Thank you to all who's shared and tagged family and friends on this. I saw this post on Instagram and knew I had to share it: 

CAMHS: You don’t qualify for any mental health support- because you’re autistic.

This is the message apparently being delivered to our autistic children.
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“Anxious? Battling depression? OCD? Yeah it’s because you’re autistic. We can’t help. We’re discharging you.”
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Does this sound kind of discriminatory in nature to you? Because it’s waving red flags at me.
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I only have anecdotal evidence that this is happening and I’m fairly sure it would be against the NICE guidelines. But I’ve yet to see a department called to account. Sound familiar?! {SEN caseworkers and the LA shuffle papers awkwardly}.
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Just because you can identify the origins of a health problem, doesn’t mean you’ve resolved it.
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Take post natal depression for example. People aren’t denied care and treatment because medical professionals can identify the source as ‘having had a baby’. No. They’re supported through it (so much as anyone is now!). You don’t crawl into A&E only for the medical team to discover you’ve broken your leg and discharge you home with an explanation. “Oh that bone sticking out? Yeah it’s broken. I bet it hurts! Off you go now. Bye bye.” No. You’re plastered up, prescribed pain relief, referred to physio and sent on your way.
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So why are children being turned away because their anxiety and depression is being sourced as autistic?
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Whilst I can acknowledge that living with an autistic brain can be anxiety provoking (although some reasonable accommodations and understanding would go a long way to minimise that) there’s actually quite a lot of mental health support that could be done to support children. Work for example focusing on;
✨self esteem,
✨confidence,
✨independence,
✨sense of achievement,
✨identifying their place in the world,
 ✨exploring gender and s*xuality,
✨how to recognise people or situations designed to exploit them,
✨Boundary setting,
✨S*icide prevention,
all of which would contribute to their future mental well being and perhaps start to plug some of the horrific autistic mental health statistics we see flooding in.
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Children are being failed by this chronically underfunded service and we need change.
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