A coroner has found there were individual failings to follow support processes at a school attended by a trans teenager who died after telling staff he wanted to kill himself, but said there was no “systemic failure”.
The coroner said she was “slightly horrified” that the school was left to make crucial decisions about which services to refer Alex to in order make sure he had the right support.Ms Combes said she had been told how a referral to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services was not made until three weeks before Alex died, because the school’s past experience was that the waiting list was so long and Camhs would dump children from this list if they were accessing services elsewhere.
Alex made further disclosures about self-harm to a support service and, in March 2022, he wrote a letter seen by a teacher indicating that he wanted to end his life.The coroner noted that Alex began counselling and, at his second session, disclosed that he had attempted an overdose. The coroner noted that despite there being evidence of a deterioration in Alex’s behaviour at school, there were no further incidents of self-harm or expression of suicidal intent and the school could not have assumed “there was a real or immediate threat to Alex’s life”.
The coroner said she will be writing a prevention of future deaths report to organisations including the Department of Health and Social Care, about her concerns over the way referrals are made to Camhs.Ms Combes said she did not have enough evidence to conclude that Alex died as a result of suicide and recorded a narrative conclusion.
In a statement written by Mrs Dews on behalf all the family and read to the court, she said: “He was not just some troubled teen, not a number lost in a system, but a scared child, struggling to come to terms with his own gender and how he could fit into society, how he was crying out for help and was disregarded.Mrs Dews said the family realised after Alex went to secondary school that “he had been battling with his own body since the age of three”.
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Source: Glasgow_Times - 🏆 76. / 59 Read more »