Tuesday, June 23, 2009

We're Not Hiding, We're... in A&E Again!

Did you see the t-shirts my boys designed? Saying "we're not hidden, we're home educated"?

Well today we certainly weren't hidden - we went to A&E again!

Long story, but basically Jonathan tripped over Joshua's legs whilst he (Jonathan) was running around on our trampoline. He screamed and screamed and after 40 minutes we took him to A&E.

Turns out he'd broken his leg!!

However... bear in mind four weeks ago we took him up there and he had a suspected toddler fracture after slipping on the stairs. Two weeks or so prior to that he'd swallowed his Nan's blood pressure tablet (that she'd left out on the coffee table.... grr).

SO the nurse called a doctor, and the doctor raised a child protection flag.

We aren't sure if he did call social services, but we ended up having a child protection interview by a Registrar.

VERY scary stuff. They did a diagram and documented every single scratch, bump, bruises, mark... everything.

They wanted to question Josh to see if his story was the same but of course we'd taken him to my Mum's with the other two whilst we were in A&E.

The positive end was that it turns out that not only was one of the nurses doing the plastering someone we knew from our old church, but the Registrar realised that she recognised me a) from tv and b) because she goes to our current church!

Praise God for having His Hand over us.

Still, I have come away so shaken. I believe actually that these procedures SHOULD be in place to safeguard children. Sadly it seems though that the abusers slip through the net and the net only catches the innocent. As Josh said on BBC Breakfast, we understand they have a job to do but can they PLEASE all be trained.

I have heard so many horror stories about what has happened to home educators to not have truly been afraid today. I had visions of myself being told that they were going to take Jonathan away, and myself calling for by standers to take my phone and call the number on there for the BBC!

Seriously, I was scared.

Praise God we're home safe. I expect this will make tomorrow's local authority home visit even more interesting. As well as the health visitor coming for the first time on Thursday...

As for poor Jonathan, he's plastered from hip to toe on his right side, and not meant to bear weight for four weeks - yeah right. He's 2!

Anyone got any suggestions for how to get him around for 4 weeks?!!

7 comments:

Freya's Staff said...

Jonathan could learn to rollerskate? one legged?

Joxy34 said...

**hugs**

Oh dear, I am sorry you've had to go through such a scary procedure, although because of the little one's recent A&E visits the doctors are pretty much obliged to do a child protection interview.

I use to work in children servies in Tower Hamlets in London and the doctors there use to do child protection interview and exams; some of the cases were truly appalling; but to be fair to the doctors they were good at spotting cases of where kids were just a bit accident prone. IN your case, your son's age would have been a factor too as a 2yr old's bone's are usually quite soft and malleable so it's harder for them to break their limbs - not impossible of course.. but with his recent incidents it would have raised a flag.

Try not to worry hon, your God is clearly keeping you all safe and protected :)

Joxy.

Vicki said...

Oh poor you (and poor Jonathan)!

I know what you mean about them needing to have a system in place to safeguard children who may be being abused. I think the problems come because they're so busy trying to safeguard everyone that they all forget what kids are like. Kids run, climb, hang off of things and generally don't look where they're going. They've always got at least a couple of scratches/scrapes/bruises, two year olds especially.

I know they say you can't wrap them up in cotton wool but in your case I would recommend it, at least until he's old enough to confirm that you aren't beating him.

Shirl said...

Oh no, a broken leg: poor Jonathan.
Get well soon.

What a scary experience. Good job there was a person you knew working there. Goes to show the more home-edders are out in the community the better!

Love the t-shirt design by the way ... :0)

Shirl x

stefndawniy said...

oh my gosh Ann , poor Jonathan! I hope Joshua isn't blaming himself either.
Naomi broke her arm when she was two, fell off a stool.
How horrid going through the child protection stuff, at least it didn't wrongly accuse you !!
Lots of love and hugs xx

Hannah said...

Hi Ann

What an ordeal - I'm glad you got through it ok. I hope that Jonathan heals quickly without too much discomfort.
Your question about getting around reminded me about this blog - their middle son was in a cast last summer.

http://www.swissarmywife.net/2008_08_01_archive.html

Carlotta said...

Oh poor Jonathan, and poor you. It is so terrible that just when a family is under terrible strain anyway, you then have to be subjected to all that suspicion.

My guess is that real abusers might not even take their child to casualty at all. In fact, I heard last week of one schooled child who was so scared of his abusive father that he completely hid the fact that he had broken his arm....hid this from everyone, including school friends.