Thanks to this guest post from a parent who wishes to remain anonymous.
I have mainly stopped screaming, I screamed a lot at first at the injustice of it all and the pain of separation. Today though I am suppressing an internal scream, the anguish now being punched out onto my keyboard.
I answered a strange mobile number this afternoon, I don’t normally but is just as well, because my son had borrowed his neighbours phone, to contact me. Could he have some money please a fiver would do? In truth I had been waiting for this call and this is why:
Over a month ago a letter was opened and ignored by him, it was telling him he had to apply for universal credit as income support had finished. He is at college, and has been offered a job and is just waiting to start it, for anyone who wishes to judge. My son has a communication disorder, so severe that he reached the criteria for a special school and he had been statemented at 7 years old. He is a care leaver and through circumstances he was placed into a flat by himself on leaving care. Except he was not supposed to be on his own, his EHCP stated that his was to receive 20 hours of support a week, via employing support workers . It hasn’t happened, not one single solitary hour , and because he is over 18 it is apparently none of my business. He does have some limited help from the pathway team and I am not criticising individuals. I spent hours in meetings before he left care making sure there was a workable transition plan in place. For what?
To apply for Universal Credit or to use any Government on line service you first have prove your identity. Now I have tried this very recently and nearly threw my laptop out of the window. Despite having input 3 bank cards and my driving licence, Government Verify via the Post Office still refused to recognise me and I am signed up to the electoral register, get post etc. In fact Verify has a failure rate of over 50% https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41642044. So what chance does a care leaver , let alone one with learning difficulties actually have of managing this transition onto universal credit by themselves.
My son also did not understand that if a standing order bounces , you quickly rack up overdraft charges. So before long having no money actually turns into mounting debt. To some small extent he is lucky, we still have a relationship and I know how to cope. Before this change to universal credit he was actually managing money very well, as I told him to set himself a weekly budget and only use cash. Many care leavers lose their links to family members and if no one teaches them about financial matters how are they supposed to know?
The child protection system to me is like a three humped camel (bear with me) , the first hump consists of pre proceedings, this hump is too little and can be non functional, the third hump is after the young person leaves proceedings, this is much the same as the first. The middle hump, is enormous and bloated , it consumes all the nourishment that should be in the other humps. It shouldn’t be there as it unbalances the camel and makes it topple over. We know that the system is teetering, someone please listen, for the sake of the young people like my son who are being failed by a gross imbalance between support and intervention.