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I think you should talk to school about this other parent. That sounds like pretty threatening and unacceptable behaviour. If he has concerns, he should contact school and should not be contacting and intimidating your son in this way. They need to talk to him. I would also go back to your Gp and say you are at breaking point. Could they not refer your son to a community paediatrician for an assessment? I would also contact your post adoption support department and ask for an urgent assessment of need. Kids can now access therapy via the adoption support fund. You could also ask them to refer your son for a full assessment at somewhere like family futures. Hope that helps x

I think you should talk to school about this other parent. That sounds like pretty threatening and unacceptable behaviour. If he has concerns, he should contact school and should not be contacting and intimidating your son in this way. They need to talk to him. I would also go back to your Gp and say you are at breaking point. Could they not refer your son to a community paediatrician for an assessment? I would also contact your post adoption support department and ask for an urgent assessment of need. Kids can now access therapy via the adoption support fund. You could also ask them to refer your son for a full assessment at somewhere like family futures. Hope that helps x

Our dd was threatened by a grandparent of a child in her class aged 11 - waylaid us on the way home after school. I reported it to school imnediately but head was not there (a Friday ) so we called the police, who said school should deal with it. When Head found out on Monday he wrote to the grandparent and parent expressing the fact they should never approach dd themselves. They didn't; in fact I never saw them at the school again, although their child bullied dd on social media for a while when both went to secondary. Luckily they went to different schools and it never got too bad - other child's family had moved a little way away from our area - or I would have complained to the other child's secondary school. Our dd coped well, I think as her school acted so quickly and decisively. But have you contacted PASW and asked for an assessment?

Thanks to Milly and freddie2. Thank you so much for your advice thus far. We don't currently have a PASW and I have no idea how to contact a post adoption support department. We adopted through an agency, not LA 8/9 years ago. We have not needed any support since, until now..... How do we contact a PASW or PASD? Would this be through the LA? All my adoption training seems a lifetime ago. Had forgotten all about Family Futures but I will certainly be back to the GP to ask. We don't even have a SW. I honestly think the school believe I'm making it up. I'm standing in the middle shouting for help while everyone wonders calmly past believing I'm crazy! X

My son was threatened by the dad of one of the girls in his class for something he said to her in yr 6 - I complained to the teacher and she spoke to the dad - the truth of the situation was that this girl was a ring leader in a group that were bullying my son and he had answered back - the teacher knew and spoke to the dad - he was separated from the Mum - she avoided me after that from embarrassment as she the truth - I think it’s important to speak to the school and they should deal with the parent - whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened they should not be confronting your child directly. As far as the referral is concerned you could speak to the school about this at the same time making it clear how bad things are - they could contact Camhs directly to speed up the referral - my son was referred to Camhs through the school and was seen the next day. You could also ring them yourself to chase it up - that’s something I’ve done with referrals

The LA where you live will have a post adoption department - you can contact them. We did years back with a specific request (life story work) and they came to a school meeting and referred us to an adoption support agency - through the adoption support fund we had therapy for our family and dd for about 2 years (this was prior to a cap being put on the ASF funding for each year). Our LA buys into free parent sessions from the agency and we now have appointments for us in respect of our younger child - they're free and we don't need to apply to the ASF for them (but they won't be directly working with our child. Depending on how that goes we may apply for support for her - she can respond in a similar way to what you have described when stressed, sometimes threatens self harm and has actually hurt herself in a minor way recently.)

That sounds awful. Good comments and advice above. I just wanted to say that your adoption agency may have a PASW or department - our is amazing. We chose an agency because they seemed to be available fo us and our child for life and they have done more for us than we could ever have imagined. xx

I'm very far from being an expert and there's lots of good advice above. However, a couple of observations. At age 11 your AS could either be at the top of Primary or the bottom of Secondary age-wise (if you see what I mean). My experience is that Primary and Secondary schools handle things like you describe very differently. In Primary the school seems to very much push it back to the parent along the lines of "This happened; talk to your child. Sorted.". However, your comment "it's all changed so quickly" makes me wonder whether you AS has just moved up to Secondary (and is possibly a Summer baby so at the younger end of the school year group). In Secondary, and again this is just my experience, if the school are clued up to this sort of thing then they will be supportive to the point of almost obsessive. At AD's school stuff that happens between pupils, even if outside school hours and the school site if reported in school is followed up on. I have a really good and positive relationship with teachers at AD's school and we tend to plan together. I think that building this relationship with your child's school is invaluable in getting help. So, perhaps ring the school and talk to them about what happened and ask them to investigate. Put the onus on them to sort it out, maybe? An adult seeking out a child is usually a red rag to most schools, in my experience. The Doctor tells you to go to the school? I don't really understand this. Do you mean that the Doctor is asking for a referral from school? Our route to CAMHS was through the GP - I don't think that you can get a referral any other way unless you go to a paediatrition but they do sometimes ask for other professionals (such as school) to provide information, is this perhaps what you mean? If not then change your GP - your GP should be able to give your child a referral that is going to be beneficial to the child. But, having said that, if you have a CAMHS referral then you must have done this already - get on the phone and chase it, perhaps? When it comes to Post Adoption Support I would suggest just calling you Local Authority Children's service and keep asking till you get through to someone who can help you. It is tedious but it worked for me. Just don't give up until someone says "yes". It would probably help, in my experience, if you're calling with a tangible request - "I need X for my child Y" rather than a general one. Now, when it comes to threats of self-harm I don't know your child at all. However, my AD did this stuff all of the time for a while (to the extent that I've had to call 999 because AD was holding a sharp knife and again because she was banging her head against walls and stuff etc. etc.). So I wondered whether this tiny list of "Alternatives to Hurting Myself" which was put together by a Clinical Psychologist for AD might help, if things get a bit fraught or more serious. Putting a cushion or pillow in front of my fist or head; may need an adult to help with finding the cushion Try using an elastic band around my wrist instead of cutting or hurting myself (apparently an elastic band around the wrist is a sort of "contained" pain) Tearing up paper. There's more but that is the essence of the advice. In my experience tearing paper worked best - it did get it thrown at me and it caused a tremendous mess but in the scheme of things? Paper can be swept and I didn't come to any harm from it being hurled. Sorry, a very long post and I'm not sure that it is useful. But hopefully you'll have got help from all of us here. Peahen.

