Justice for LB. A discussion with myself about the book by Dr. Sara Ryan.

Laughing Boy, real name Connor Sparrowhawk was a young man who was loved and valued by his family. A combination of a learning disability, autism and mental health issues were impacted severely in his teens by seizures. These caused him to be taken into a psychiatric unit for a short assessment period. However, the short period became extended and he was never to leave the unit. He drowned in a bath unattended after a seizure. The book is a painful catalogue of missed opportunities, ineptitude and downright malpractice by a collection of professionals. I intended to write about this book when it was first published in 2017. However the event and the court battle in which Southern Health eventually admitted guilt for the death of Connor was clearly such a huge strain on the family that it didn’t feel right.

The Cabinet ‘reshuffle’ has re-ignited my discontent with the continual and  seemingly deliberate Governmental misrepresentation and neglect of the real issues surrounding people with learning disabilities, physical disabilities and neurological differences.

The first thing that leaps out is that    Connor Sparrowhawks family are extremely highly attaining and intelligent. Dr Sara herself is an academic at Oxford University, (although she does not blow her own trumpet), specialising in learning disabilities. How is it that a whole system can simply steamroller over this family? I’m  not detracting from any less high achieving families but it casts a stark and frightening shadow and doubt that the rights and needs of ANY family  with a vulnerable child will be recognised let alone upheld. It sends the message; the government/the system/certain medical staff have made sure you have no rights and they are able to do as we wish with your child including cause death.

If this seems over dramatic to you, you will need to learn that there are around 3000 families living in isolation from their loved young people in private ‘hospitals’ who seem to be strategically placed as far away from them as possible. Always citing ‘there is no suitable support in the local area’, yet this happens all over the U.K. It just seems disingenuous to me.

Not just this, but the continual insistence of these hospitals in overmedicating detainees without appropriate and peer reviewed effective therapies and blaming the CYP’s distress at being isolated from family and home on ‘mental health problems’ which require further medication, dangerous restraints, trauma to the ‘patient’, trauma and distress to families and a whopping great bill to the taxpayer, syphoned through the NHS into the eager arms of privately hospitals. Interesting to see how many Tory peers have a great interest in the finances of these places by the way.

So mental health is in crisis and families (Connor is not the only victim whose life ended in the care of a ‘psych unit’, there are many more – and more detained for years, even decades.

So when you’re watching Prime Ministers Questions and the are telling you that they have increased spending on the NHS, they are telling a partial truth. What’s they are omitting to tell you  is that the have made vulnerable disabled young people… not to mention the vulnerable, sick elderly –  into a lucrative commodity, and the money they are spending on private,  inappropriate and ineffective care is directly benefiting the likes of Theresa May, Hunt, McVey and their ilk via fat hedge fund accounts and career advancements. And the old chestnut trotted out EVERY time, ‘lesson have been learned’…is sickening in it’s vapidity.

Lessons do need to be learned, indeed. Lesson No. 1 The Government are there to serve the UK population, not the reverse. Lesson No. 2 The misappropriation of public funding is fraud. Lesson No. 3 Lying in court and in Parliament is perjury.  Lesson No. 4. The death by indifference and neglect of vulnerable people detained in ATUs and care homes is manslaughter. Lesson No. 5 When the public become ‘abusive’ towards MPs and other figures of wealth and influence on Twitter/other social media platforms it is becasue they are SICK to the backbone. Sick of being ignored when asking reasonable questions to the powers that be. Sick of folks in positions of power abusing the trust, the rights and the lives of the public. Sick of being at a disadvantage because the powerful have all the legal representation and the poor have none. Sick of continually going to court to fight for inadequate education for a child with multiple needs. Sick of being gaslighted, being lied to, treated with contempt and continually having living standards lowered.

i guess this could be the rumblings of a revolution. I hope it is.

 

 

What is Neurodiversity? Does it Exclude People with Severe Disabilities?

Neurodivergent Rebel

Neurodiversity – the idea that neurological differences (Autism,  Tourette Syndrome, ADHD, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, and others) are natural variations in the evolution of the human genome.

