Social Worker

I'm sure you'll do okay ..  Maybe ask what experience they have of supporting children/young people with ASDs (and/or their parents) and get them to give you some examples of their interventions and how these helped.   Ask specifically what help and support they think they would be looking to give you: it may be that their remit only covers certain areas of either. 

(My daughter has recently accessed counselling, having been told by our local Depression & Anxiety Service that her needs are too complex for them to support her.  After a single visit, the counsellor has decided that my daughter probably has dyslexia - she doesn't - (because she finds reading stressful, and is already advising her of coloured overlays she can use (!); she's also pushing DD to go to university (she's highly intelligent academically - G&T in five areas - but has very little emotional resilience and university is simply out of the picture).  She's also advising DD to volunteer in a primary school, because 'that will be nice and easy'.  I despair.

Sorry - that's prob not v helpful!  I'm just trying to illustrate how necessary getting some clear guidelines at the outset as to how your SW operates is.  Good luck!

Pertinent post. I’m meeting a social worker tomorrow and rather anxious about it re: what they are going to ask and most importantly can I trust them? How will I know if they’re competent? It’s a whole new world.... eek!

My experience has been mostly (not completely) negative.  My daughter (undiagnosed ASD) was a school refuser and was finally listed as a Child in Need.  When I asked for help for me in trying to support my daughter better, I became a MASH case (multi-agency safeguarding hub) and was assigned a social worker.  The SW explained her role - and as it had nothing to do with what I'd asked for (some sort of parenting group where we could share our stories and hopefully learn new coping/supporting skills for our children), I said I didn't need her help.  That's when it was explained that I was obliged to accept it, and if I didn't, I'd be seen to be committing some sort of child protection offence...

Long story short, this SW was not a pleasant piece of work.  She was present at all MASH meetings (me, my daughter, Head of Pastoral Care, Educational Welfare Officer, occasionally the school nurse too) - and seemed hell-bent on destroying my credibility as a loving, caring parent.  She was snide and accusing.  She eventually reported me to her senior for 'deliberately preventing my daughter from accessing education'.  For the record, I have a high IQ, was chair of the PTA at my child's primary school, was a school volunteer, and worked in education - hardly somebody who would try to do as accused.  

Luckily, this SW was then switched to another part of the county, and I was assigned a much younger, kinder SW.  TBH, there was little help this new-to-me SW was able to give.  She told me she realised the DD appeared to have little empathy or awareness of the impact of her actions on me (then aged 14, DD had r run away at 5.30 in the morning - it was a cold February morning - and failed to respond to my desperate phone calls and texts until early afternoon.  She had been hugely stressed about building work going on in the house and couldn't deal with it anymore.  Of course, I wasn't aware at the time of quite how impossibly stressful this was for her.)  

We had already been through the CAMHS system (useless, because of my daughter's 'failure to engage' - and when I was 'advised' (asked!) to remove her from the service, the SW then used this as evidence I was failing my daughter!), and DD had seen a school psychologist (when she was 7)  who'd said there was nothing wrong with her.  I'd also asked for parenting lessons when DD was 2 years old, because I was struggling to deal with her tantrums - again, hardly evidence of a parent not trying her best.

Advice?  Is there a FB group that covers your area?  You might find that people local to you have had a better experiences with particular SWs than the one we did here in  South Devon.  Sorry to not be more positive :(  And good luck!