Autism home abuse

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I have been searching for St George's but can't find it, there is a St James here: http://www.carehomes.net/listing/29385/ is that the one?

If you PM me your location and as much information as you can I can look into the name of it. In the meantime you must get across to your social worker how bad it is, can you write it all down, as you have explained here? Would you be able to manage a phone call at all? You say you are mostly non-verbal, could you manage enough to call the NAS helpline? Their number is 0808 800 4104. I don't know about the Dynavox, but I've just looked it up, it has external speakers, so is it possible to communicate over a phone with it?

Alternatively, you could email your social worker's manager? If you Google for your local area's council then look for their social services department contact details. They should all also have an out of hours emergency contact if things get too bad.

It sounds as if your mum is away on a break, you don't say when she's coming back. Is there anyone else at all visiting you? Could you text someone to come and they could advocate for you?

Please don't suffer this alone, if you PM me I will do what I can to help.

You must also communicate this all to your mum so she can make a complaint as soon as possible, whenever you are able to get out of there. You have explained very well on your posts what has been happening so you will be able to express it very well for others to know.

And I just Googled "care home abuse autistic" and came up with horrifying information, that this is not uncommon. See this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... meras.html

I hope you get help to get out of this place very soon.

Mum says wants me out of here to I have a cheap phone I text mum with I don't want to say the name online or I might get in trouble it's not them st.s it's another 1 mum texted social worker she come here today to drop stuff off she said to my face "are you not having fun, I thought you were happy here" I wanted to punch her I texted mum afterwards and she said she explained everything to her before she come here the social worker is ignoring mum text mum tried police got nowhere
Today I didn't have my iPad or dynavox with me I was outside my room one of the staff was trying to get me to talk to them they waked off in a huff shouting slamming the door "OK TALK TO YOURSELF" ...

None of this surprises me. This is abuse and is what is known as a safeguarding issue. There was a well publicised issue like this at a place called Winterbourne View some time ago and the staff there were sent to prison. The social worker should be using the safeguarding procedures to protect you and other people in this home. If you PM me with your home town and name, I will contact the people who can help.

Me too.

You don't have to post their name online, this is why I said you can PM (private message) me. If you click my username to the left of my message, you will see a button to "PM member" and if you click it a message box will come up with my username in the recipient field.

Then you can type me a message and only I will receive/see it, (it won't be published on the forum) I can't bear for you to have to suffer this awful treatment so anything I can do to help I will. I am a mother too so I know how it is to want to protect your children.

Hi, that is probably a good strategic decision on your part. In cardplaying terms this is flashing the ace rather than playing it. So, the fact that you have hinted at the place, that you can say the name of the place if need be, that is often more powerful than actually saying the name of the place.

And once you get out of this unfriendly, unhelpful place, then it is your decision whether to formally report them and if so how.

In the meantime, maybe write up a short paragraph for your social worker. Maybe something like, they have not treated me with respect, it is past the point of usefulness, I need a new place and a good place for respite. And the fact that it is written increases the chance that the social worker will take it seriously (shouldn't be that way, but probably is). And may still need to talk to her supervisor.

Good luck with everything! Don't let these rude people keep you from doing good things for your life.

whats the place called, i may have heard of it if you live near st georges. is it an adult place you are going to because ther has been a lot of critisism over the years about adult places for people with autism in the UK,.

have you heard of st piers, its in lingfield, its a place for people ages 5-19 with epilepsy and autistic spectrum disorders, its nice there from what i have seen, very good facilities. my cousin also lives in this residential place where you have independence to the point where you can manage and have help and stuff, he is quite happy there. perhaps looking into a place like that would be good.

i may have gotten confused, st georges is the institution the doctors were talking about right, i thought it was st. georges the hospital. i cant believe the treatement, i was reading some of the other posts as well and its quite upsetting that you and others are treated that way, im so sorry for your situation and i really wish i could help in some way, people should just not be allowed to get away with it, thank god your mum is aware of the situation.

i cant tell you how angry it makes me, honestly wish i could come down to where you are and, well quite honestly punch them. i am not usually violent but i hate that kind of thing.

Hi if mum phones up (cant til Tuesday Monday bank holiday) the social worker and says "I want to talk to your supervisor" would that work , mum usually "gets the run around" a lot

It's not very nice here also cos all day and night there's at lest 4 different horrible loud sudden endless alarms that I can hear from my room like different kinds of beeps , and then there's screaming from other rooms from any time from 12 - 5 am and they seem to love to chat in front outside of MY room door early hours in the morning (every day so far this week) and coming in my room waking me up for no apparent reason (very VERY hard for me to sleep a autism problem, they know this)

That sounds very much like what they did to me when I spent two weeks in a psych ward many years ago. They put me in a room with a woman who screamed all night, and when I finally asked to be moved (after two nights of no sleep), they said I could sleep in the "quiet" (rubber) room. I moved my blanket & pillow in there, and just as I was about to fall asleep I heard that woman screaming again. I looked out to find they had put her in her wheelchair right outside the door. They left her there all night (thus tormenting two of us at once!)

I really think deliberate sleep deprivation is a tradition in these sorts of places.

You cannot get in trouble from the social worker or she is not doing her job. By telling people what is happening there you can help others. Everyone should be treated with respect and individual needs should be dealt with properly. You are able to communicate well in writing which is brilliant. Would you be able to show the social worker what you have written here?
When someone is non verbal it can be easy to assume that they do not understand things too well, but you clearly can and need to make it clear that you do understand very well. Keep posting here because as you can see there are a lot of people who really care.

I would tell your mum just to ring the social services department and ask to speak to the manager. You said you have already tried talking directly to the social worker, and if you warn her that you want to speak to her manager she will come up with a ready-made excuse to cover herself. Just go straight to the manager without saying any more to the SW. And as Panddora said, you could show your thread on here (or copy and paste the text into a word-processed document) including all the replies (you don't need to put usernames if you have concerns about them "following" you online and you can just refer to it as an autism forum without saying Wrong Planet) so they can see others are on your side and this will make them worry, and hopefully take action.

Just a thought: do you have access to phone/mail there? If so I would suggest looking up people with professions in church based social work/ activism if government based avenues have failed. Such people can help advocate for you to get out of there faster, if they can schedule. to visit with you then if they are understanding of your situation you could have them report "improvement and progress" in your case to the ppl who work there. Or have a friend or family member have a meeting with a staff member off the work site. That helped me get out.

I think this is a good middle-of-the-road approach. Yes, something vague and brief like "an autism forum." Now, people can be tricky and resourceful in searches, they might find that it's here. But that's okay. By not saying the name of the place when you could, you are showing both power and restraint. And that is a pretty good approach.

When your social worker talks with you again, just be brief, polite, persistant, even repetitive if need be. I guess just something like: I want a good place for respite. Sometimes in these kind of situations almost the less you say the better.

The fact that they laugh about other residents, and the fact that they don't call your mum when your plan clearly states they should, wow, those are big, big issues. Your social worker will eventually come round (that really is the way to look at it), the first visit she was in the reduce case load mode or whatever, a substantial mistake on her part, but . . . she will eventually come round. And maybe your mum and/or the supervisor can tell her this. And you can just stick with the straightforward request, a good place for respite.