Neurodivergent people have brought many great things society.  Attempting to “cure” future disability by preventing neurodiverse people from being born would be tremendously harmful to humanity.

Opponents of neurodiversity argue that neurodiversity conveniently ignores people on the spectrum who need extra help and cannot live on their own or are more severely handicapped by their neurological differences.

First off, many of us aren’t high-functioning enough to benefit from depathologizing autism. The neurodiversity movement doesn’t have much to say about lower-functioning autistics, who are decidedly less inspirational.

– Gwendolyn Kansen – Pacific Standard

I want to clarify here why Neurodiversity does NOT ignore or exclude anyone.

What about people who are severely affected? How can that be a natural variation?

Thing’s aren’t that simple and I feel a…

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A Quick Note About “Autism Martyr Parents”

Neurodivergent Rebel

Some comments on “autism martyr parents” / why we need to stand up to big media companies & tell them this type of content is unacceptable. Meanwhile autistic  people’s voices are almost never heard over the non-autistics speaking over us.

You can find them in “Autism Mommy Facebook Groups”, blog pages, and even writing books about how their “lives are heavily burdened by their autistic children”. You may have encountered them and not even know it. What is an autism martyr parent?

Autism Martyr Parent – Typically a parent who is convinced autism is something that needs to be removed from their child. They may, incorrectly, believe that underneath their “broken autistic child” lies a “trapped normal child”. Their main mission is often “curing the child of their autism” or making their child appear “less autistic” and “more normal”.

One key feature of an AMP (Autism Martyr Parent

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You Can’t Be Autistic Because. . . You’re an Adult

Neurodivergent Rebel

I’m taking on popular #autism myths in my new video series “You Can’t Be Autistic Because. . . ”

Late onset autism? NOT the same as late diagnosis. Let’s unpack the confusion around autism in adulthood.

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A Modern Holocaust

Hello, I want to thank you all for reading this. This type of detention has become the scourge of the Western World.

Seeing this petition has linked up with numerous other issues and discoveries about the widespread abuse, neglect and complete denial of basic human rights for people who are sectioned under the mental health act. There are many who have been cruelly lost in the system and died as a result of poor practices. Please sign and share;

https://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/798/440/513/release-my-grandayghter-from-detention-in-cygnet-private-hospital/

Vulnerable people in psychiatric need hope, support and reasoned, effective, consensual treatment. What they don’t need is to be jumped on by 7 people and forcibly injected. What they don’t need is isolation from loved ones. And what they don’t need is truckloads of medication, all with side effects and counter productive damage.

Quite apart from the flouting of human rights, lack of transparency and lack of evidence that dangerous restraints and truckloads of toxic medication are effective in improving the mental health of anyone – let alone a traumatised and distressed person, the disturbing fact emerges… The amount of money these brutal confinements are costing the costing the UK taxpayer. There are around 3,500 young people confined for long periods of time, without a care plan to reintegrate into society. It’s not uncommon to see figures of £12.5k PER WEEK, PER PATIENT.

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. And yet the government are willing to tell us that the biggest drain on the NHS are people who don’t pay for prescriptions. ‘Disingenuous’ is the most polite word I can think of.

What also emerges is that there are numerous survivors now daring to speak after horrendous long term stays, a decade here, 18 years there – who were gagged by courts, intimidated, isolated and generally told to shut up (or else). Reviews of these units not published online if they are negative.. Contact with relatives and friends blocked and multiple professionals doing their bit to ensure the ‘patient’ stays put with no apparent regard for their general wellbeing. Because confining people to a miserable existence is not therapeutic. In fact it’s uncomfortably close to resembling Nazi treatment of citizens in Europe, but with central heating and more food.

But that’s ok by Jeremy Hunt because private hospitals are becoming extremely rich in the process, and you can bet your dodgy bottom dollar that there is also a politician or three enjoying a few perks off the backs of the weak and vulnerable – and of course, the humble taxpayer.

