People and Families Policy and Scrutiny Committee

There is the above policy and scrutiny committee meeting next Thursday.

There is something on the meeting page that refers to a work programme. On the work programme there is a section on suicide, in the box next to them it states “approach and structure of review to be confirmed”.

I have no idea what that means, I have absolutely no idea what a policy and scrutiny committee is and what their role is.

What I do know is that suicide was mentioned.

What I also know is that Essex Children’s Service have a policy of not investigating attempted suicides in children, which not only means that they lack information regarding preventing other children attempting suicide, but it also means that the child who attempted suicide does not get the what caused them to attempt suicide investigated, and one of the most important aspects of preventing a repeat suicide attempt is to address the cause of that suicide attempt.

Which is something that Essex County Council have repeatedly refused to do and are still refusing to do.

6 different false excuses as to why they cannot investigate my customer complaint regarding the incidents that led to my child’s suicide attempt. The last one, which there are about 20 separate pieces of paperwork proving that is false, has been condoned by Paul Turner, Monitoring Officer for Essex County Council. He is more than happy that my child’s suicide attempt cannot be investigated because my complaint was submitted late, even though that isn’t true and there are so many pieces of written evidence, written by the local authority, to prove that.

The last thing I want to do is to contact anyone associated with Essex County Council as they are toxic and every single time it damages my mental health.

However, this is an opportunity that is too good to miss, morally, I cannot sit and do nothing when there is a chance, no matter how minute, that I can do anything to prevent vulnerable children committing suicide, when the local authority takes a cavalier attitude to suicide attempts.

I’m going to write an email to all of the councillors involved in the committee, i’m not expecting anything to happen but it would be wrong of me to put my own feelings and mental health above the real risk of children dying from suicide when the local authority has a ‘don’t care’ attitude about it.

I will post the email as soon as it is written and sent.