24 Nov 08 Taking the piss
I make no apologies for the title of this post. The service provider really is going too far now, and has got me jumping through quite a number of hoops just to be able to meet my friend!
Regular subscribers will remember the saga back in April & May of this year, when I was directly ordered to not meet my then 15-year-old friend in town for the purpose of helping her revise. Needless to say, the service provider hasn’t particularly changed its stance much, and is following its usual ethos of ‘check everything to the nth degree, and then go back and check it all again’ before even considering anything. It’s hardly any wonder why I believe progress to be so slow…
Back in August, my friend had her sweet 16th. Ok, maybe not-so-sweet, but you get the idea! With me helping her revise for her GCSE exams, she was in Year 11 at school. Which meant that she must have been born between 01/09/1991 and 31/08/1992. To further back this up, she’s been constantly talking about her sixth-form subjects!
So, 3 days after that day, I was in my manager’s office, asking him to risk assess me to meet my friend. My manager is a genuine bloke, and although he feels he cannot advocate for me with this issue, he does pass on my requests to the senior management team, and returns their replies promptly. And what response did I get? It certainly wasn’t an “off you go, stick within the city centre risk assesment” type response I was hoping for.
I got a “could you ask your friend to show us some photographic ID with her date of birth on it please” response. My immediate thought was to tell my manager where I might well plan to stick her photographic ID if I get it! However, I then had to simply ask how I was supposed to obtain said ID without meeting her to borrow it from her, bearing in mind that she still couldn’t be allowed with the halls. I was told to ask her to post it! Charming…
Well, I came up with a novel idea this month, having not managed to be able to get my friend to be able to photocopy something suitable and post it to me. She has kindly photographed her bus pass using her phone, and pictured messaged it to me. I’ve then saved the picture, copied it to my computer and put it on a USB pen drive. Then I went to see my manager, and I put it onto his computer, and he will take it to senior management.
I miss my friend, and she keeps telling me she still has a hand-made thank-you card from when I helped her revise. I was meant to get it when I saw her for her birthday party, but I never ended up going to that. Her birthday fell right in the middle of the first aid duty I was doing all weekend, and I ended up so busy and distracted that it was the next day when I eventually remembered to call her and wish a happy birthday!
Anyway, I’m now just waiting for senior management to get back to me with the latest set of hoops to jump through!
Tags: Best Interests, coping, Friends, honesty, independence, Risk Assessment, Service Provider
12 Aug 08 Remembering what’s important
In the last four weeks, I feel like my life has been turned upside down. I don’t know why it turned upside down, it just did. And what confuses me the most is that I was effectively on holiday when everything happened at once.
I was as far removed from ‘the loop’ as professionals could reasonably keep me. It wasn’t just me; my Mum also was not sure what was going on. In some cases, even my Overseeing Manager at the service provider was not informed of things that affected my care.
I’ll briefly explain a timescale. From 15th July to 25th July I was still at the service provider, although (for all intents and purposes) was on holiday from the college. I returned to my Mum’s house on 25th July, and stayed until the morning of the 27th when I travelled independently to my Gran’s house in Southampton. I returned home on the train on Monday 11th August, and have been at my Mum’s since.
The first I knew something had been going on was when my manager called me into his office on Monday 21st July, and was explaining that “to keep me out of trouble and to protect me” he was suspending all of my community risk assessments until I left the Sunderland area on Friday. But I wasn’t suspicious, his reasons seemed acceptable to me at the time, and I had no reason to suspect that anything else was taking place. I should have noticed later in the week when another manager queried me on an aspect of it, but I dismissed it as a usual lack of communication. It should have been blindingly obvious on the Friday when my manager explained that one of my Psychiatrists wanted to speak to my Mum at home.
As it was, I simply took it as routine, and went about my journey home. I wasn’t expecting the phone call from my Mum on Saturday asking me to be home for 4.30pm because the Psychiatrist needed to “urgently see me at home”. I duly returned, and settled down for the meeting. At this point both my Mum and I discover that “there has been some meetings this week about Matt’s plans for the holidays and potential risks”, not that we get to know the content of them.
And then he said something which made me react aggressively, “[the service provider] has had to make a ‘public interest disclosure’ to [a local] social services child protection team about Matt’s interaction with and behaviours toward [my 15 year old female friend]“. I could not believe what I had heard. Not half because the service provider has no primary evidence of my interaction with my friend. I will admit to getting very aggressive, and in part that was due to a trust breakdown between me and the service provider. At present, I’m not letting on how I feel to them, but I’m there next week, and I intend to confront them with it.
