Experiences of Crisis Teams?

Crisis team are useless, Your better off contacting your local authority for a needs assessment and a healthcare plan being made which will provide you access to support worker and specialised services and advocate on your behalf to get the right help.

Alternatively you could contact your local autism partnership or autism charity and see if they are able to provide emergency therapy, advocacy or support.   

Yes.  For us they've proved to be worse than useless in that some of their interventions were actually damaging.  

I'm tempted, and have been for some time, to ask for a needs assessment, but there again I'd have to be very careful about what I revealed because I could easily bounce the whole family into a very much feared and unwanted "intervention" from social services.  And, at my carers' group, it seems the focus is on respite and various activities I don't want (I know how to look after myself and sort out my own self care) rather than the autism-friendly advice and guidance for family matters that impinge on every family member - quite badly and in numerous ways with which anyone would have difficulty coping.  

Yes - my sons college suggested we get a social services needs assessment and I am extremely wary of that. I had a friend who had social services involved with his family when his parents split up and he had a lifetime hatred of social services as a result as found the experience so intrusive and unpleasant. We hate any intrusion into our home life as we are very quiet and private people and hate anyone coming to the house. We even find people phoning us really stressful. I just think it would be too much and we would fear losing control of our situation and receiving heavy handed advice etc. The thought of Social services just makes me anxious.

I totally agree. As soon as they said that to me I knew I wasn’t going back there again. They weren’t on my son’s side - that was clear - so I didn’t want anything to do with them. This is why I’m wary of services - which like you say only leaves us with basically nothing. I think autistic people need therapists who are autistic. 
In fact this is something the National Autistic Society should be campaigning for - training for autistic people so that they can staff services for autistic people. We need each other, we understand each other and we can help each other. I know that because I have seen it on here - it’s wonderful. We need that support and understanding in actual services for autistic people - in education, in health, in therapy etc. 
It would transform these services for autistic people. 

Exactly.  It is part of autistic expression, self regulation and communication but they know nothing of this.  It's inappropriate and potentially damaging (i.e.encourages masking) to try to prevent stimming and I don't know how they can justify such an "intervention". 

I wish I'd just listened to autistic-led webinars and courses instead but then, of course, I didn't know we were autistic.  I feel misled by them and these days I listen mainly to autistic voices online.  Unfortunately that still leaves us without the tailored help we so badly need.  

I can understand that feeling! I find it hard to trust people and services to be honest. I remember taking my son to an nhs triage thing and it was really quite concerning - they were quite bossy and critical of both my sons behaviour (and he has always been really well behaved I can tell you ) - like things like him getting up and running around (stimming I know it to be now) during mealtimes. They were critical of us as parents for not stopping him from doing that! But it made him happy! Why would we stop him doing something that he so obviously needed and wanted to do?! 

Absolutely.  My husband now says, "I won't have them in the house!"  And one of my sons has threatened to punch them if they intrude.   So that needs to be born in mind when seeking help.  We might very well end up in a worse position.  :(

Absolutely.  My husband now says, "I won't have them in the house!"  And one of my sons has threatened to punch them if they intrude.   So that needs to be born in mind when seeking help.  We might very well end up in a worse position.  :(

I totally agree. As soon as they said that to me I knew I wasn’t going back there again. They weren’t on my son’s side - that was clear - so I didn’t want anything to do with them. This is why I’m wary of services - which like you say only leaves us with basically nothing. I think autistic people need therapists who are autistic. 
In fact this is something the National Autistic Society should be campaigning for - training for autistic people so that they can staff services for autistic people. We need each other, we understand each other and we can help each other. I know that because I have seen it on here - it’s wonderful. We need that support and understanding in actual services for autistic people - in education, in health, in therapy etc. 
It would transform these services for autistic people. 

Exactly.  It is part of autistic expression, self regulation and communication but they know nothing of this.  It's inappropriate and potentially damaging (i.e.encourages masking) to try to prevent stimming and I don't know how they can justify such an "intervention". 

I wish I'd just listened to autistic-led webinars and courses instead but then, of course, I didn't know we were autistic.  I feel misled by them and these days I listen mainly to autistic voices online.  Unfortunately that still leaves us without the tailored help we so badly need.  

I can understand that feeling! I find it hard to trust people and services to be honest. I remember taking my son to an nhs triage thing and it was really quite concerning - they were quite bossy and critical of both my sons behaviour (and he has always been really well behaved I can tell you ) - like things like him getting up and running around (stimming I know it to be now) during mealtimes. They were critical of us as parents for not stopping him from doing that! But it made him happy! Why would we stop him doing something that he so obviously needed and wanted to do?!