Published on 12, July, 2020
Our 15 year-old daughter finally got a diagnosis of autism about a year ago after six year of school refusal and several suicide attempts. She is still a school refuser (attendance less than 1% this school year). CAHMS were great keeping her safe (she seems to have stopped self-harming) but discharged her as she refused to engage in the sessions (she won't meet new people and hates telephone/video calls) and they considered her now safe.
The school have marked nearly all her absences this year as “unauthorised” and referred us to the educational welfare officer. I challenge the “unauthorised” label as they were for medical (mental health) reasons but was told that this is automatic after absences hit a certain number of days. The council EWO also said the “autism is not a reason to miss school”.
She has been refused an EHCR assessment twice as the council say the school haven’t provided any evidence. I’m currently asking council about this as the evidence I saw the school provided seemed to be compelling.
We have our second LAAM meeting and the council may seek to fine/prosecute us very soon, as they hinted at the first meeting.
Any ideas on what we can do – the only alternative to attending school we’ve been offered is online classes (which as above won’t work for our daughter). Should have we been offered a educational therapist (we still don’t fully understand why our daughter won’t go to school – she is nearly always fine the few times she has attended)? We are getting desperate as while everyone in “authority” has been very “nice and understanding” they have been absolutely no help in getting our daughter a education. She is such a brilliantly clever and caring girl I fear she won't be able to make the most of her many talents as she has already missed nearly a year of GCSEs.
Apologies as sure this has been raised before but I’m exhausted from the number of forms, acronyms and websites I’ve tried to get my head around for help.
When you say "she is nearly always fine the few times she has attended", does that mean she has attended school a few times and here was one or more occasions when she wasn't fine?
And by 'fine', what do you mean? If the weight of school was causing self harm (and worse), I suggest there needs to be, at minimum, accommodations, monitoring and established routes for intervention should she start struggling. Until that is in place, perhaps be blunt to the council and ask them, "Which of you will be personally held criminally or civilly liable for anything that happens to her if you force her back to school without the required accommodations and safeguards when it is clear she has significant challenges with attending school (list the incidents)"
Thanks for the reply
By "fine" I meant that she enjoys learning and is generally positive about the experience but next day she won't get our of bed to go to school (behaviour we've seen many times before with counsellors etc) - obviously she could be masking in her feedback. She has seemed to stop self-harming so (hopefully) that isn't the issue for now (and on the few times she has been in she happily complies with the safety measures the school have put in place such as bag search etc). It's getting her to school that seems to be the problem, not actually school per se.