My son was traumatised by being placed in a hospital miles away from his home for 19 months from 2010 to 2012. Getting him discharged to a suitable quiet group care home nearby was difficult. I had help from a solicitor in the process.

CBF helped with safeguarding for Emmanuel as he was attacked in hospital by residents on his ward. Every one of his t-shirts on discharge was ripped down the front. On one hospital visit I was told and saw another resident had badly scratched his chest.

At first, in the home all was okay then the manager changed. I reported safeguarding incidents at the home with no result from application to safeguarding in East Sussex by a parent, no one listened. Then at the first half of the year in 2017 there were 3 reported safeguarding incidents at the home and someone whistle-blew on the manager. She was forcefully pushing my son into a toilet was one incident reported by the whistle-blower.

My son came home for a weekend visit in September 2017 with a huge sore on the back of his neck his care home denied was there. I kept him home for six weeks on my own with an experienced facilitator in autism. This cost of the facilitator was £1,000 a week for the 6 weeks, and we ploughed on keeping him home and safe, getting over the neck problem for him with anti-biotics. The SW wanted my son Emmanuel to leave our home for a temporary unit and her treatment of us was so shocking I asked for safeguarding from the Police who stated my home was considered by them as Emmanuel’s residence. If he was removed by force, undressed and without shoes then contact the officer who interviewed us for safeguarding.

Emmanuel stayed home from October 2017 with 24/7 care agency carers at last. After our six weeks of dedication, day and night care I was shattered. I am a patient with a Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis and this six weeks of care was certainly risky for me. Three months after this first care agency started the SW fired them just as my son was beginning to settle in and be less distressed. A new agency was found and at the same time as this the SW put us into CoP court in Brighton. I was writing the statement for court and contacting a solicitor while settling in my son to a new care team, her unfair advantage in the case.

Big waste of public money in court that just caused a load of stress

I believe her SW court strategy was all part of undermining my care at home and to lose his case as a respondent. The CoP case lasted 3 and a half years which was super stressful and costly. I was told our case ended due to Covid in Spring 2021 as East Sussex had no functioning solicitor to deal with the case.

East Sussex solicitors for CLDT were not even replying until the day before a hearing date and then they cancelled. No clear win just a fudge.

All of the allegations about me as a mother were refuted. The SW had no evidence, and I provided photos as evidence to counter act her statement critiques. Big waste of public money in court that just caused a load of stress, while settling in someone to a home with new carers, who has a severe learning disability and who could self-harm and have behaviours that challenged.

The SW had been the same one for 8 years and was very directive and dominating not understanding our situation well at all.

Her line manager was also very counterproductive to have meetings with. I asked for a transfer from Hastings CLDT to Eastbourne due to feeling discrimination for so many years from Hastings CLDT.

I sent the SW’s many dominating emails to the Director of Social Services East Sussex and at last she was changed. A SW from Eastbourne CLDT had much more understanding and I felt safer. Less stress means less risk to my health.

My son is now 33 living at home and still super anxious. He is housebound and scared to leave the house even to go to our quiet enclosed garden. The type of care he has undergone in the care system has traumatised him. After seven years of a kind team and being at home with us he still appears to be suffering the trauma from hospital and to be a very overanxious individual. Prior to being sectioned to hospital in 2010 he was active, walking, running, kicking footballs, drawing, self-feeding and communicating using a little Makaton.

The care system I believe in the UK from my experience and my son’s is a traumatic one that it causes lifelong damage to our health and welfare.

I have had EMDR sessions, funded by charity, which helps enormously for me, but it is not available to my son as he doesn’t have regular ability speak like I do, to benefit from it. Speech with the EMDR sessions being an essential part of the process.

My understanding is to persevere with patience to help recovery from the Systems Generated Trauma in the UK, experienced by our young adults.

The short and long term impact on the family

The short term on myself as a parent – shock and stress of my son being sectioned having an impact on remitting/relapsing Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. Eyes/ hands / legs attacks that come and later resolve when overwhelmed and stressed. Loss of grip varies when in short term stressful situations.

The long term impact – is PTSD and worsening of Multiple Sclerosis symptoms due to stressful life style. Poor mobility using crutches. Poor balance.

Counselling sessions up to 2023 for EMDR to resolve trauma.

The short term impact on my son – was shock and stress being sectioned to noisy bright lights hospital when he was an autistic 18 year old. I think he suffered grief being separated from friends and family as a young adult and thrust into a nightmare of a transition by CLDT.

