When Jack was 3 years old, I watched a documentary about a girl with special needs who was being abused by a group of staff in a residential home. I sat there sobbing the whole way through. My husband constantly told me to turn it over, but I couldn’t – it’s like I knew I had to watch it. I couldn’t be ignorant about this topic. From that moment, I knew I never wanted to send my son to a residential school.
Fast forward 10 years and I find myself in a meeting at Jack’s old school. A mere 12 months after starting a routine begins that I was all too familiar with. A meeting to tell me they cannot meet my son’s needs, a meeting to tell me to find a new school. This was Jack’s third school but this time they said Jack needed to go to residential! Jack’s behaviour had been very concerning or some time. However, I knew this was caused by the restrictive actions of his school. The grounds were open, and Jack was a flight risk. However, I had been reassured before he started that they were used to that issue. However, within months he was confined to nothing but a classroom and tiny outside courtyard.
I became defiant. I cried. Not my boy, no way. I sat for a longtime thinking what to do, before deciding to look at a residential school I’d heard great things about. A place where I personally knew others who had had a great experience there. My husband and I drove the hour and 15-minute journey. I remember it felt so far. However, upon looking around the school, I couldn’t help but start to change my mind. The facilities were amazing. A swimming pool, an interactive library, a softplay room, a gym, parks and play areas and a bike track. The homes were clean, and the bedrooms were personalised. There was a dedicated team just for making visuals! They did activities, they provided personalised support. They had their own short breaks in the holidays. The head answered every question we had, and we heard the answers we wanted to hear. We had to admit it, this might be a better life for Jack…….
Long story short; we applied, and in the summer of 2021, we were awarded funding by our local council for a 38-week placement. The pain I felt at this time was immense. Shopping for items for Jack to be sent away broke my heart. I felt nobody in the world understood what I was going through. Picking nice things for his room and all new clothes etc didn’t help. I’d look like I was crazy – standing in the shops crying whilst shoving t-shirts into my basket. I barely slept. I dreaded the day that was whizzing around.
We had used visuals to explain to Jack what was happening. We showed him pictures of his new room, the staff, how many days before he saw us and much more. We visited the school and its grounds a number of times with him. Yet on the day I dropped him off everything felt wrong. His Tv wasn’t set up, I had to beg for a lamp to go outside his room as they wanted all the lights off at night (Jack’s terrified of the dark) and he couldn’t access his favourite channels on YouTube. All things I’d had no idea about. We were here now though and we thought Jack understood what was happening. We were told we could stay as long as we wanted with him but were ushered out of the door of the home after 40 minutes. Jack ran to another and in a panicked voice shouted open the door, open the door. My heart crumbled into pieces, and I completely broke down. My husband and I sobbed until we had no tears left.
We stayed near my son that weekend and phoned many times to check on him. We were told he was ok and after a couple of days we were allowed to see him on a video call. He seemed fine.
For months, I cried constantly, at anything. Particularly at mealtimes. I just did not know what to do with myself without my boy. However, over time, I slowly started to adapt. Jack did seem generally fine. He was always out, he did not stop. He went everywhere from soft plays to theme parks. We saw him every week, we video called him 3 nights a week and I called the home every evening. He was happy most of the time when I saw him, and I felt I had a good relationship with staff. I missed him terribly, but I told myself he was in the right place. However, I started to see bruising on him that nobody could explain, such as a large bruise on his chest, but I was always given some flaky response about what it may have been. I suppose I justified it all in my head as I never saw anything that greatly concerned me whenever I visited or had Jack home. I told myself that everyone seemed nice, and they would report anyone who harmed him. Jack always wanted to go back after spells at home.
Then the new head took over……….
Jack’s experience changed overnight. Suddenly he was no longer taken off site. The only time he went out was when we took him. The school’s facilities started going downhill. The pool was constantly closed and there were no longer any bikes for the children to ride on. A lot of valued and long-term staff started to leave. There were red flags everywhere. I was no longer allowed to speak to teachers and everything I said or did had to now go through senior management. Systems were swapped over meaning that communication was being directed through emails instead of phone calls, which would be relayed through senior management. The head was a door firmly shut kind of person. You never saw her and if you wanted to speak to her, she was always in a meeting.
Parents access to the school was also changed. With events only being held on pick up days instead of weekends or bank holidays. Meaning 99% of them could not attend because of their young person’s transport arrangements.
I made complaints and followed procedures, but nothing worked. My concerns were dismissed. I was treated as a neurotic parent who needed help. I was even told to see a doctor.
Important professional positions started to be removed, such as the designated safeguarding lead and the person who replaced those positions, was always the head. Meaning no independent person was checking on anything.
During this time my son absconded from school. He was left to ride behind staff on a scooter in an ungated area, despite him being a flight risk. Realising staff were not paying attention, he took his opportunity. They didn’t even realise he had gone. Had it have not been for a parent in the car park, they wouldn’t have even known he was missing. He went across a number of roads alone (including a main one), despite having no safety awareness whatsoever. He went into shops and took food before a shop owner eventually phoned the school to come get him.
After the incident ranks were closed on me further and on Jack too. The report done on the incident left out information and they even lied to my social worker, informing them he hadn’t been out of sight of staff during the incident.
