"Left feeling unsure and lack of clarity"

My wife and I had visited the Barton Hill service, after a referral for my child from their school.

We had not been advised of the referral before, so the letter received was a bit out of the blue, but we were aware of challenges our child had faced in school and had been working with the school.

We approached this referral as something positive and felt that it would add another resource option for our child to utilise in coping strategies.

We met with the health professional before they spoke with our child and we were open and honest with our perception of events and how we felt our child could be supported.

We were alarmed to hear that the referral was an emergency referral, especially as the referenced incidents happened some 5 months prior.

That said and do, its support and we were there to help our child.

Clearly being asked about your child's health and mental wellbeing is distressing but we could understand why these questions needed to be asked.

What was unacceptable was being asked if there were any 'other issues' several times, to the point where I had to ask the individual that they clearly had a report from the school (as they advised us) and clearly they were wanting us to acknowledge something, so having to directly ask 'you have a report in your file in your hands, does it say there is anything else' to which they read through and said 'no'.

It was at this time it felt a little underhand and that the reasons for being there were not quite juicy enough.

After about an hour of discussion the feedback had been that it felt that our child may need some support but was not on the end of the scale that gave serious cause for concern.

That there could be a need for help in some techniques to deal with conflict and assessing situations.

At times the conversation felt a bit wishy washy but happy for our child to meet alone with the NHS professional.

When we return as a family I was alarmed at the language and pointed nature of some of the comments provided.

I do not find it appropriate to be saying 'You feel sad all of the time, You are upset all of the time aren't you xxxx'.

There was not context in which these comments were being fed back to my child as a given statement, there was no 'when xxx happens you feel xxx'.

Then to say I am concerned and worried but not so worried but we would like to refer is a mixed message.

We had purposely not asked our child about the content of their conversation with the health professional but we did say to our child that this was a great thing as we will have additional support, which will help in not feeling sad and upset all the time.

Only for our child to say 'I am not sad all the time, I didn't say that.

It is deplorable that the conversation was presented as such to us.

We are not against a referral and additional support, we want our child to have options when looking to cope and deal with situations but to embellish a conversation like that is just wrong.