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When is enoughs enough - and what then?

Hi, this is my first post and would like to explain my history and ask the forum when is enoughs enough?

My 11 year old daughter lost her mum aged 3 following a rapid onset of MS immediately following birth. With some help from her maternal Nan I have pretty much brought her up on my own from birth.

When she was 5/6 her behaviour and presentation at mainstream school became very extreme and my new partner and I became very noisy about health concerns and critical of the provision. Long and very tragic story short, she was taken into care for a year while the LA/School/CAHMS insisted there was nothing physically wrong with her and that given her innappropriate attachment to adults and extreme presentation she had clearly been subjected to the most horrific emotional, physical and sexual abuses imaginable. The Care proceedings identified that she had a rare form of epilepsy, Autism, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Behavioural Issues and emotional issues and no evidence to support the claims against me. Her lead diagnosis is autism. My relief when she was at last returned to my care with the court appointed Nationallly renowned child psychiatrist insisting that mainstream education was in this case inapropriate and even abusive and the LA should place her in a special needs school as a first priority (even residential)

That was 3 years ago....

My partner and I married and tried forming a new family including my step daughter with the court advising the LA that the new family unit should be given all available support..

My wife led the way in researching autism and adopting relevent strategies. I resurrected my career.

The LA resisted every effort I made to remover her from her mainstream school and for 3 years running we have begged social services for respite care and help but she apparantly does not even come close to meeting the criteria for ANY support!!!

Her education has made zero progress, she has been excluded for acts of violence towards teachers. At home she has sadly rejected my wife despite years of integration and simply will not share me. She rejects any authority and control, and barely tolerates my own. She has strangled my step daughter on 4 occasions and makes false allegations against everyone including teachers, foster parents, grandparents and step mum.

Things came to a head last Feb (2014) when after yet another failing at her mainstream school I felt compelled to remove her. Additionally, my wife was openly saying she cant take it any more and needs help urgently or its over. I invited Social Services in and with the help of my daughters doctor informed the LA that my daughter would have to go into care again if no support was offered. No support was offered, only more threats and a reminder that she was my daughter, my responsibility, that I had an obligation to leave my wife, that way it was only my life that would be destroyed by her condition.

My wife and I are now seperating. Purely because she cannot take the abuse from my daughter and the LA any longer and feels powerless to protect her own daughter. I am devestated but have felt that I needed to give one last fight for my daughters needs as I could not turn my back on her and if she was to go into care my soul needed it to be all down to me and not my wife.

I am now in the middle of a tribunal process to get her into a residential school. I am having to sell my house for independent reports and to clear massive debts after 7 months off work with stress and to enable my wife and step daughter to have a helping hand going forward.

Since my appeal to the tribunal the games from the LA on top of everything else have made me very ill and as my daughters needs increase and puberty approaches, and my ability to meet those needs has now reached rock bottom I am close to the edge of human endurance. Still she does not meet the criteria for support and certainly not enough for me to hold down a full time job. Therefore I cant meet even the most basic of my daughters needs.

I now have no-one to help me. No family, no respite, not a single person able to assist. I have now decided that if I lose the tribunal appeal and cannot get her into residential education then I have to draw a line under it all and recognise that it is now more imprtant for her to have a dad who is alive and maintain an amazing relationship with his beautiful little giirl than one who takes this further and ends up dead or in prison.

My daughter is a member of society, and if the guardians of society do all they possibly can to avoid the costs involved in meeting my daughters needs with no proactive model for support whatsoever then I need to cut myself some slack on the old guilt trip and recognise that she probably hasnt had any help because I have been such a rock and done an amazing job for my daughter. I am clinging on by my fingertips and have even been to the GP saying I am on the verge of suicide or murder if my daughter does not get help and/or I dont let it all go........

I feel enoughs enough.....

Some would feel I may have taken this too far already, others might say not far enough. How far would you go?

Any thoughts?????