So, let’s take an example…say £12.5k per week for one patient. The individual is detained for 8 years…that’s £650,000 per year per patient. Multiply by 3500 (roughly the number of people in long term psychiatric detention), we have an eye watering £2275000000 – PER YEAR. Times by 8 years…£1.83 to the power of 10. That’s a lot of public money.

Where minimal medications and simple therapy would work much more effectively and be much cheaper. In addition, the money saved from this abomination would be  really helpful in the community, providing sheltered housing and support, training and therapy close to family and friends. This is a big opportunity for a back to basics,  supportive informed community, where there is care and employment available. With the savings that could be made, carers could actually earn enough to eat and pay bills! Which would be a knock on relief to the benefits system. And less need for food banks..less loneliness and isolation. Less homelessness. It’s a no brainer, don’t you think?

But that wouldn’t do would it? Because profiteers wouldn’t have private healthcare, champagne, a chauffeur, a country lodge etc. And the poor wouldn’t be so vulnerable and oppressed. Can’t have free thinkers flourishing and improving society can we?

Let’s now have a look at the people who are in these units. I commonly hear of autistic young people with learning difficulties being sectioned due to challenging behaviour. The absolute worst thing you can do to that young person is imprison them and force your will upon them. There is absolutely no understanding of their needs. It suits the indifferent public to believe that the units are full of dangerous psycopathic animals, ready to pounce and attack at any moment. Such a very lazy and propoganda-ist view.

Trauma is another hugely misdiagnosed and mistreated condition.  SSRI medication and EMDR or CBT would in many cases be sufficient to make a measurable improvement for a supported individual in the community. All these units are doing is piling on more and more trauma, more and more misery to the detainees and their families. Let’s face it, you don’t end up in a psych unit by good luck.

i can’t understand the thought process of anyone who believes that if a patient is not responding to treatment, you just make the treatment more toxic and for longer. To whom does this make any sense? Apart from an accountant of course.

In my next post, I will be taking a look at some facts and figures, just in case somebody thinks I’m exaggerating. I assure you, I’m not.

Want ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ as your ringtone? Here you go

Source: Want ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ as your ringtone? Here you go

Are you being Obtuse?

One of my favourite movie moments is in. the Shawshank Resemption, where Tom Robbins is being manipulated by the prison governor who has clicked on to Tim as a tool for money laundering. During an exchange between the two, the fact that Tim is being used begins to dawn on him, who has been wrongfully framed for his cheating wife’s murder.

‘Are you being obtuse?, he asks incredulously.

That was a crystal clear moment for realisation that there would be no point in pursuing a meaningful dialogue or to expect fair and just treatment. I know that you have to walk in our shoes to see this parallel situation between the ‘Govenor’ (Government) and Neuro divergent families.

However, the time must come to meet this travesty of a UK human rights concept head on.

As we saw on BBC One Question Time 10.45pm this week, our dear friend Janet Willicott seized an opportunity to ask, ‘Why is the myth that no money is available for SEN, for schools and for mental health still being wheeled out on a daily basis? When there is clearly a great amount of money being poured into the pockets of lawyers to fight and criminalise parents asking for equality in educational /social opportunities.

Not just that, but last week Tory MP Penny Mordaunt endorsed the idea that neuro divergent people are probably better off in institutions AND THAT THIS IS A CHEAPER OPTION! An outrageous and disengenious claim. Probably suits the toffs in Bucks and Wiltshire who feel their weekly shopping trip in Waitrose is marred by the sight of anyone not matching their Grade A M&S tomato, (and I know they swallow that utter tosh hook line and sinker.)

So let’s break the figures down a little..

An elderly person in a nursing home costs not less than £600 p.w and in many cases considerably more depending where you live. Staff are overworked, under paid and under trained.  Government funds a large chunk of this and publicly funded cash goes to private owners of nursing homes. The gap between what is gained by fees and what staff are paid is never explained.

Then we move on to young people sectioned and detained for long periods in ATU’s. The costs for these placements are not less thank £6k PER WEEK… again, often funded by public money, straight into the pockets of privately owned ‘care’ establishments (aka institutions) and so called ‘charities’.

