I am the mother of a severely autistic 28-year-old man with epilepsy and complex needs. My son was abused under ESCC care for many years. After many years of trying to look after my son together with my mother and with every request for help rejected, she fell looking after him with an injury that eventually led to her early death. With the full support of social services, a foster mother abused my son with horrendous over medication (polypharmacy), forced use of enemas (after an unsupervised visit to a bowel surgeon) nightly for over 5 years, advocated and used a medication to trigger epilepsy (Escitalopram). He now has a life-limiting condition, requiring 24/7 eyes-on care. I nearly lost my bowel due to stress-linked IBD.
My mother, who helped me raise my son, suffered a serious hip fracture at 62, which led to an earlier expected death as a sarcoma related to injury developed at the site of the break. She was trying to look after a boy with challenging behaviour, when social services failed to offer me and my family any support at all. My son suffered serious abuse at the hands of a foster mother with polypharmacy, unnecessary use of phosphate enemas every night and the development of epileptic seizures after she promoted the use of a ‘mood stabiliser’ when he was under the age of 16. She was supported by social services at every opportunity in her request for drugs as evidenced in the local authority notes. He now has a life threatening lifelong condition to add to his severe autism.
What could have been done differently
ESCC should have listened to me in terms of my initial request for support for my son who has very complex needs. They should have listened to my serious concerns about the foster mother they placed my son with before he suffered irrevocable harm. The Transitions team recognised the issues with the foster mother eventually, but the damage was done. ESCC should not have promised to move my son from a poor and eventually dangerous out of county placement, if they had no intention of sticking to their promises. I would never have agreed the emergency move had I known they would act so duplicitously. ESCC had many opportunities to support contact between my son and his family as my son’s grandmother was dying in hospital. They failed and the Ombudsman found against them.
Advice to public service leaders
Listen to parents and do not fight them over every request. It would be nice if local authority social workers and managers were forced to read Luke Clements’ book Clustered Injustice and the Level Green. They need to understand the impact of their parent carer blame.
Why Cerebra’s Systems Generated Trauma report is so important
It is vital that local authorities and statutory services start to understand the impact of their appalling decisions and behaviour. My son now has unstable epilepsy for the rest of his life. It may kill him eventually as he has drop seizures. This is directly attributable to their decision to place him with a dangerous foster family rather than accept the parental choice of weekly boarding in a special school. My mother died as a consequence of trying to help me care for my severely disabled son and they didn’t even have the decency to support a final meeting between my son and his grandmother. Shameful. The trauma for me and my family is indelible.
