“Caring for children and supporting children with complex needs and matching complex behaviour is hard x10”, say Al Coates. He looks at ways to keep your head above water when you’re trying to get support for your child and you just feel like Sisyphus rolling that rock up that hill.
Where do you even start with describing the challenges of fighting for support for your child? To be honest, it feels like a topic without end. Looking back at our family’s experience, there was good help and there was bad help, and lots in between, but it felt like there was always a fight for help.
I’m no scholar, but it brings to mind Sisyphus from Greek mythology. He was punished by the gods and every day had to roll a boulder up a hill, only for it to return to the bottom at the start of each new morning. Clearly, I’m not suggesting that we’ve angered the gods for some transgression against the rules. But if you’ve ever made a call for help to some random switchboard, only to find the gateway to a service is a multi-page form, or the dreaded SDQ and I dare not mention the titanic DLA form which comes to over 70 pages with guidance – then it’s hard to believe that the gods are indeed not punishing you*. What they’re punishing you for is unclear; perhaps for the audacity to even ask for help.
“System-generated trauma” seems like a phrase that perhaps overstates the challenge experienced by parents and carers seeking support – but perhaps not. Systems can be complex, bureaucratic, and slow. They end in appeals and fights for what seems obvious in terms of need. This is compounded by the reasons we’re seeking help in the first place, and the systems can often feel indifferent to our plight, or at worst, dismissive, even laying the source of the challenge at our own door.
A pivotal moment in our own ‘fight for help’ was a social worker looking me in the eye and suggesting, in a tone that was presumedly intended to be compassionate but didn’t ring true, that perhaps my child was ‘picking up on my anxiety’ and that was the source of our challenge. I can almost hear the stone rolling back to the bottom of the hill as I recall that incident.
We keep going, of course, but getting help to get help can help. If you know someone who has navigated the form before you, ask them for a leg up or even a few tips. If someone can come to a meeting to back you up, take them. Make notes. Make friends with helpful professionals; they are out there, they are valuable, and they should be cherished. Make more notes. Pace yourself; there’s only so much you can do some days, so do a little today and do a little tomorrow, and you’ll get there. Be kind to yourself and take breaks. Be realistic. Be optimistic and take care of yourself. Take heart, and hopefully, we won’t be damned to roll the stone up that hill forever. Caring for children is hard. Caring for children and supporting children with complex needs and matching complex behaviour is hard x10. Fighting for support in the midst of everything else can be the last thing on our list.
*I’ve not even mentioned the ASF assessments, the endless recounting of the issues, challenges, and full family history, or retraining the latest teacher and social worker so they understood what was going on. All of this added to the challenges of seeking support.
Support for parents
If you or someone you know is struggling with family relationships, Beacon Family Services can help. We provide a range of therapies and resources to support parents, children and families.
For further support, and to see our latest parent events and services, please visit the Families hub for all families, or our Adoptive Parents hub where you’ll find our Parenting with Theraplay® Group Programme for adoptive parents, foster parents, special guardians and carers, our Walking with Families Facebook peer support group for adoptive families living with CCVAB, school strategies, play-based therapeutic services and much more.
You can also explore our resources for instant support and read further insights and tips from qualified therapists and professionals on our blog. In addition, you can download the lumin&us® app for parent/child connection on the go.
Support for professionals
We work with organisations, professionals, schools, and charities.
We provide training in relational play for professionals. We offer Theraplay®-based programmes such as Parenting with Theraplay®, and partner with support for schools and support for families. Professionals and families alike can access our lumin&us® Family Wellbeing app for 24/7 relational play.
Al Coates MBE adopted three children in 1999 with his wife and they then became Foster to two children in 2008. They went on to adopt those children and their sibling in 2013. In 2013 Al qualified as a social worker and has worked in fostering since then and is now a Registered Manager of a Foster Care Agency.
He also works independently as a Social Worker and NVR advanced practitioner. He specialises in supporting parents, foster carers and special guardians managing challenging and aggressive behaviour and co-authored several publications on the topic. Al has also campaigned to raise issues in relation to adoption and continuously worked with the Department of Education (DfE) since 2015 as part of their Expert Advisery Group, the Adopter Reference Group and the Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board. He was awarded an MBE in 2018 for services to Adoption.
Al trains across the sector including police, youth justice, education, social care and families. In his work with Beacon Family Services as well as training and support he is developing and championing peer support with recourse to the Walking with Families peer support group for adoptive parents living with challenging child behaviour and Support Group for Dads.
An active blogger, Al is the founder and co-host of The Adoption & Fostering Podcast.