

    Try to think like a lawyer to gauge if this is a realistic consideration. Did they break any rules or make it intentionally hard for you to understand. I would think that intentionally making it easy to understand would establish that it is not discriminating, but I don't have the wording to make such a determination.

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    No it is making an assumption that autistic people have low levels of intelligence and cannot understand information. How is that not discrimination 

  • in reply to Iain

    My reaction to this is because I have had three years of awful and dismissive behaviour from them, I have had to make complaints and even the complaint process has been awful. The staff are ignorant and unprofessional. They have made my mental health worse.

  • in reply to Iain

    It wasn't a standard letter. It was a 'special letter' written by so called 'autism experts'. I have received letters from them before, ordinary letters written in normal language. This letter is actually bizarre.

    They have made an assumption that because I have an Autism diagnosis I must be spoken to very slowly using very simple words that a four year old would understand. If they were to speak to me face to face in such a way would this be acceptable.