On one of Jack’s weekends home in May 2023, he started hitting himself on the top of the head. This was something Jack had been doing for around 6 months. I was told he was copying other children when I reported it to school. On this occasion I said to Jack “Don’t hit yourself on the head” to which he replied “B* hits Jack on the head”. I was taken aback. This was the name of a night staff attendant. He then proceeded to say another night staff attendant’s name. His language is limited, but it was clear. My son had been being hit during the night times. He gave enough information that explained a story. A story that Jack was displaying behaviours of concern, and the night staff were hitting him in retaliation. Including being hit over the head with a plastic bottle full of urine. It appeared to start because of noise levels he made at bedtime (due to the lack of stimulation he had received in the day). Jack would say “Stop F@*king misbehaving” whilst punching himself on the top of the head. When I asked him who says that he would always say B*. He would jump out of his skin if we entered his room at night. He didn’t trust anyone and would present with ever increasing behaviours of concern to see what different people’s reaction would be.
My mind was racing. I had known something was wrong for so long, but I just couldn’t place where it was happening. I would wake in the night and burst into tears, I was constantly told it was all in my head, and now my son had found a way to tell me, it was all very real.
But then I had to find out that it didn’t matter what he told me…….because there is nothing you can do about it!
The immediate period after this opened my eyes to just how little is done when a vulnerable person is abused. Firstly, all the perpetrator has to do is say that they didn’t do it. My son’s Autism was used against him, and I was given patronising explanations to how he could confuse what he meant. I came back to the same question every time. “If he doesn’t mean that – then what does he mean”? Nobody tried to answer me.
I have since also found out that I was consistently lied to by the home manager about Jack’s behaviour, as well as other senior staff members. They also regularly sent emails with talk of getting together for a chat, to decide how to respond to me over my concerns.
After my son reported this abuse to me, he never went back to the homes again. He instead continued as a day student in the school. This is despite the school being over 50 miles from us. We hoped he was now safe within the education sector of the school and where offered no alternative provision by our local council. However, our nightmare was far from over.
Over the next couple of months, we were subjected to being ghosted by the people we thought cared about our son. Staff from the homes avoided us like the plague, they no longer said hello to Jack. Jack was seen a number of times when we picked him up from school by himself, without a one to one. His behaviour at home was very concerning too. He often relived the abuse, and he would hit us or throw things at us and then cower and hold his head, as if waiting to be hit.
I took my sons story as far as I could with the police. I did everything I could to get someone to be held accountable, but nothing worked. Even my social workers did nothing, telling the school they could follow their own procedures without their involvement. I would constantly complain. I was issued apologises but no one social worker was better than the last. I learnt that organisations and charities could not help a child with special needs. They just passed me onto the next person. His voice not worth a thing.
In the summer holidays Jack attended a short breaks scheme at the school. He only attended during the day. It was a shambles from start to finish. I didn’t see a single staff member that would be looking after him, who he was familiar with. I was even told by one member of staff that I couldn’t have a telephone number for the home he was in to check on him. They hardly took him anywhere and only the pool was available to use on site. On one of the days Jack came home with what looked like a handprint on his back. I showed a high up member of staff this the next day. She agreed it seemed like a handprint and said she would report it for investigation. The day of this incident Jack had been swimming.
When Jack returned in September to school he refused to go swimming. I knew something must have happened there. When I rang school to check on the progress of the investigation, I was told it had never been reported. After this Jack refused to go anywhere in school but the front field. No longer wanting to take part in the activities he loved.
His behaviour escalated so much at home; we had to have the police out. He would scream at night and say, “bad school”. We knew we had to save him. We couldn’t try and make this work anymore. We said, no more school Jack. His Screaming stopped.
After this Jack was out of school for 7 months. No schools would let us so much as look at them. The system is now we choose you; you don’t choose us. Like trying to get into an elitist club rather than an educational provision.
Jack’s behaviour was so concerning, and we couldn’t free ourselves from the situation. We were living in a tiny house with no garden (which we’d move to whilst Jack was in residential to be closer to him). My husband had to go part-time to help with Jack at home. We had no money. We had no friends or family around. We had no chance of a school. Times were hard.
Then a tiny glimmer of hope. A school where we used to live offered him a day space. He has been there since April 2024. We have also moved house, and things have improved, however, all the issues we had with Jack before he went to residential are still there. Except now he is 6ft 1 and 16stone. Jack is yet again restricted into a family environment, which he struggles to cope in.
Our fight is not over, and it never will be. There are still children at that school being treated like my son was. There are still vulnerable people being treated like my son was all over the country, and worse!
Since Jack left, more parents have spoken out and Ofsted have now given the homes a damming report but changed it back a few short months later to good. This is despite the staff who caused this to happen still being there and actually all getting promotions, so they now run they place!
I’m determined to bring good from what has happened to our family and refuse to let this continue to happen to others.
As things currently stand, my son’s choices for the future are extremely limited, as I do not trust anyone to look after him now.
I worry every day about what his future will hold. The future for young people like mine, is very bleak indeed.
Unfortunately, cultures of abuse are not uncommon, and it is so easy for these establishments to cover it up and for no one to be held to account. You move on and they carry on exactly how they were unchecked. You’re seen as a one off and the system thrives on the people in the homes being unable to communicate effectively.
Something must change and I’m going to make that happen!
The name of the staff member has been changed to B* and the other staff members name is not mentioned for legal reasons.