ADASS East - Alice talks about her frustrations of trying to get support for her son to move out of the family home

OK, um, and my my son is 20 now, I remember, uh, self referred to the social care service, uh, Children's services when he was pretty young when he was first diagnosed. Because I was at the end of my tater. I was really depressed. I didn't know how to to move on

And you know what? Nothing came out of it all they wanted to do because my now this is so long ago. But anyway, sorry. My, my I'm going to talk very fragmented

The fact that, um, nothing came out of the assessment Children assessment. They weren't going to get any help for him. And I sort of carry on just with my husband, husband and I, and that's it

Now this is going back again. Um, 10 was Was it 10 years ago? No. No, five, probably five or six years ago

I have requested for another assessment for to get some sort of direct payment. You know, this is over a period of time. I learn about what he can get for help, and I must say, yes, it's true

My husband works and we're quite comfortable, but I I I didn't know much about it. I thought, Oh, maybe the fact that he wasn't assessing any help, I could use the direct payment to use it to help him, because he's very limited with what he likes to do. He only like to be on his own and do very limited things

He finds social interaction very difficult, social outing very difficult. So I thought I could sort of apply for that. And that didn't go through

Fair enough, carry on and the latest. Now he's 20. That was like, uh, 1 18 months ago, before the pandemic, I again self refer his looking for transition, looking for house and looking for him getting being independent

We have no support, only husband and I, as I say, we have no immediate family as well with extended family to help us out, I thought, Hm, maybe they can give me some sort of help and support, get him a mentor and slowly because I'm admitting I'm I'm failing. I do not know how to get him to be independent. He has got such a demand avoidance trade that is so difficult for us to get him to do anything

And I agree, I I don't know what else I can do. So I again asked for help. And despite that, I have to push and push

I have to get in touch with carers at heart to help me to push for this assessment. And you know what? I managed to get the assessment with the help of carers at heart. And you know what again? Nothing came out of it because our family are not in crisis, I suppose

I do understand there are many family worse off than us that they needed a lot of crisis help. I do understand. But I don't want him to to be in a situation where you know, he only going to be plucked out of my home and dumped into somewhere else in crisis

I want a gentler transition to help him to move out of my house. And again, I must say, nothing came out of it. I am massively, massively disappointed with social care service

That's all I could say. Very short. Thank you

Thanks. Alice. Alice, can I ask you a question? What would you What would you have hoped from social care for the time being? I want him to I want As I said, I want them to get a personal mentor to help him, to get him to be independent

I I'm struggling with that because he knows how to play us out. We are leaving just the three of us round and round and round and and that that that that's our difficulty. We have tried so desperately

Maybe we haven't tried hard that that's why I'm looking for help and I don't know this. As I said this, we are not in crisis, you know he's comfortable. He living with us

He knows he's comfortable. He knows we were there to support and help him. But he is coming up to be well, he just celebrated his birthday

He needs to slowly get independent, and even with that, I have to get I said Look, he need to be in a supervised accommodation. Then again, maybe not. I don't know, I really do not know

So I I have tried to explore many ways. I even got him to into social housing. I managed it to apply for him

They have accepted him, but again, that's another problem is he's not ready to move out on what am I going to do and the social service say, Look, as long as he's living with us, he's not going to get any help. This is what the 0 to 25 care team is telling me the moment that he is moving out. They might get him some help, so that is my situation at the moment

So there you go, plodding on, plodding on. I'm fed up. I don't know what else to do

Sounds really tough. No, I I don't know whether it's tough. I'm just frustrated

I mean, as I say, we are not in crisis, but I just want some sort of help. I just want them to come and get him a mentor to take him away from me. Just just just just, you know, just not ask all the time to to to take him out to do things with him

He's 20. Oh, my goodness, I I don't know. I don't know

That's why I'm trying to, uh, figure things out as well. Mhm.