Meetings, meetings

...................and more meetings!!!!

Seems to be the way of my life at the moment!
Since we started applying and planning for Peter's self directed support we've had several of these meetings to do. I have mixed feelings about these kind of thiongs because usually a lot of the stuff at school was either not listened to or "Nice idea but no banana" or the meetings had people we would much rather not be there (like one of the social workers) or be in places we would rather not be (like said social worker's office building)

But more and more i am finding that we can dictate about where we want meetings to be and i'm finding it a lot better to say *come to our house".
It's ok with me and it means that people are seeing Peter in his own enviroment and if he gets fed up, he CAN go off and put a dvd on or whatever.
Heck on a couple of nice days we were even out in the garden last year - a lot of people liked that - they commented that usually they are stuck in an office and like being "out".

So last week we had the 1st review meeting for Peter's services. Most things had been going ok. I don't get pissed off easily, but if you do really muchly piss me off - you WILL find out.
Louise had phoned the team leader about s few things on the monday. Intially she had been more annoyed than me - i was letting things go a bit. But finding that for the 2nd time since college went back, Peter was being let down by the person meant to be taking him - and it was only the 2nd day back........ We were not amused!!!
Caroline was great - and mad at me for not telling_ but she did phone said team leader and made her thoughts known.
Funnily enough, he phoned ME!! Wanting to know what was going on. He denied that Carolin had phoned him, tried to evade the issues and even claimed it only took half an hour to get to college from our house.

Aye right - with a prevailing wind and no rain and hitting the bus change ok, you MIGHT just make it!!
But that wasn't the point one of his team were being paid an hour to get Peter to college. OUR money - well, Peter's money.
We were not happy!

Tuesday morning Caroline and Sam arrived and we got on to how things were going. Sam was a bit confused when Caroline and i were talking of some thngs, till we realised that she didn't quite know all we'd put in place!!
It was a good meeting, we're following thru with a few things - like the weekly planner for Peter, so that we all know what we're doing and we can keep track of things.
Fortunatly we seem to have hit it off with th workers - the 3 main ones, - they have all managed to turn up except for a few of the days it was really baad and we've managed to rearrange most of the hours.

The really interesting meeting was friday afternoon at college.
Oh man - am i SOOOOOO glad we'd locked ourselves in a soundproof room!!
More for the course leader's sake than mine. Tho i suspect one comment he WOULD say to the person we were talking bout face to face. (he prob has!!!)

Basically there were two issues i wanted to raise.
THe first was the attitude of the support assistant from the support for learnig unit at the college. She has moaned at the workers 3 times, phoned me to complain and has a really bad attitude. (wrong person, wrong job).
One of the workers DID explain why another had been late and all the woman did was complain that she didn't know anything about support workers for Peter.
But she didn't ask!!
And avoided asking till the poop hit the fan again over 2 weeks!!

THe 2nd thing that was worrying me was one of the lecturers - he is based in SFL and he'd been letting the class go off at 3.45 on a monday - and they're meant to be in till 4.15!!!
These are youngsters some of whom need support to travel to and from college. Peter's p[oor worker - she never was sure when he'd get out and took to getting to college early just so she knew she'd be there when he got out and didn't decide to go walkies.

So Dave - the course leader - caroline and i had a meeting. Dave was furious at what had been going on. He did explain that all the SFL souses had been handed over to the different departments to do. He did question this, but was told that he as a department head was to go ahead, recruit the students and deal with it.
He did tell them "his course, his rules" and no student would be on any of his courses if they weren't able or to keep them off the streets outta the rain!

And of course, this had come back to bite one or 2 people in the bahookie!!

THe woman - well, to be honest, she's just bottom of the dung heap. She gets told to chase up the SFL students to make sure they are getting to class. She doesn't get paid enough. But that - as caroline and i pointed out - is no reason for rudeness to other people or parents. Ok, she was left with Peter one afternoon, but her mistake was to grumble with Ryan's hearing when he got to the college - she was told that it wasn't Peter's mum's fault that hangs had gone wrong and that Ryan was late.
But she has now been warned that the attitude will not wash and maybe higher up the heap will realise that they need more staff.

What really woprried Dave was the other lecturer. Legally, he had been dicing with a lot of things letting the class away early. If a student is marked in as present, and he lets them away early and something happens - his head could be for the chop.
I will not use the exact words that Dave used, but a certain part of this other guys anatomy was going in a vice and Dave was going to squeeeezzzzeeee!!!

I almost took Peter out of college - i was a bit pissed at some of the attitudes. But he's made friends. The group work well together. And i do not want to deprive Peter of a valuable social and learning opportunity.
Dave took a big leap accepting Peter on the course. He's not quite as independent as he should be (they're meant to be able to go off and do work experience on their own). But because he knew Peter from the school link and knew the work he could do if pushed in the right direction, Dave was happy to have him on the course.

So the pigeons are flying scared of the cats. A note of the meeting we had is being sent to Vice Principles and will find it's way to the Principle's desk. I'm hoping that SFL will quit the ingrained attitude they have and work a bit more closely with the other college staff. After all, if something BAD had happened to one of the students, the college would have been in big trouble.

Actually, i felt a lot better after the meeting - at least now i feel that things will be a lot better. And maybe we have contributed in some way to a change.

Oh, this support malarky - i suppose it was never  meant to be easy!!!

And our meetings have not ended. We have another one on tuesday - about organising the respite we are doing. Luckily the girl doing that and the one who is doing Peter's need assesment are both coming out on the same day at the same time, so we can get that sorted.
And i have to sort out some dates and phone the activity place that the boys are going off to to book dates and get prices.

Did i tell you that i'm the only person who doesn't get paid in all this???

Nah - i do it all for the adrenilin rush of being pushed over that line once in a while!!!