Case Study 7

Case Study 7

Reason for the referral

CB mother has been ill since she was 15 years old. She has been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia with the possibility of it being Arthritis. This has severely impaired her mobility and lives with pain on a daily basis. She suffers from long term poor mental health, being diagnosed with depression. CB mother has received  counselling support over the years along with medication for both her physical and mental health. CB takes on a number of practical chores and support within the home. Due to her mother’s pain and poor mobility, CB helps with opening jars of food, carrying things in and out of the house and a large amount of household chores. CB brother is suspected to have Autism, but this has not yet been diagnosed. CB supports with parenting of her brother and gives a lot of her time to keeping him calm and occupied.

Young Persons background

CB is a 13 year old female who lives in the Ellesmere Port area with her mother, her mother’s partner and her younger brother. Her biological father has no contact with CB. This is due to CB’s mum being underage when she got pregnant with CB. CB’s father was then put on the sex offenders register.  CB attended the local academy for her education. She reported consistent bullying and felt no matter what strategy she adopted, the bullying would never go away. In the last quarter, CB requested to move to a smaller local high school. CB feels this will give her a fresh start and chance to escape  from the bullies. CB started her new school in the last week of June.

Issues prior to service engagement

CB was taking on a large number of household chores to support her mother along with supervising her younger sibling who is suspected to have Autism. CB was finding it hard to witness her mother being in so much pain and worried a lot about her mother’s health. The pressures on taking on extra chores and the worry of her mum’s health was having a strain on CB. She dealt  with this  by bottling it up and internalising her worries and stresses. This was affecting her resilience outside of her home and was apparent in her lack of socialising and being withdrawn from other children her own age group.

Support offered by Cheshire Young Carers

CB continued to attend the targeted fortnightly sessions. CB has had a number of months in this new group. She has been finding the transition from the 6-11 group to the 12+ difficult. CB finds mixing with others difficult and displays a level of social anxiety within the group. The session lead has made efforts to integrate a number of the young carers who have similar interests and outlooks. This is still early days and efforts will continue at each session to improve integration. However, recently, CB’s mum has informed the caseworker that CB is feeling like she was not enjoying the group as she feels she doesn’t have any friends that attend. The caseworker has arranged to meet with CB at school to discuss her attendance at sessions and to explore what support she will require for future sessions.

In this quarter, progression has been made around the concerns of CB sending sexual images and videos to males both younger and older. After a discussion with CB mum, it was decided that a referral into ESAT for target support would be appropriate. Based on the information the caseworker had provided, ESAT requested that the caseworker complete a CSE screening tool. The caseworker actioned this immediately and contacted CB’s mum along with the other agencies that CB was linked with, such as school, the TAF lead and the local Police officer who was dealing with the allegations to gather a complete picture of CB’s situation and vulnerability. The CID Police officer was the only agency that did not respond to the request for information. Based on all the information, the caseworker categorised the profile as  ‘moderate risk’. This was then submitted to ESAT for assessment. There was a period of none communication from ESAT and the caseworker had to chase this referral up to establish if any intervention was being put in place. Cheshire Young Carers had not been included in the response from ESAT despite the referral coming from Cheshire Young Carers.  They reported that there would be no further action as they felt there were enough services making appropriate efforts to support CB. It was discussed that the caseworker would need to re-refer for support from Quarriers. The caseworker arranged to meet with CB’s mum to gather as much background information on the family to ensure there was sufficient information to meet complex level 3 on the continuum, which meets the criteria for Quarriers. ESAT had since changed to iART, so the referral procedure and online application form had changed. Despite this, the referral was submitted successfully. It has now been put through the 360 profile and the caseworker is waiting to hear back regarding the recommendations that have been made by the ‘case management’ team. The family are being supported by the TAF process. The caseworker is attending the next TAF to feedback the work highlighted above and ensure support is being put in place for CB and her family.

Outcomes

CB has regular time away from the home environment and responsibilities and demands on her own personal time. This time gives her a feeling of being important and gives her a small level of control over her own time.

CB mother feels reassured that CB has an organisation that has her daughters needs as the focus of its support. Reassured that CB is mixing with other children and is being exposed to new opportunities. This will help in relieving a level of stress as a result of having the knowledge her own condition affects her daughter.

CB and her mum feel that there is a network of support and intervention that will bring positive change for all the members of the family. The work the caseworker has done to request support for CB and her mum is hoped will result in a family support worker being allocated to the family. It is hoped a family support worker can support CB’s mum in the ASD referral pathway for her youngest son along with support and strategies for his additional needs. It is also hoped that the family support worker can support CB’s mum with housing and mobility issues, and finally to get targeted 1:1 support for CB from Quarriers around self-image, self-harm, keeping safe on-line and dealing with anger and emotions.