I then went away for two weeks, having been reassured that both my Mum and I would be kept informed of the goings-on as they happened. So how did it happen that my Manager was ringing me at 2.35pm on my train journey home, asking why I hadn’t attended a 1.30pm appointment at my house? Simple, nobody had checked my diary, nobody had copied my Mum or my Manager into the relevant letter, and nobody had rang me to tell me about it. The particular department in question had cheek to “be annoyed that nobody was at home when they called”, considering they hadn’t checked that the relevant people (me!) had been notified!
After a discussion that night, both my Mum and I agreed on something, that it appeared a lot had been going on with regard to my care, but for some unbeknown-to-us reason we were no longer felt to be ‘in the loop’.
28 Apr 08 Absolutely ridiculous
Further to my predictions about meeting my friend to help her revise, I was still completely stunned at the response the service provider had for me. Like I said, I wasn’t going to tell them before I met her, because they would say no. I am, however, an honest person, and therefore I decided to tell my manager what I’d done. He was disappointed that I hadn’t told him what I was doing beforehand. Furthermore, this was to be the subject of an MDT meeting, and he felt unable to advocate for me.
Being a fair and reasonable bloke, he ensured that I would be given the opportunity to attend this meeting and voice my own opinions and arguments. Naturally, when senior staff get together, my opinion is considered irrelevant, although it is normally listened to. This time, I was called into the meeting to be told that they had made some decisions. Before I’d even sat down, I was already extremely angry with my manager, the deputy principal, the college manager and the psychologist.
They told me that they could not support me meeting my friend in town because she was only 15. I interrupted, saying that I’d known her for 3 years, we get on well, she is comfortable with everything, and that I am aware of what I’m doing. I tried asking if she could come to the hall of residence, and I could see her in a communal area with staff present. Or not, as the management pointed out the obvious child protection implications of having a 15 year old female unknown to the service in the presence of a male support worker in their building.
So, to deter me from meeting her in town, they then went on to point out the legal implications. What if she accused me of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or even rape? Because, as they pointed out, raping a 15 year old would make me a paedophile. That, and being on the sex offenders register would mean I couldn’t follow my career ambition of being a doctor (doesn’t this sound so familiar?). Then they went on to ask if her mother knew she had met me, and how old I was.
I was infuriated, because I do not wish to have sexual relations with my friend. I want to help her through her exams, and spend time with her. As far as I am concerned, I’m doing what most teenage friends are doing right now – helping each other revise for upcoming exams and spending time with each other.
Basically, the only reason they have as to why I can’t be allowed to meet her is that she is a 15 year old female. That, to me, is not a reason in itself.
And do you think it will stop me – no!
Tags: education, Friends, honesty, Service Provider
10 Apr 08 Equal Opportunities
I used to wonder quite often why I always appeared to be short of money. At present, my bank balance is higher in negative figures than it has been in positive for quite some time. And I’ll admit, some of this is due to my £40.00 per lesson driving habit!
The rest of my lack of fortune is due to one thing and one thing alone: being in the pre-application period for universities. That means I’m a year 12 equivalent student, aiming to enter university for higher education in 2009. You may wonder how that can cost money, its not like I have to buy any books or course materials, or even travel to an interview.
It’s really easy to see mounting costs – Open Days for me are in June/July 2008, and that means I need to travel to them (via train; £200.00 approx) and stay overnight (hotels; £300.00 approx.) because they are far away from where I live. I know I’m making it easier for myself by basing myself at my Gran’s house, which is closer to the 7 universities that I’m considering; I don’t wish to imagine the extra cost if I were based in Sunderland instead! Of course, I have yet to add on the costs of food (breakfast, lunch, evening meal, snacks – for 7 days away from either Halls or my Gran’s; £150.00 approx.), and transport around the university campus & local city (bus or taxi; £50.00 approx.). Then add another £50.00 emergency fund in case anything goes wrong, or I’ve under-budgeted. Total cost to visit 7 universities, spending 7 days / 6 nights away = £750.00, not bad.
Let us not forget test fees. Test fees specific to applying to study medicine at university; specifically the UKCAT at £60.00 and the BMAT at £31.00, charming. I’m sure I remember seeing a lot about how not being well off financially should not be a barrier to studying medicine, or indeed any degree, but my impression is that needing £91.00 just to do the exams needed to apply is that you need to have some finances built up.
I don’t look forward to my application year, having to go to interviews, buy a good quality suit, and attend visit days, and so on.
