Hi
My son has severe sensory motor issues (DCD and SPD) and although not dx with ASD behaves very much as is he is Autistic.
I am getting desperate re. childcare and covering the costs.
He is now = after 12 weeks exclusion from school or a 2hs/day part time, one-on-one, off-site timetable going back to school full-time with full-time round the clock one-on-one persons provided, and in class part of the time.
This change has not been gradual - it has gone from the first to the second with two days notice - due to my fighting over the last twelve weeks for reintegration but which i had hoped would be a process.
Having lost one job - permanent - and walked from two others to meet my son's needs after two years of living hand to mouth (I am not eligible for enough benefits) I now need to be back at work full-time as a teacher of (Ha) ASN. in a new school. I cannot walk away from this job and retain any expectation of future work, nor can I afford to.
Childcare is proving tricky - we are isolated (family have rejected us, and friends with children do not want their child around mine); school has had so many complaints about my child and I am shunned if in the playground. My son has to go into school late, be collected at lunch, and brought back, and collected early at three. My one friend who did help cannot now, as she is not allowed to wait with A in the playground to collect her own children. My morning childcare - after 8 days and one aggressive outburst over getting my son to school - just quit. Other than Thurs I have lunch and afterschool covered but cannot keep looking for new childcare every few weeks as peope quit (the one chap I currently have is unlikely to quite for now).
After School Clubs are not an option - we have been asked to leave one and A was so disturbed after he would run in the road, was soiled, etc and took hours to calm (I do not drive and could not get him home: we were put off buses); the second one we tried, even with one on one support, could not quite manage and I had trouble walking my son home the ten minute route - and he was self-harming.
School keep suggesting the Breakfast Club as a solution but then if I go with that idea, scream that they cannot cope, and place my son in isolation on one-to-one supervision. Obviously this is not the answer.
Social Work have been involved and we are now getting some help with a new, competant SW: 10 hrs direct payment but they make only a small dint in £125 + a week childcare. The previous two weeks it was £200 a week. SW seem to say I have tried everything they can suggest and that we need a managed plan. School frustrate things by denying there is a problem then panicking when it emerges, then denying it at meetings. They will not use the OT strategies recommended (H&S implications): their method of coping has been to summon me from work. I am now refusing to acquiese unless it is an exclusion or genuine illness.
My son is due respite but the system is so stressed that we keep having it put off for another month.
I am struggling manfully to keep finding solutions when crises emerge but they seem to be daily and I am the only one who has back up childcare for the back up childcare and still faces an emergency on a thrice weekly basis.
The local Autistic Society provide some outreach support, but it has to be male workers, as my son attacked their female worker. My son was turned down for a CSP as the support he needs is not sufficient.
It should not be consistently this hard to secure adequate educational provision (I have my doubts about next week's arrangement as school have refused to specify when he will be in class or discuss it with him) and adequate affordable childcare. The chap I have doing lunches and after school does not want to commit to mornings too, given how bitty that makes things for him.
