Help with assessment - psychosis and learning disabilities

[Rosamond19]

Hi, I have come across Mencap in trying to access help for my brother in law. He is 36 years old and has some learning disabilities in addition to suffering from psychosis. He was recently sectioned but is now back at home with his parents and receiving some help in the community. We are trying to access long term help as since birth he has suffered with delayed development and we suspect he has dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism but he has never been assessed for any learning disabilities. This is for a variety of reasons but mainly due to the stigma around this at the time which stems from my father in law. This has meant he has never received any help and is now causing a problem as we can see that his long term care needs are far wider reaching then the psychosis. He is unable to live alone for any long period of time, holidays we manage between us as a family but he needs checking in on and being left alone for long periods does appear to exacerbate more acute symptoms of psychosis. We have been told my health care professionals that he needs assessment and a statement of needs drawing up so he can get more comprehensive help but everybody we speak to says it isn't their job to do this and we need to ask somebody else. I wonder if anybody here can help point us in the right direction? Our concern is creating a long term plan as it isn't viable for him to live with his parents indefinitely and clearly they won't be around forever. We were told yesterday by the mental health nurse that due to the sectioning that his needs would be covered by the NHS permanently but we have nothing in writing to back this up and no idea of who we'd call should help be needed.

Apologies if any of this is badly phrased or incorrect terminology used. I can expand more if needed on any of the points above. It is a very complicated situation so it's hard to cover it all off whilst remaining clear.

Thank you.

[Maurice_Mencap Partner]

Hi Rosamond19 , thank you for reaching out on the community - I'm sure lots of people here will be able to offer their own personal experiences of situations similar to what you've described.

I would recommend giving our Learning Disability Helpline a call, our trained advisers should be able to signpost you to where your brother in law will be able to get an assessment. You can call them free on 0808 808 1111 or send an email to [e-mail] if you prefer.

Hope that helps.

[Mybestfriends]

I hear you, my 33yr old Son, has all incl ASDc, Autistic Spectrum. We went to Gp, Then Amht, CAAS is Learning Disabilities/Difficulties go to for being Referred across to get Diagnosises. We were Sign Posted to AMHT as his Dr there was Specialist & did the Assessment, we had already filled in the CAAS form which included the Australian form. This was only 3 yrs ago, & should of been done as a young Boy, but the System didn't inform us, we had to find out years later. Can make us very annoyed at the System for this Missed Support, School, College etc