Parents

SodThisForALaugh over 11 years ago

Hi Coogy
Thank you so much for your support and information, certainly makes me aware that I am far from alone in this.
My daughter has had a full statement for 2 years now but the mainstream env was fundamentally wrong and so too was the skillset of the staff, did their best but did so mouch more harm than good by continuing to insisting they were the only place that could meet her needs when they had made zero progress in 7 years!! At 11 she cannot read or write anything other than her name, cannot recognise numbers beyond 10, has speech and language of a 4/5 yr old and cannot partake in normal classroom activities.
You are correct in assuming it is the education tribunal. My failing is that the demands of my daughter on every aspect of our lives daily had preventied me from really being able to play the LA's game and fight them with legislation. I chose the shouting from the rooftops approach which meant they ran rings around me.
IPSEA were good, but my life has been such utter mayhem that what I absolutely needed was a case worker and this could not be provided.
I first got assistance earlier this year from a charity and an advocate. She knew her stuff but simply could not dedicate the resources to it and made things worse for me by failing to turn up to meetings with the LA, leaving me vulnerable and exposed.
I recently came across a non charging business organisation called living autism. I now feel that I have someone professional fighting my corner who knows the rules of engagement inside out and vets every piece of communication and has stayed up many nights assisting in putting my daughters case together.
I believe it will all hinge on the independent reports. Sadly, I am coming down to the wire on getting these as my house sale fell through and I have a 50% chance now of releasing the capital in time.
She gets DLA. I'm on sick pay and holding onto the belief that I need to return to my career soon as there is no way I could cope on benefits or part time work. This makes the future a bit of a no win really. Carers alone I would qualify for but its no-where near enough. Don't work, cant meet her needs or mine, work and I cant support her in school. She needs residential purely on educational grounds but the reality is that unless I can work full time I have no way of proppping her up much further anyway. Terribe shame.
Where do I Live - I wont name the Authority dealing with my daughters case on here but I personally live somewhere that's not to the west of London and starts with an E.
Cheers STFAL (must work on a more catchy name Coogy)
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SodThisForALaugh over 11 years ago

Hi Coogy
Thank you so much for your support and information, certainly makes me aware that I am far from alone in this.
My daughter has had a full statement for 2 years now but the mainstream env was fundamentally wrong and so too was the skillset of the staff, did their best but did so mouch more harm than good by continuing to insisting they were the only place that could meet her needs when they had made zero progress in 7 years!! At 11 she cannot read or write anything other than her name, cannot recognise numbers beyond 10, has speech and language of a 4/5 yr old and cannot partake in normal classroom activities.
You are correct in assuming it is the education tribunal. My failing is that the demands of my daughter on every aspect of our lives daily had preventied me from really being able to play the LA's game and fight them with legislation. I chose the shouting from the rooftops approach which meant they ran rings around me.
IPSEA were good, but my life has been such utter mayhem that what I absolutely needed was a case worker and this could not be provided.
I first got assistance earlier this year from a charity and an advocate. She knew her stuff but simply could not dedicate the resources to it and made things worse for me by failing to turn up to meetings with the LA, leaving me vulnerable and exposed.
I recently came across a non charging business organisation called living autism. I now feel that I have someone professional fighting my corner who knows the rules of engagement inside out and vets every piece of communication and has stayed up many nights assisting in putting my daughters case together.
I believe it will all hinge on the independent reports. Sadly, I am coming down to the wire on getting these as my house sale fell through and I have a 50% chance now of releasing the capital in time.
She gets DLA. I'm on sick pay and holding onto the belief that I need to return to my career soon as there is no way I could cope on benefits or part time work. This makes the future a bit of a no win really. Carers alone I would qualify for but its no-where near enough. Don't work, cant meet her needs or mine, work and I cant support her in school. She needs residential purely on educational grounds but the reality is that unless I can work full time I have no way of proppping her up much further anyway. Terribe shame.
Where do I Live - I wont name the Authority dealing with my daughters case on here but I personally live somewhere that's not to the west of London and starts with an E.
Cheers STFAL (must work on a more catchy name Coogy)
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