A few years ago I turned to social media to help me. To help my situation. To raise awareness to the horrendous service that Hertfordshire were providing – or more to the point NOT providing.
Back then it was Hertfordshire NHS trust. I don’t know if opening my mouth helped but I find myself now very complimentary of Hertfordshire CAMHS – they are very much supporting my daughter at long last. I’ve also seen over the past couple of years a huge shift in mental health awareness and what appears to be a positive change in how children’s mental health is treated. So many people campaigning and sharing their stories have really started to help bring about the change we are all so passionate about.
However to say I’m beyond angry would be an understatement. This is going to be a very long and an extremely ranty blog. But I need everyone to read this. I need everyone to share this. I need this to get to politicians, policy makers, budget holders, senior management, lobbyists – anyone and everyone must read how utterly disgraceful Hertfordshire Local Authority and how they should be ashamed of how they treat families. How they DO NOT help families. How their incompetence is totally shocking and their utter disregard for a child’s wellbeing is beyond anything you can imagine.
Before I continue I must explain that this blog is all about Hertfordshire County Council and not Hertfordshire NHS Trust. Hertfordshire County Council are responsible for the education system within the county.
So here we go (Brace yourselves, I did warn you this is a long one)
On July 22nd 2019 K was discharged from a 7 month stay in a children’s mental health hospital. After a very difficult time we were relieved and hopeful.
When she was discharged the psychiatrist told us in no uncertain terms that K did not have any diagnosable mental health condition. What she had developed was a “learnt behaviour” that was caused by “catastrophic failings” of the Local Authority (YES HERTFORDSHIRE THAT’S YOU!) and of the school she first went to (AND I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE I WONT NAME IT!) and further catastrophic decisions of Hertfordshire after she was discharged from the first stay in a mental health hospital 4 years ago. So in a nutshell both Hertfordshire NHS Trust and Hertfordshire County Council are jointly responsible for the hell that we have been through and the nightmare that we are currently living.
Can you imagine how this feels? Whilst being totally relieved that all diagnosis (apart from ADHD) have been removed the anger we felt was unprecedented. Everything that has happened to K has been totally avoidable and has been caused by failings of a local authority that were supposed to be supporting us and a school that was supposed to be nurturing her. Everything that we believed and had been saying to professionals for years was finally vindicated.
Yet as this was all said verbally and we have nothing in writing we don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to claiming any sort of compensation.
Upon discharge the hospital very clearly told us that the best thing that we could do for K and her mental health was “normalise” her. Get her into a small nurturing school. She should not go to an SEN school as she doesn’t have any other additional need apart from ADHD. She should not go to an SEMH (Social, Emotional Mental Health) School either due to concerns of copying behaviour and the continual cycle of learnt behaviour.
And this is where it all goes wrong because yet again HERTFORDSHIRE simply DO NOT care. Because here we are in November 2019 and they still haven’t got her into a school.
Yes there have been a couple of legal processes to go through which have statutory time frames but Hertfordshire have caused serious delays, dragged this on far longer than necessary and been totally at fault at causing this situation to continue for as long as it has.
They have ignored emails
They have ignored phone calls
They have failed to return calls when they have said they would
They have failed to respond to emails from our social worker
Quite simply they have failed us
And they may well come back with excuses and excuses and say they have “3 days”to return a call (which in itself is an appalling practice when you have families desperate for help ) but I have dates and evidence which shows where they have failed to do their job.
Andt when the SEN team even fail to respond to your social worker from Hertfordshire you know there’s a bigger issue.
You see to Hertfordshire County Council my daughter is nothing more than a piece of paper. Literally a piece of paper.
K is in year 10. She is supposed to be preparing for her GCSE’s not sitting at home day after day, week after week, month after month.
It’s no secret as my very first blog wrote about this but several years ago Hertfordshire cost us our house – now they are costing our daughter her future. It really is that simple. There is absolutely no understanding and no compassion whatsoever. How much more do we have to endure?
This hasn’t been going on just for the past few weeks. No, this has been going on for much longer.
In July, before she was discharged, K’s Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) was sent to 2 schools of our choice. Both mainstream. Both small. Both nurturing. Both ticked the boxes that the hospital suggested.
At the time we chose to pursue school 1, however they did not download the EHCP which was sent to them digitally until September despite being sent it around 10 days before the broke up for the summer in July. Hertfordshire did not bother chasing them. That was for us to do – because we don’t have enough on our hands do we??!! It was us who phoned the school. It was us that made contact with the head teacher. It was us who obtained different email addresses. It was us who fed this back to Hertfordshire to re-send the EHCP. It was us that chased and chased.
