So we met with a social worker on Wednesday evening. Not one related to our CLSC - that would be just useless and frustrating. She's runs a home for kids with disabilities (which gives her an interesting perspective) and although she's only been working in private practice for a couple of years, she's worked as a social worker for over 20 years. Her focus during much of that time has been on adolescents and their behaviours.
I found it to be very useful. It was reassuring to know that our approach so far seems to be the right one and that some things we were worried about can be downplayed. Her reluctance to eat with her friends for example. We have been harping on it but in the social worker's opinion, as long as she eats at home which she most certainly does, we don't need to worry about it too much.
Our next step is to bring Emma with us for a meeting. The social worker will set out the ground rules and establish a baseline for behaviour (ours and hers) and meet one on one with Emma for a couple of sessions to work on developing some strategies for coping with her stress and anxiety. I found it really interesting how in laying everything out, the anxiety issue has really come to the front. Makes you wonder sometimes how we sort didn't see it. Actually that's not true - we did see but just thought "well, she's a kid, she'll get past it at some point". And she might on her own but the reality is she's hurting herself and that has to stop.
I'd like to be able to trust again. Right now, that's sort of not an option - not about this anyway. I found the session really useful. Now we just have to get her to it. She'll be pissed but that's life.
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