By Mencap
My son was born with a genetic disorder and was very poorly for the first ten years of his life. He attended a special educational needs school from the age of two until when he was 16, where they helped him with his mobility and health.
But after he left that school, his anxieties hit the roof. He couldn’t manage the
transition
Transition means changing from one thing to another. Transition sometimes means things like when you change from having children's social care to adult social care.
to college, and was immediately put on antipsychotic medication. Despite that, he ended up leaving college after 18 months.
There was no support for him, or for the rest of our family. Then at the age of 17, he was sectioned and diagnosed with
autism
Autism is a disability. Autistic people find it difficult to understand what other people think and feel. They also find it difficult to tell people what they think and feel. Everyone with autism is different.
and ADHD.
He stayed for 10 months in an
assessment
An assessment is a way of finding out what help a person needs. When you have an assessment, you might have to go to a meeting or fill in a form.
and treatment unit and was discharged to a provider that supported him out in the
community
A community is the people and places in an area.
in a
supported living
Supported living is when you live in your own home with support from staff. People who live in supported living have a tenancy agreement.
flat. That lasted six weeks before the provider quit – as many do because there’s such a lack of support from the local authority.
My son returned to the family home but in 2020 he was sectioned again, and this time he was sent to a forensic medium secure unit. A forensic unit is one that works with people who are in the criminal justice system, but my son has no convictions against him. So why is he being detained in a forensic unit with offenders under section 3 of the Mental Health Act?
We travel every fortnight to visit him in the inpatient unit at the hospital. It’s so far away, it’s a five-hour journey to get there. And for all that travel, we are allowed just one hour with him, which is supervised by staff.
He is still there, and the local authority are delaying a community package so he can finally move out. They say the hospital he is in at the moment is “very unique” and “much better for him.” But we disagree.
We are not
involved
Involved is being included in something or taking part in something.
in his care or included in any ward rounds or meetings to help move him towards being free. We have just appointed a
human rights
Human
rights
Rights are the things everyone should be allowed to do like have a say, or go to school.
are the rights that everyone has. These include the right to go to school and the right to start a family.
solicitor and are getting legal help from Mencap to get our son out, but as a family we are broken. We have to deal with the trauma and depression that comes from only being allowed to speak to our son for 10 minutes twice a day, and knowing he’s hundreds of miles from home.
The time it takes to travel there and back to see my son is 5 hours. We would like a video call each week so we can see each other, but this has been denied due to a blanket restriction across the entire hospital.