5 more ways to challenge parental blame within autism provision.
Campaign to Challenge Blame 2024
Hello once more and welcome to December’s edition of ‘Campaign to Challenge Blame 2024’.
Thank you to all the new subscribers who have joined following the release of November’s edition. As a short recap, this newsletter is specifically focused upon the use of parental blame within autism services and provision - I use this space to share and signpost to research projects, articles and projects that I feel provide useful challenge to the practice of parental blame. Occasionally I share my own lived experience as an autistic lone mother to autistic young people, and also share any relevant updates relating to my own work (as an author, writer and campaigner).
December’s issue signposts to five items of interest:
Academic article - ‘I’m sick of being the problem’: Autistic mothers’ experiences of interacting with schools for their autistic children.
This article presents findings of research that sought the views and experiences of autistic parents’ interactions with schools for their autistic children. Authors point to how:
“Autistic mothers repeatedly expressed feeling like they were in a ‘war zone’, fighting ongoing battles to gain the necessary support for their autistic child and were ‘sick of being [viewed as] the problem’. They also felt that their expertise as parents – and experiential expertise as autistic parents was often overlooked or ignored. All of this had negative effects on their and their children’s mental health.”
To access the full article, click on the citation below:
Research Project, Final Report - WM Adass Autism and Parental Blame Project – Blamed Instead of Helped.
Key findings from the project include:
* Autism is widely misunderstood by professionals.
* Accusations of blame result in trauma, long term damage.
* Autistic parents may be at higher risk of parental blame.
* Parents of autistic children have a high level of mistrust in services and professionals.
* Parents of autistic children may be at higher risk of child protection proceedings.
* Parental knowledge is not recognised or valued.
* Current support offered to parents is often unhelpful and sometimes reported as doing more harm than good.
This is now the third study (that I am aware of) to replicate extremely similar findings.
You can access the full report by clicking on the link below:
…WM Adass Autism and Parental Blame Project – Blamed Instead of Helped…
Book - Improving Mental Health Therapies for Autistic Children and Young People: Promoting Self-agency, Curiosity and Collaboration.
For any parent who has witnessed their autistic child struggle to access CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service) support, this book may be worth a read. Engaging with talking therapies can be particularly difficult for autistic people because they are typically not designed for us in mind - (verbal communication with a virtual stranger in a clinical setting can present and create additional anxiety for autistic people for a wide variety of reasons). Further, when a child or young person ‘fails to engage’ with mental health services, blaming narratives may be used rather than service provision identifying why and how therapies are inaccessible for autistic people.
I am pleased to read that this book brings together contributions from both autistic and non-autistic experts:
“This unique, collaborative book, featuring contributions from autistic and non-autistic experts, presents cutting-edge thinking on mental health and service transformation in relation to autistic children and young people (CYP) and their families.
Investigating how to implement collaborative approaches to supporting autistic CYP's mental health, this book considers ways for professionals to share power and co-design models of support, promoting self-agency and supportive environments for autistic acceptance and wellbeing. Each chapter includes reflections and vignettes from autistic CYP and allies, key questions and thinking points for readers to consider. The book also includes a link for an e-library with multimedia material with the top take aways for clinicians such as animations, flyers and recorded interviews.
The book will be of immense interest to individuals working with autistic CYP and their families in mental health at any level.”
Details of the book can be found here:
Legal interest in FII (Fabricated and / or Induced Illness).
The following legal team - Daniel Cooper | Solicitor | IKP Solicitors - are seeking to speak with families who wish to challenge allegations of FII made against them. They are particularly keen to speak with autistic parents, and / or families with autistic or neurodivergent children.
UK Commission - The Children and Families Truth Commission (CFTC)
Many thanks to a subscriber for forwarding this information on to me.
The CFTC is a parent-led, human rights focused investigation of child protection in the UK. Their focus will be to investigate whether public bodies (Local Authorities / Police / Healthcare) have breached human rights legislation whilst conducting child protection matters.
The CFTC launched its first report via the House of Lords (UK) - ‘Eroding the right to family life: Human rights violations in Britain’s child protection systems’. This report contains findings of two surveys exploring families’ experiences of children’s social care.
Findings that are particularly pertinent for autistic families are:
67% of respondent families said that their mental health was used as evidence to say they were unable to care for their child. (Note, I am not conflating autism with mental health needs. There is a connection between autistic families seeking adequate autism provision and blame being appropriated in lieu of such, with parental ‘mental health’ erroneously cited.)
94% said that child welfare assessments were not accurate or based on true information.
93% of respondent families said that they did not receive the support they asked for, either by their local authority of other services.
To access the work of the Commission, click here.
To read the report in full, follow this link:
Apologies in advance for any errors within this months newsletter. I usually proofread and edit before uploading but there are a few days until Christmas and my children like to celebrate and the Mum jobs are mounting!
I have five exciting projects forthcoming in 2025 and I hope to be able to share more on those early into the new year.
Whether you celebrate the winter holiday period or not, I hope you have a peaceful and restful transition into 2025.
Alice X
alicerunningwriter@gmail.com
www.alicerunningwriter.com
www.challengeblame.com