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SupahPossum
Hummingbird
Hummingbird

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Joined: 2 Feb 2017
Age: 51
Gender: Female
Posts: 21
Location: Wallasey, UK

18 May 2017, 11:03 am

Hi there,

I was diagnosed back in January of this year, I'm based in the UK. The lady who did my follow up, and gave me loads of things to read and do, said I should contact social services, gave me a number and said they would come out to my home and assess what I needed. I really, really struggle with phone calls so I put it off until this week. I finally call them, and they asked me lots of things like what I needed help with and why I was calling. I didn't really know, so I told them that. They asked a few questions then said someone would call me back. They called back today and now they've referred me to another place, called Adullam.

I looked them up, and they're a housing place, but I don't need housing help, I'm fine, so I'm a bit upset and confused about why I've been referred to these people at all.

Has anyone dealt with them, what do they do, can they do anything to help or have social services got it wrong?



B19
Veteran
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Joined: 11 Jan 2013
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Posts: 9,993
Location: New Zealand

18 May 2017, 7:32 pm

Many of us struggle with phonecalls, especially to people and organisations unknown to us. Sounds like you need to take control of this process from here to get the help plan you need:

Go on the net to find a contact email for the outfit that diagnosed you and clarify the problems in an email to them-
-tell them that there seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding at their end and you want to clarify this
- briefly explain that AS people have issues with being told to phone strangers, given communication difficulties and anxiety about misunderstandings, so the advice to cold call an unknown housing organisation was not really helpful and caused unnecessary stress for you.
-inform them that you did not need nor ask to be referred to the housing organisation and you are not in need of that kind of help (politely)
-list what your needs are very briefly and concisely and ask for help with a plan to assess relevant help
-ask them to liaise with you by email so that you can arrange to work together on your needs assessment and specified areas of needs.



SupahPossum
Hummingbird
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Joined: 2 Feb 2017
Age: 51
Gender: Female
Posts: 21
Location: Wallasey, UK

19 May 2017, 7:54 am

I don't think the people who diagnosed me has much of an idea about what social services do, it seemed to be a general thing they advise everyone. The number I called for social services was a general number you use for all local amenities, including council tax and so forth. The person I spoke to was called John, but I have no way to contact him other than by phone. The problems I had in general were that firstly, nobody told me what, if any, services were available and what to ask for. So I was unprepared on the initial call. When I was called back by John, he dismissed most of what had been discussed previously, and kept asking me what groups I wanted to be in, in the community. I didn't want to join groups with strangers, I wanted to know if there was help for other things. He seemed to lock on to my mentioning problems with debts, from my point of view it was more the fact that dealing with bills and debts means endless phone calls which I can't handle. And now I've been referred to this Adullam organisation, and I don't really know what they can do at all.

I was wondering if anyone in the UK had come across Adullam, had any advice etc from them, and what they do. They seem to be a country-wide organisation, but I'd never heard of them before.

One small thing, John did say he'd ask Adullam to contact me by letter instead of phone, so fingers crossed.