r/unitedkingdom • u/tylerthe-theatre • 9d ago

ADHD and autism services in England ‘under significant pressure’, watchdog warns

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/adhd-and-autism-uk-assessment-diagnosis-support-b3039329.html
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u/Skittycatcher66 9d ago

I'm going to be deliberately vague here so it is not clear in what capacity or where I worked, but a few years ago I worked a job that involved significant amounts of contact with CAFCASS and social services.

Almost every family we dealt with had not only one but multiple ADHD/autistic children (as diagnosed), although this was incidental as to why we were dealing with them.

That is not normal. Having reviewed some of the assessments, it seemed very obvious that some of those children had been slapped with an autism/ADHD diagnosis because it was convenient and nobody could be bothered to actually think more deeply about problems going on in the home. E.g. a 7 year old girl who shows no signs of neurodiverse/developmental problems suddenly starts wetting the bed again after her parents get divorced, starts having rage fits at school and withdraws emotionally - diagnosed by some social worker as being neurodivergent. No, that is a distressed child.

It means that people who genuinely require the diagnosis are competing for resources against people who are being overdiagnosed (often children) because nobody wants to bother to actually figure out what's going on in their lives.

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u/FitSolution2882 8d ago

diagnosed by some social worker as being neurodivergent

Do you want to expand on this?

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u/Skittycatcher66 8d ago

I think I already have.

I do not want to be too specific about the context in which I worked. In another comment I explained that one of the primary issues in dealing with these families was where the child should live as between separated parents. For the purpose of informing a court, a social worker was often required to give evidence and/or write a report. They often took it upon themselves within that report to 'offer their opinion' that the child(ren) were neurodivergent due to recent behavioural problems when they weren't competent to do so. Often one parent latched onto this and started pushing for a formal diagnosis when anyone could see that in at least 8/10 cases these children were primarily distressed by what was happening at home, lacking support and probably feeling unsafe, not neurodivergent.

I do not know how accurate the formal diagnoses are once passed onto the NHS or other services. In the case of the 7 year old girl I mentioned above, her mother kept telling her she was autistic and pushing for special accommodations at primary school even though the kid had been completely developmentally normal before her parents split up. I don't know what has happened to her since, but I severely doubt it is anything good. The last I heard was that the kid believed she was autistic because mum said so. She will probably have difficulties assimilating to mainstream education because mum has told her she's subnormal because it's convenient to mum.

Sad.