But sadly school 1 showed absolutely no care at all. They looked at her paperwork from Hertfordshire (which was so out of date and full of inaccuracies it was beyond a joke). They saw her as an inconvenience, a burden. They spoke to us. They would not believe us. They shunned all offers of us meeting with them and more importantly meeting K so they could see her for themselves. They were sent a huge amount of evidence supporting our application. They wouldn’t accept the most up to date information from K’s psychologist. They ignored the recommendations of CAMHS. Like I said, all K is, is a piece of paper.
We were left utterly distraught at the lack of care and understanding this supposedly community school showed. They rejected our application on grounds that are not legal under SEN law – but Hertfordshire did little to chase this, leaving us to chase everyone yet again We do know one of the concerns was that she would find it too hard to catch up as they are a “high achieving school” – In other words they didn’t want to give our daughter a chance because she would affect their grades. . We still don’t know entirely what further reasons were given because despite asking Hertfordshire to reply to with the reasons given to them they have not answered us.
School 2 is where we are desperately trying to get her into at the moment. We don’t know what is going on because Hertfordshire will not update us. It’s been 5 weeks since we told Hertfordshire we want to pursue our other choice. This should have been resolved by now.
How many times do we have to go through hell to get what we need? What K deserves. No-one should have to fight like this.
She is desperate beyond any level of imagination. Every day her mood is sinking lower and lower. Her incidents of self-harm are increasing. Every day she asks if we have heard anything and we have to tell her no because Hertfordshire fail to do what they say. Every day she screams “Why do they tell you they will call you back and do it”. Every day she cries that she isn’t in school with friends. Every day we juggle working full time and managing K. Every day we struggle to find things for her to do. She is craving normality. She is craving an education. She just wants what every other teenager screams they don’t want to do – TO GO TO SCHOOL.
People ask what she does all day. The truth is NOTHING, absolutely nothing. She is on her own. She is bored. She goes shopping. She goes to bed as late as she can so that she can sleep most of the day because she knows she has nothing to get up for. She is surviving. We try to find her things to do. It’s costing us a small fortune.
I dread every single day. I dread my phone ringing when I’m at work. I dread the inevitable daily questions of “have you heard anything yet”. I dread the reaction when she is told no. I dread that every time she goes upstairs she is looking for to cut herself with. I dread her asking what she is going to do the following day. I dread coming home from work as I have no news for her.
What I really want to know is why it is so hard for people to see the child beyond the paperwork?
What was the point of her spending 7 months in a mental health hospital making the most remarkable recovery for it all to be utterly destroyed by the sheer incompetence of a local authority and a system that is so broken it’s beyond a joke?
Yet here we are again having our lives ripped apart.
It’s not fair on us, it’s not fair on K. She’s been through enough and just deserves the opportunity that every other child gets.
But the real issue is this is a much wider problem.
There are so many children out of school that are being failed by the system.
Someone somewhere needs to put down their calculator and need to stop worrying how much taking on an SEN child will cost them. And someone in power needs to make sure that EVERY SINGLE CHILD gets the education they deserve and quickly. Maybe it’s the Department for Education – I don’t know, but the process HAS to be looked at. The law should be changed. It should not take this long to get a child into school. There should be strict criteria that Local Authorities should have to adhere to. Every case should be overseen by an independent body making sure that the turnaround is swift and appropriate for that particular child. Local Authorities need to be held to account.
There is no reason why should have been waiting since July to get our child into school.
It is the law that every child is entitled to a mainstream education yet the process to get that education is designed to fail. It doesn’t work. It’s complicated. It’s long winded and it doesn’t care about the child.
Schools need to stop focussing on their final results and need to start focussing on each child as an individual and they should focus on bringing out the best of the child’s own ability.
There needs to be a system in place that reflects this. There needs to be employees in Local Authorities who actually genuinely care about the families they are supposed to be supporting.
If they don’t understand the impact their negligence has on not just the child’s mental health but the entire family then they don’t deserve to be doing the job they are.
Please believe me when I say this isn’t a sob story, I don’t post because I want sympathy. I post because I need wide understanding. I post because I hope that by doing so someone will actually read what I have written. That they will see exactly what it is like to live this life. To fight for everything. I post because I want change. I post because my daughter’s life is not a game to be played.
If anyone out there produces a radio/TV show, I bet if you give me a regular slot it will soon be understood how many people are being affected by this absolute disaster this country is facing with children’s mental health and SEN.
I have a voice and I have a strong opinion and I will keep posting and I will keep ranting until something changes.
Hopefully next time I write I will have more positive news but right now it’s not looking likely.
Victorious Star 