I hadn’t considered he might be at secondary school - my experience is the opposite to Peanuts with primary taking such incidents seriously whereas my sons secondary would not have done - they would insist on an incident form being filled in and had their very structured discipline policy - 10mins detention for the first incident etc - the yr 6 teacher threatened the class that if there was any bullying that person would not get to go to the leavers disco - much more effective. If when you go to the school you stress the self harm threats that is more likely to get them to chase up Camhs - my sons SENCO got the referral because he told her he’d taken a knife and wanted to kill himself - the GP had written a 2 line letter - quite general about bullying etc - and they had rejected the referral

Yes "self harm" is a red flag you can use. That's where we are at the moment with our youngest (13). She is under CAMHS but they're reorganising and we're waiting for further appointments; hence we are looking for other avenues. BTW if you ever have the police involved - whether by choice or otherwise (we have had both several times....), they'll make referrals to social care, who do act very quickly. (We haven't always wanted them to but that's another story!)

Re school. It does help if they are aware of your child's challenges. With eldest it was easy as she showed everything at school (better at home in fact) but youngest tends to be very compliant at school. Sometimes we would have to talk to school as she had worked herself up about something happening there and so they gradually became aware. Now at secondary with hormones swirling etc, she can't hide her feelings so much and the school are very supportive. She sees a mentor each week and talks to her about her feelings - she also has a very lovely head of year who is sympathetic. She is still very well behaved (they don't get the tantrums we get at home) - I doubt her subject teachers would be aware of much if they weren't told. So I'm wondering how much you've told school? Both primary and secondary schools have been very helpful -it was never a case of them worrying about dd2, it was us that approached them and they listened.

Thank you, thank you, thank you x I can't begin to tell you all how much your help means. I might be having a little sob....x DS is at secondary and we've been totally open and they know everything, and do nothing. One morning he had such a severe meltdown I managed to get him into school, straight to his Head of Year and all she did was send him home, no follow up, nothing. Contacting the LA looks like my next step, then the VA who placed him with us. Followed by the school....again....and back to the GP. Now I know what/who to ask for. Advice on how to re-direct the self harm is very much appreciated. He has a background of severe neglect and we always knew it would be a bumpy ride, I just never imagined getting professionals to listen to me would be such a challenge. You have all bolstered me up. God help the school......if they had dealt with the issues during the day parents wouldn't feel the need to wade in without a thought for the consequences. I can't thank you all enough x

OK. I thought that no one would be interested in the safety measures but, just in case they are useful here they all are in full: Putting a cushion or pillow in front of my fist or head; may need an adult to help with finding the cushion Try using an elastic band around my wrist instead of cutting or hurting myself (apparently an elastic band around the wrist is a sort of "contained" pain) Tearing up paper Listening to music , turn the music up (wear headphones) Find a blanket or similar (apparently body temperature is all over the place when this stuff is going on) - probably adult needs to provide the blanket Get an adult to provide a therapeutic drink (like herbal tea) Have some one to call (for young person and possibly for you) - someone you can call to help you and (hopefully) someone that you can rely on - for them and for you Call 999 Things to move on from this: Ring a friend (could be a coping strategy) for the child Call Childline 0800 1111 Increase time between thought and deed - we have had to hide our cooking knives, matches etc. A lot of it seems to work. I hope that this helps. Peahen.

I think many are missing the seriousness of the other parent's actions : "find him and knock him out" is a threat and is a criminal offence. You can't go around threatening violence on children. This must be reported to the police. The law covers threat of an assault almost as seriously as an actual assault as often the element of fear it induces in the victim can provoke a disproportionate response and a physical backlash. This is not a school matter, the element of threat to you son is a Police matter and must be reported. If your son is ambushed and beaten up in the future then the police will know exactly where to look.

I agree with Ford- Police should be informed. And you need to keep notes. This is serious stuff ( currently dealing with a threatening situation myself and police have taken it very seriously). Secondly does your son have any special educational needs? It could be that he should be being referred for speech and language input at the very least. Ask the senco if he can be referred. SALT covers interpersonal skills as well as speech. Thirdly yes apply for therapy from the asf. But also find out what support your LA offers like groups for adopters so you can meet others in a similar situation and you can find out what works for others. Also check out inclusive clubs where he might find more support. Look at your LA website and look for 'local offer to see what is available. Not going to be easy but your LA should have services to support you x