Again, staff are under trained and under paid. And medical cosh is much cheaper than actual therapy.

So the figures don’t add up.

It is no secret that this government have a long held policy to kick out anyone not performing well enough to be a fat contributor and gatekeeper for government financial shenanigans. But I’m afraid we can’t accept the waffling answers of politicians to perfectly clear questions any more.

Why is the myth that no money is available for SEN, for schools and for mental health still being wheeled out on a daily basis?

The answer to this is not ‘Brexit’ and it isn’t, ‘we don’t have a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow’, Mrs May.

You have plenty of taxpayers dosh and are chronically misusing it. I believe that’s known as fraud. Minor details …

If you wish, you can view real life people experiencing these injustices in videos on Facebook. Please do check them out.

https://m.facebook.com/KwadePage/

And also Twitter, KWADE@kwadepage

SEN Discrimination

 

Today I’ve heard the ‘shocking’ news that Philip Hammond MP (the man with the cash) has stated in a public meeting (see pic) that LAs do not follow SEN policy and law because they have to make difficult decisions with their budgets.

Ok, let’s analyse this for a second. In March, Mr Hammond told us that he was going to support gifted children with free transtport to specialist schools and give them extra tuition. Whilst also cutting school transport and support for SEN children and refusing to ringfence SEN budgets. http://www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/news/15145238.Trafford_MP_slams_Budget_spending_on_free_schools/

Not just that, but renewing the vigour in which LA’s target, threaten, intimidate and bully parents asking for support for SEN children. This type of victimisation doesn’t come for free. It’s paid for by public taxes, and it isn’t cheap. I know a wonderful parent who has had her Borough stack up  well over £200,000 in legal fees to deny her son the education he can access and to silence her. And she is by far from being the only one targeted.

I also see evidence of whistleblowers being told to destroy evidence of discrimination and poor practice against children with SEN in schools and actually being bribed by judges to sign gagging orders…(I don’t know where God is at this point but he definitely isn’t sitting on anyone’s right side in a court of law)

So what gives?

It is no accident that the Government have long attempted to conceal their dynamic here. According to ministers, they have commissioned squillions of (expensive) studies for SEN parents to contribute to. This kills two birds with one stone – it keeps these dratted annoying families quiet for a bit and helps higher education establishments with work, funding and kudos. Oh and you can manipulate the figures at the end to make it say what you want it to eg. The System is Working for Most People… when it clearly is not.

Another outcome from these shenanigans is the division created amongst the SEN community.

We have the ‘High End’ charities which do great works and keep the government happy with glossy press releases and testimonials eg The NAS and others.

Then we have the ‘Cinderella’ advocates who I admire very much – they are not funded, the are not glorified and they are #actuallyautistic. They do the grass roots nasty stuff that no one wants to admit happens, like the abuse of autistic children with bleach enemas and so on. They are not looking for popularity, or money and they aren’t sugar coating the bitter pill.

This is the kind of advocacy needed – the autistic voice loud and clear, nothing about us without us.

Unhappily, what I see developing is an exclusive group which assumes that NT people all have no understanding or good intent and reject input from anyone but their own …. understandably they feel wounded, having been not listened to for so long. But this has a WW2 effect – parents of SEN children, autistic or not, diagnosed or not, are like Poland in between Germany and Russia. If Russia weren’t out to get you, Germans would. In numerous cases you were hit by both. Such is the case with parents between pressure and discrimination from government, and rejection by campaign groups who feel they don’t want input from anyone they don’t know or trust. It’s a sad scene to watch for me. But the Government are bloody loving it – we are like rats running around in a maze, not knowing where to turn for the best.