The long term impact – loss of communications skills, loss of pencil grip, loss of walking, running, kicking a football, cooking,  interacting with peers.

High anxiety when returned home from abusive care home with a lot of refusals to move and housebound. Does not relate to wanting to go outside appears afraid to leave his mother’s home.  Too frightened to let anyone cut his nails after an accident when a care giver cut his flesh with nail clippers. Hand nails remain uncut since Spring 2017.

What could have been done differently? 

I wish that when I had asked for a Best Interests Meeting, under the MCA in 2010 after three months of seeing a new placement was failing my son.  I wish I had had support during my son’s transition for my voice to be heard by those planning the transition.

I wish a BI meeting had taken place back in 2010 which could have prevented the fast sectioning of him that happened later.

I wish he had been placed nearby to support my contact with him and that visits had not cost £150, covering a long distance (100 miles) to visit him once a week.

I wish the SW for my son had not lied by telling me a BIM was not an option I could ask for.

Being able to support my son was the support I was wishing for.  I wished and wanted to be able to lower my stress levels especially when it was a surprise to me that my son had been sectioned and transferred to Hampshire from East Sussex at only 18 years of age without my prior knowledge.

I wish that EMDR had been experienced  earlier to support me help address PTSD.  Free EMDR came as a result of having breast cancer.

I wish free EMDR sessions had come earlier to support my mental health.

I wish the CoP would support all parents by making applications to this court easier for them. Instead a parent faces a charge of over £3,000 to make an application while a Social Worker pays nothing. This encourages a long wait to resolve an issue for a person with LD at CoP because of waiting for the SW to get into court so you don’t have to pay any application fees.

Why the report on Systems Generated Trauma is so important

‘Systems Generated Trauma’  is important because my son was traumatised being sectioned for 19 months during which time £3,500 a week was spent on his care at a hospital that damaged him as he lost skills. The experience set him so back so far in his life skills that he is still highly anxious 13 years later.

SGT is important because social workers and their line managers have no idea about the trauma they can inflict  on a parent by making decisions that do not include all the family by using a Mental Health Act which only informs the eldest family member. Even though I am the birth mother no one informed me my son was sectioned it came as a terrible shock that I heard he was suddenly in a mental home, where I did not even know for 24 hours.

One SW from CLDT was particularly traumatising because she said her Social Work did not have to follow my son’s hospital psychiatrist’s service specifications for his hospital discharge. My son was discharged to a group care home but it did not meet the psychiatrists advice for a quiet, small and low stimulation environment. After 5 years in this group care home he was miserable, he stopped wanting to go out (as he was prevented at first from joining outings with other residents) and he was kept in a day room that was the size of a cupboard.  He appeared locked into a very unhappy lifestyle until he came home for a weekend and refused to leave our home. It was traumatic work keeping him home and safe with the help of the Police since the care home had recently had 3 safeguardings within a six month period.

Social workers on the case for my son have been unaware of causing trauma and cruel during the sectioning of my son which traumatised us both in 2010.

The CLDT psychologist visited my son 3 times at a care home before he was sectioned to see if she could help with the placement failing him at 18 years. But as he still did not get out of bed and dress on her third visit she never saw him. This type of CLDT psychological support is ridiculous why did she not find a male colleague to support this case or ask a male carer/CLDT nurse to chaperon her? My son is autistic and DS she could have helped advise a transfer to another placement so my son might not have become sectioned.

Ridiculous to have a CLDT psychologist behave like this and add to the family’s trauma.

One piece of advice to public service leaders

Please LISTEN to those of us that use the public services.

Please listen, leaders of public services – there have been campaigns before, since Winterbourne 2010, asking public service leaders to not fund these sectioning and traumatising hospitals that restrain, lock people away and damage them in the process of so called treating them.

There is a type of expensive hospital that simply abuses an autistic person. They are put into an over bright lighted environment as a light sensitive person and then told they are a difficult person/mental case while being blamed for their responses.

LISTEN they are not neurotypical like the other patients because they have a diagnosis of autism that requires professionals to adjust to.

Autistic people might have severe auditory processing but be sent to a noisy hospital with music blaring from the speakers and then labelled as difficult and non co operative to the point of restraint and isolation. My son has a phobia for showers but he was forced to have them in hospital as there were no other facilities considered for washing him. He was restrained to a padded lounger on wheels and pushed under a shower to be washed. I believe this would have terrified him.