We Then Emailed Cyngor #Gwynedd Care Scrutiny Committee.

Mention has already been made of Vera Jones, Democratic Services Manager, at Cyngor Gwynedd, who was CC'd into the email sent by Medwyn Hughes, in response to our email, that raised  concerns over the mishandling of our Stage 2  'Independent' Investigation.

Mr Hughes also CC'd the following people into a further email to us -

James Gareth Huw (CG)
Jones Luned Fon
Eryl Jones-Williams

Now I am not really sure who the first two are but Eryl Jones Williams is the Chair of the Scrutiny Committee. The same committee that all councillors, bar one, were sent the below email on the 10th Sept 2018 - 

Dear Care Scrutiny Committee Members

We write in regard to the Autism Report which is to be presented to the care scrutiny committee and to bring to your attention to our own case involving our 'high functioning' autistic (******)

The Reports makes no mention of the challenges that those with 'high functioning' Autism and their families face in day to day living and that they may require exactly the same kind of support that Autistic people with additional learning disabilities need to enable them to live any kind of  full and independent life. The report focuses solely on those with a Learning Disability only, disregarding and abandoning those who are deemed 'higher functioning'.

 

Gwynedd council have for years now been talking about those people who 'fall between the cracks' in terms of support and that things were in the pipeline to help.

 

The Report(s) show that the council have not lived up their promises as their Report states that no support is to be given without there being a Learning disability. Do the council not recognise Autism as a lifelong disability ?

 

This Council seem to have little regard for the various 'acts' that are in place to ensure that appropriate and adequate assessment and support be provided for autistic individuals, regardless of their intellectual functioning, i.e the 2014 care act, 2010 Equality Act, NICE guidelines

 

We are one of those families with a 'high functioning' autistic child (soon to be adult) and part of our story is below. Every time an Independent person looks at Gwynedd council and their treatment of ASD and their families, they understand the issues and find against the council.

 

In this case, every time that there has been an Independent Investigation of the facts, it shows that the Department has failed, in many respects and has little understanding of the needs, or the assessment needs of such individuals.

 

A Senior Manager from the  Department has stated that there are no specifically autism trained social workers in this area, how then can any comprehensive assessment of an autistic person's needs be carried out in this area ?

 

We think that there are serious issues in relation to the lack of support, poor handling and inadequate assessment of autistic people and their families by this Department.

 

Briefly, this family raised a stage 2 complaint in 2010 with all points of complaint upheld but no recommendations acted upon.

 

Since 2014 we have had to endure bad and unprofessional behaviour from social workers and senior managers culminating in a stage 2 complaint raised on the 25th May, 2017.

The 'Independent' Investigation highlighted serious failings and upholding or 'not requiring to uphold'  all points of our complaint. This was presented to the council in October, 2017.

Gwynedd council refused to accept the findings and the case is currently being investigated by the Ombudsman for Wales.

 

This is on top of the recent Ombudsman's Investigation report of April, 2018 into the department that highlighted maladministration and service failure in this case dating from 2010 through to 2016.

 

Also in June 2018 a Report by a Gwynedd Council Information Manager also upheld the part of our complaint that related to a data breach - involving the release, to us,  of the names of two children receiving services from the council and Youth Justice team and the local school in Bangor they attend and also stated that redactions made to our personal information should not have been carried out.
The full Report can be found here - https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2018/09/cyngor-gwynedd-councils-report-into.html

 

We wish to meet with and share these various reports with any members of the care scrutiny committee that share our concerns and that have any interest in challenging this department's failings in regards to our case and to question/challenge this Department's lack of understanding and proper assessment and support for autistic people in general.

 

We as parent carers of a 'high functioning' soon to be 18 year old young (******) have been recently told by social workers that there are no autism services in this area, or even vulnerable adult services. We have no place to go to ask for specialist support and advice needed as our (******) reaches into adulthood.....

 

This should be a matter for scrutiny.

                                                    *****************************

 

We had not one reply.

 

So we emailed the Scrutiny Committee once more...but that is for another post.

Further Emails With A Cyngor #Gwynedd Councillor.

Reading through the correspondence with Gwynedd's Chair of the Audit and Governance committee in respect of the 'Independent' Investigation and the Ombudsman's Report is quite revealing.

Several emails were sent over some considerable time and during our correspondence he also CC'd others into the conversation when he replied to us.

 Mr Hughes was also made aware of other emails that we sent to the relevant services in our attempt to obtain the Independent Investigator's Report of our complaint.