So what are the Government to gain by pulling away from the duties of care for he vulnerable? It means they can spend money any watch they want, with no accountibility and with increased power to wield across the financial world. It also means that ‘If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in’, ie. You will be safe and relatively secure if you fit in the prescribed government box and do and do as you’re told. Free thinkers not welcome here.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed by other nations that the UK Gov has regressed in its attitude towards human rights; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/uk-global-childrens-rights-rankings-plummets-child-unicef-a7734426.html

In addition, is no accident that over the past decade there has been a culture of contempt sewn and  fostered by political narrative. Insidious campaigns and rhetoric against the jobless, the vulnerable, the disabled, the neuro divergent, ‘foreigners’. The gullible but comfortably off have digested this narrative with gusto and it has confirmed their views that those less well off than them deserve to be dumped in the gutter – after all, they’ve worked very hard for what they have, haven’t they?

Then there are the other classes who graft and have come from generations of tribal British, who have long believed in the myth of what they think St George represents and that we are an Island Race who are perfectly ok to go and plunder the rest of the world but those who were plundered can go back to their own country if they don’t like being abused by ignorant Brits. These two groups form a sizeable chunk of the voting population and the government is keen to exploit the unrest around ‘austerity’ and immigration, by turning people against each other, with the offer of being lead by a ‘Strong and Stable government’, the antidote to all the ills society (but not government, perish the thought) has created.

So here we are, couldn’t be more divided at a time when we are the most vulnerable and the most in need of unity.

One final note: Only united public opinion and refusal to tolerate being manipulated in this way can reverse this tragic state of affairs. That means coming together and stopping the personal power and ego agendas, the division, the bickering, and the career agendas. Simples.

 

Stitched Up

Yesterday sure was a challenge. I’m trying to figure out how and why the social care system and the education system has become so deeply flawed and inherently damaging.

So yesterday, I had very distressed friends with me.  They are adopters of  children with varying challenges. They are a socially conscious and kind, caring couple who provide the best for their children.

They are legally entitled to adoption support, and are lead to believe that the state thinks All Children Matter, that they have a level base of various rights and responsibilities to their family and the future of their children.

However, like many more of us, they received no automatic support and when the pursued said support, they were met with obstacles.

Having met these obstacles, they persevered, thinking that they were right to do so and that the support would promote the best outcomes for their children.

Sound familiar?

Tbey did get  support – assessments, reports, an adoption social worker, some medical help. But all along there were hiccups, lack of genuine intentions by social care, and an uneasy feeling that they were getting nowhere.

They lost a good deal of their support because of some allegations from a third party.

A SAR was issued, and (I could have written this myself as it is so predictable) hocus pocus – a long running indication has been revealed that this couple are being suspected – or stitched up – as parents committing Fabricated and Induced Illnesses.

This couple are having therapeutic reports used against them which they fought for – as support for the children. Now used as a weapon against them.

Insidiously worded notes and comments throughout… parents quoted out of context etc etc.

Parent thought to be obsessed with accessing diagnoses.

But the diagnoses the children do have are not being supported. The support they are asking for is legally available to them. In policy and documentation, they are clearly told that they are eligible for the support and therefore they have applied for it.

So because they have applied for support they are eligible for, they are under suspicion. For adopting vulnerable children who have challenges, they are now labelled attention seekers. The children are vulnerable, for by asking for legally entitled support, the air is heavy with the threat of removal from yet another home.

Oh but attachment issues are not recognised for support of children – only for criminalisation and exploitation of families asking for Support They Are Legally Entitled To.

And how are we to know that the biological parents would have been perfectly fine had they had support that THEY were legally entitled to ? But attachment disorder is only caused by wicked, neglectful  parents of course and NEVER by social workers ripping kids out of homes arbitrarily to finance cash rich agencies dealing with the fostering and adoption of children… no, never.

This can not be ignored any longer. This culture of threat and intimidation is causing major emotional stress, fear, insecure attachment, mental health problems and it is smashing families up resulting in long term trauma to these children that supposedly matter.

The hypocrisy is blatant. As are these strategies used over and over again with adoptive and SEN families, and especially those unfortunate enough to be prey to the Family Courts.

This isn’t social care. It’s human trafficking, right here in our society.

My Commitment as a Novelist

Source: My Commitment as a Novelist