There are bloggers who are not unduly concerned by the recommendation that frontline staff need training to identify mental illness. I said yesterday that I think it's a slippery slope. It's normally very clear when someone has an acute mental health problem that requires intervention to prevent harm. A couple of days' training for people who have absolutely no understanding of or specialism in mental health issues is at best pointless - at worst it will encourage a substantial increase in false positives that will cause significant distress to the innocent people involved, as well as draining resources away from where they are truly required.
Aside from those with the most severe and acute mental health problems, everybody else (with all of their differences, eccentricities, foibles and quirks) should of course be made aware of the services that exist to help, should they require them. It is reasonable to expect that the professionals who are likely to be approached by virtue of their position (and this of course includes teachers and other frontline workers) should be provided with adequate signposting information as a bare minimum. It is also reasonable to expect that the professionals running the services are appropriately trained to identify and treat mental illness, where that diagnosis and treatment is actually required.
It is not reasonable to expect that any professional should be able to "identify" mental illness in people over whom they often hold significant power; especially if that referral is recorded in some way and has the potential to cause problems at a later date. Remember this man, who was detained and sectioned under the Mental Health Act after a social worker three times refused to produce any ID and then took his children away? Do you think he was insane? Because I don't. My own personal experience of being referred to a psychologist after attempting to whistleblow when working for the Local Authority is something for another day, but it was truly the stuff of nightmares.
So, yes, here's someone else who has a problem with it, in much the same way as I have a problem with all the incessant, proactive, "just in case" meddling in our lives. In preparation for several posts that are still in the pipeline, I received this from a reader, Joanna, the other day:
"Hi I've never posted before but was reading your interesting blog. I home educate my children and I am disabled and so is one of my children. The local Surestart office tried to force home visits on me and said really discriminating things like 'With your disability and your DD's disability, you don't know if you will be able to cope with home educating.' And: 'What about when your DD's disability gets worse, what will you do then?' The worker said 'I want you to go and check out the local schools' - um, excuse me, but just whose children are they?!?
"They also said my disability was 'part of the whole picture' and that they had to mention it because 'if we came into your house and saw your baby by a hot iron, would you expect us not to mention it?' - so they were equating having a disabled mum with being as dangerous as being put near a hot iron. They then said my 11 month baby was 'at risk' because I had a shelf with video tapes and DVD's on it in my front room. Don't we all have these? They said he could pull a video tape off the shelf and hurt himself. Nonsense!
"I got annoyed and told her the only reason people like she wanted to work with disabled people was so they'd get a tick in their black book and then when they got to the pearly gates and met St. Peter, he'd let them into Heaven for doing all those wonderful deeds to help the poor wretched disabled people! I then told her never to come round again. I carried on getting letters saying she was going to visit so I phoned Surestart and told them no again.
"The next thing I knew, I'd been reported to child protection because - and I quote - they thought I was home educating so my children could stay home and 'care' for me! Wow, I nearly hit the roof when I read the letter. I went to my solicitor and sent child protection a letter, demanding to know what their concerns were in writing before I would agree to any visit. They eventually wrote back and told me they didn't have any concerns and so wouldn't be visiting.
"But I couldn't let it go so am trying to sue the council for discrimination, both re home ed and disability. I hope to hear soon whether or not I have been successful. If so, Surestart staff will have to have re-training in 'diversity'. Anyone else who has trouble when you home ed, don't put up with it. Send them a solicitor's letter and they will back off you. They can't come round if they have no genuine concerns."
(I've got a load of great comments to respond to - thanks for all of them. G is back for good tomorrow after a couple of months spent mostly in Dublin, so I can then get on with responding to commenters, as well as hopefully having this baby sometime very soon!)