Mr Hughes wrote to inform us he has asked relevant officers for all Reports.
Some time later Mr Hughes wrote to inform us he is still waiting for the Reports.

Now it is worrying that the legal department were taking so long to get all relevant documents/Reports to the Chair of the Audit committee - Mr Hughes was also Vice-Chair of Gwynedd Council's Care and Scrutiny Committee at the time.

On the 19th June 2018, confident that by now he would have received all the Reports, we asked Medwyn - again - to meet with ourselves and our local councillor to discuss the serious issues highlighted by the Independent Reports within Gwynedd Children and Family services.

R Medwyn Hughes did not reply and we never heard from him again.

#Gwynedd Council - Independent Investigation - Stage 2 Complaint.

It is the week before Christmas and Cyngor Gwynedd customer care(!) send me an email in connection with the Independent report which they have had in their possession for over 7 weeks now.

They tell me the report has - finally - been sent back to the Investigator for questions to be asked and seeking the clarity they said was to be sought weeks ago -

"....I will arrange a meeting the first week in January for the Senior Managers to discuss the report.  

This is the situation as it currently stands, if something does change I will let you know."

We have repeatedly asked for a copy of the report, who the adjudicating officer is in this matter and whether or not the Independent Investigator has upheld our 6 points of complaint.

The council have refused to answer us and when asked who we may contact in order to discuss our concerns in the interest of fairness and transparency, we received the following -

"If you wish to discuss your concerns regarding the Stage 2 investigation, you are welcome to contact the Ombudsman at any point."

 We obviously wanted to discuss our concerns with council officers actually dealing with our complaint and not the Ombudsman - that may come later.

But as the council are aware it was the Ombudsman who first 'suggested' to me to raise the complaint way back in May.

The Ombudsman wrote -

" I have also informed the Council of your intention to submit a complaint and that I expect it to provide you with a full response to your concerns."
 
That was 7 MONTHS ago....

More -  https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/

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Shout Out In #Gwynedd

The stage 2 complaint first raised against Cyngor Gwynedd Council, in May, is nearly complete and to be published by October, 2017.

The Ombudsman for Wales has also started their separate investigation into Gwynedd Children and Family Support (!) team for issues arising from 2010.

I have encountered some truly unprofessional and appalling behaviour - from support services through social worker(s) to managers and even a head of department not to mention the misnamed customer care team.

And I wonder...this must have happened to other people in Gwynedd ?

For the next period of time many eyes will be on the Gwynedd Social Services Children and Family Support (!) department but the remit for scrutiny is only for this families case.

So I ask if you feel that you have been let down by Gwynedd council social services in the past, come forward and tell your story now.

To those good service workers in the department and elsewhere in the council - who know of poor management, unprofessional behaviour , bullying, bad practice etc - now is the time to speak out and help change Gwynedd's failing council.


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From Bad To Worse - Cyngor Gwynedd Council.

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I notice Cyngor Gwynedd appear not to have updated their website and still make no mention that one of the cases that they reference has been ongoing for years.

Earlier post here - https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/gwynedd-council-services-scrutiny-needs.html

First contact with the Gwynedd Children and Supporting Families Team was in 2007/8 and was appalling.

The family had to endure missed appointments, staff that were untrained and abusive comments from those involved in the child's care.

MSBP and poor parenting were all thrown at the family.

One so called professional, Dawn Wimpory, failed to diagnose the child and so many years have been wasted because of it.

Perhaps you should have tried engaging him with music therapy, Dawn.

That would have taken longer than the 20 minute consultation you gave the child.

A comment from one of the service managers in a review meeting "If he was my child....." led to the manager going off sick when the Independent Investigators tried to interview him for an explanation.

An illness that lasted for months and so the report was published without him being interviewed.

The report does mention Llyr Ap Rhisiart's absence and the fact that when he does finally return from illness he would not be in the same job.

But the question remains, Mr Ap Rhisiart.

What would you have done with the child who has Autism, PDA and other complex issues if he was yours ?

Someone even suggested clearing the child's bedroom and locking them in.
The child was 7 years old.

The Investigators found 16 points of complaint and bad practise - including lost correspondence and files - all upheld.

That was in 2010 and nothing has changed. In fact, the situation is far worse.

So I say again to Cyngor Gwynedd raising a complaint does not make people unreasonable - it simply means that unprofessional standards and bad behaviour should always be challenged.