Hi Guys

I've been writing a load of stuff on here recently about the legal situation in Scotland and hope I will have good news when the Scottish Government make their decision on my complaint against the education authority.

Because we're still waiting for the CAMHS appointment, I don't know how effective their intervention is going to be - I imagine it's different from one NHS Board to another. I'm interested in what I've been reading on some of the posts about CBT but wouldn't know where to start - is that something CAMHS will work on?

We have a meeting in 2 days with the school, to establish whether a CSP is required and I wondered if anyone on here has experience of one? There are 4 criteria to be met, but the stumbling block is whether significant help is going to be required from one or more agency in addition to education. I think the others present at the meeting will say no which means no CSP. I asked CAMHS the other day whether they would be likely to be involved in the way of significant input but it seems that we are likely to be referred to somewhere else after our initial appointment, rather than being seen regularly by CAMHS. Social Services are another possible provider of significant input but I don't know whether that would be beneficial to us, or what sort of service they can provide. Does anyone have any advice on this? The only interaction I've had so far with Social Services wasn't good as we felt like we were being chastised for being too soft and then we were strongly reminded of our responsibilities as parents (I still can't get my head round that one, as surely the parental responsibility to make one's children feel safe over-rides the responsibility to drag the child kicking and screaming into school). I've been so caught up in the legalities of trying to get the right to education implemented, that there is still so much I've been unable to look into.

Any advice appreciated x

Have you heard of
http://www.mindroom.org/ at all? they are very supportive and although based in edinburgh offer support all over the country

I cant remebemer but have you also been in tough with the govan law centre education dept?



can you also put in for an independent adjudication as well as the other stuff you are doing because very quickly after applying I heard that plans are for my DD to have a CSP which was turned down before - guess they ddint want the application to go forward, as well as her place at school being secured!

I am going to write an update as another post

Hi Andrea - apologies but what is CSP ? My son had CBT and it worked wonders, don't get me wrong it didn't get him back to school but gave him so much more confidence. CAMHS in our area didn't do CBT so i arranged it through Anxiety Action and they put me in touch with a local chap ( he also does CBT on the phone but i'm so sure how effective that would be )

Let me know anyway

Sarah xx

Hi Andrea,

I was also going to ask what CSP is?
I had to find someone who did CBT via anxiety association (and specifically worked with children and adolescents) and then got a referral from my doctor to a psychiatrist who also worked with adolescents and does CBT). Here in AUstralia the educational psychologists and those working via CAMHS don't necessarily work with CBT. Whilst it has become more popular - it is not always something all psychologists work with.
I'd check out any via the school first perhaps but would recommend you go through an anxiety association as they are more likely to know who is the best working with adolescents or children.
Linda

Hi all,
There's a good explanation of the co ordinated support plan on the Govan Law Centre website and and an example of forms etc. Again it seems even from England, Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland there are a lot of differences in the plan of care for our children's education.
Take care,
Lindy x

Hi everyone thanks for your replies, it's heartening to know you are all there for advice and we're all in the same boat one way or another - I've had a few days where I couldn't even bear to turn my laptop on because I'm so sick of everything at the moment. We had the meeting re co-ordinated support plan (basically a legally binding document which puts obligations on the people involved and named in it to do their jobs - such as social services, health and education - quite hard to get one as the child has to meet all 4 criteria, which most SR's probably do) on Thursday and it went relatively well. I was most shocked to hear that it takes 6 months from now to get a decision? Or maybe it's 6 months to get it all put in place if the decision is yes. Anyway one good thing to come out of the meeting was that the person chairing the meeting said that our local authority do not provide home tuition - I was delighted to have this said in front of witnesses as the local authority are telling the Scottish Executive that they do provide home tuition in the right circumstances - and basically that I am a liar or some misinformed imbecile) - where is this hime tuition as we've had none even though my son has been absent from school for a year?! Anyway, the person writing the minutes for the meeting has agreed to my request to have that point written in the minutes as obviously it is vital evidence for me to give to the Executive - deadline for that is looming. I am just so sick of fighting and what I found really depressing about the meeting was that these people are supposed to be acting in my son's best interests - if that is the case how can they sit back and do nothing to help us? The school pretend they're 'helping' by offering for the support teacher to meet my son at a different school but she is not qualified to teach and that will not provide him with an education and anyway, how stupid is that - to expect him to go another school when we can't get him out of the house to go to the one he's meant to be attending???? Jezebel, that's really interesting that you got your CSP granted after the decision was no. Maybe I will try the independent adjudication aswell - my next step is to go down the route of chapter 6 of the additional support legislation, which equality and human rights commission have advised as they believe the authority may well be discriminating against my son's disability by failing to make reasonable adjustment to his education by providing home tuition. (And remember, school refusal is a disability because it prevents the child from carrying out normal day-to-day activities such as going to school - we were frightened of the term initially but disability can be temporary, it doesn't have to be a lifelong problem). It's just all so bloody time consuming and frustrating - we're off to enter a national competition tomorrow and the whole experience is marred by this continual battle to have a basic support and educational system put in place for our son.

Oh on a final note, (I keep trying to shorten my posts but they end up epic anyway!) I asked about CBT at the meeting (your positive experiences of that are encouraging) and was told it would be CAMHS that would provide the service - if the service is even provided in our area, if not I'll fight for that too.....