Retrospective #1 - Social Care, Children's Services and Respite
Let me start with a gentle warning: this is just our story. Access to social care - and especially respite - is a postcode lottery, and I send heartfelt solidarity to anyone currently navigating this maze. Back in 2014, when Andrew was six, we first approached Manchester City Council (MCC) to ask for occasional respite. At that point, we’d spent six years in full-time care mode: no nights off, no weekends away, no family nearby to step in. Six years of sleeping with one ear open. Six years of caring for someone with the capacity (and bowel habits) of a wayward toddler. We were exhausted. We underwent a needs assessment - at the time, MCC bundled it into a single “parent and child” review - and were promptly declined. The logic? We hadn’t had a nervous breakdown, so apparently we could cope. We appealed. We lodged a formal complaint. And in 2016, we took our case to the Local Government Ombudsman … and won. That victory didn’t exactly win us popularity points with Children’s Services,...