Author: Steve Antipolo

Do you remember the nurse from CTPLD Kettering who reported me for allegedly making my sons’ money disappear?

Had the meeting today with her and one of her bosses, it went well.

She might have got off lighter had she kept her mouth shut but she is one of these power women who has to assert her authority. Me and my amazing friend Helen were able to convince her boss that safeguarding needs to be as a last resort, after all other measures have been taken and failed. That despite what they think, which is that it’s just an admin thing, the very word ‘safeguarding’ doesn’t sound anything like ‘admin’ to a family member or carer getting the call from them.

The Care Quality Commission say this of ‘safeguarding’:

“Safeguarding means protecting people’s health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect”

Doesn’t sound like admin at all really put in that context!

So when someone gets a call telling them they are being investigated with regard to their son, it’s not just dotting the ‘i’ and crossing the ‘t’.

I gave an analogy to them which I hoped might help them get in the zone of the first few seconds of a conversation like that, this is it:

Imagine you just go to school to pick up little Sally or Jonny and the head approaches you and quietly suggests you should have a conversation about a bruise they observed earlier. Now, as the parent you know they got it acting the fool and running into a door but, you know that’s not what the school think and your stomach turns over that they could ever imagine such a thing of you.

Well, that one seemed to make sense to the boss, she clearly connected with it.

Anyway, me and Helen probably enjoyed a little too much the chance to slap down an errant official.

I gave them a tip on how to run meetings in future, discuss, agree, assign a task to a named individual and give a date by which the task must be completed. On that note I suggested to boss lady that the lesser employee be afforded the task of going through the meetings of previous years and finally addressed all those things which recur each time yet never get done.

I was happy with the outcome, I don’t expect this lady to actually do it, I suspect she will ask to be moved elsewhere and someone else assigned to Jermaine but, let’s see.

Still nothing from Social Services.

I’ve called and written

the NHS Crisis team have emailed

The local MP has written

The Ombudsman is on the case

Still not an utterance from them. I cannot believe that what they’re doing is even legal and hope sincerely that someone loses their job over this!

I am now have to pay out for services for Zoey myself, more accurately, Zoey’s benefit money is having to be spent on what should have been provided for her.

Meeting Tomorrow

With the woman and her boss who was the one to start off a safeguarding case against me. Now, the case was dismissed after a quick chat with the investigator but, how very dare she decide to cause waves for me when she might, even easier, have just spoken to me directly! It’s not often I get to confront one of the cowards who reports me for something I haven’t done because they can. I think I shall enjoy the experience.

I think I need to not offer my services any further! It seems that I agree to do something, for free, and then it’s all just never quite to someone else’s quality control standards despite all the errors having been in the original remit!

In the event I am ever in the market for a car I think I shall go for the Peugeot 407GT. It matches with me for some reason, not sure why but I like it.

5lbs so far but I’ve stopped going to Slimming World. There is nothing wrong with them I just needed to make a choice, pay £4 a week to follow the same plan I can follow anyway at home or get a gym membership and add something healthy on the exercise front into the mix. I chose the latter because something else showed up on my blood test results that I wasn’t expecting. I have a higher than normal cholesterol level. The GP suggested it’s high enough to suspect a heredity factor as opposed to a poor diet. I’ve been advised to take some exercise, get my heart healthy before anything nasty happens and I am on ‘statins’ too. All jolly good fun (not) and probably the first of the tablets in my life I may need to take long term to stay healthy. The diet is good though, no bad stuff in there so, hopefully the tablets do their job, the gym give me some strength in my heart muscle and all shall be good.

Social Services really do seem to have disappeared off the face of the planet so it looks as though I will have to contact the ombudsman to get things sorted. Ridiculous really.

Poor health seems to be floating about at the moment, not a good start to the year so, things can (hopefully) only get better.

Still missing Dennis loads. Had a couple of chats but not enough. I can but pray that he gets the visit visa trouble free.

Had bloods looked at and I have a Vitamin D Deficiency which means it has me feeling overly exhausted, even when I’m able to get enough shut-eye. Last night I was motionless for 95% of the time. It also means I feel moody or blue. So, this being the diagnosis I have been given some medication and will be chatting to the GP on Tuesday. It also has some quite nasty implications but we won’t worry about any of those as I believe this came on quite recently, not a long term issue.

On 6th January me and Daisy started Slimming World, they’ve been around for a bit, have a good reputation. Of course, the way I am feeling has dulled my excitement so I am just going through the motions. Even so, 3lbs this week isn’t so terrible, more would be better. I am looking at an average loss of 4lbs so I need to try harder.

Dennis is heading off to do some coaching this weekend, I might not be able to speak to him at all for a month. I hope that’s not the case as the distance is hard enough to live with as it is. Of course, it’s just a month and we’ve potentially got a great many years ahead of us so, think positive.

Placed a complaint with Social Services as the indicative budget was appalling in the mistakes it contained and outright lies of course, not to mention spelling mistakes, not least the word ‘Zoey’. The initial reply seems to be that as this ‘transitions’ team hands over to the young adults team in June, they might just leave them to sort it out. In the meantime, Zoey gets nothing!

Also had to complete an application form for Zoey’s Personal Independence Payment a few days ago. I can only hope they don’t do any messing about and she gets an acceptable level first try rather than having to appeal. This said, it might be in ‘my’ best interest if she is turned down for the mobility section as this means the car goes back early. If that happens then Motability give me £2000 plus any residue on the advance payment (won’t be much). With that I can purchase a car. This would take the constant worry out of whether or not they’re going to mess with her benefits again. I really am getting sick of how much the social finance system robs me of my freedom to choose even the most basics things in life!

Sean gave me a Smart Watch this week. Seems to be one of the few watches I can wear without it messing with my skin. That and it’s a cool watch with some useful features, thank you again Sean.

Finally going to see Star Wars 7 tomorrow night (14th Jan). Am going on my own but that’s fine.