Why do we have to wait so long?

I thought by the time I wrote again we would at least be close to a resolution.  As it is, we are still “waiting”.  

Waiting for others to do whatever it is that they need to do to help my daughter Lucy get what she actually needs for her future.  We are having to fight for Lucy because the local authority is not willing to give her what all the experts say she needs, and what Lucy herself wants.    Instead they insist on pushing this “local” option that is totally unsuitable for her, and which will result in her taking many, probably irrevocable, steps backwards from where she has managed to get to.  

Her confidence has already sunk to record lows (at least since she has been at the Marston Hill) and her depression is increasing as we wait.  We are doing all we can to fight for her.  We are paying for the best solicitor we could find, one who has fought and won cases of this nature before, we have paid for additional assessments, which back up in a professional way all that has been said, both in other reports and in the S139 (LDA) assessment.  The local authority is obstinate and destructive in pushing for its own politically (who knows!) motivated goals.  It doesn’t care about Lucy.  It doesn’t care about the well-being of the most vulnerable people in our society.  It just cares about following its own guidelines and not giving in to people who want it do something right for a change. 

We know it is obstinate from our previous tribunal case with it in order to get Lucy into the Marston Hill in the first place.  It was not prepared to spare us all the iniquity and bother of having to present before tribunal, only to get royally slammed by the judging board for being neglectful and frankly incompetent in maintaining its position.  

And now, despite being very clear to them that we are going through with this, and showing them all the supporting evidence we have, they continue to make Lucy’s life a misery and our lives one big ball of stress and uncertainty, by not just admitting that this is the best way.  For heaven’s sake, it turns out that the overall cost of their (doomed to failure) proposal for Lucy is significantly more than sending her to Pearson’s!  Where is the logic in all this?  

Why are we not spared the pain and frustration?  Why is Lucy not spared the misery, the descent into depression, the inability to look forward to what should be an exciting three years in the next stage of her development?  Why can she not be allowed to enjoy the Summer and plan for all the exciting things she will experience in her new life at Pearson’s?  Instead, she sits in her room all day, getting more and more depressed and losing hope, asking us what is happening, knowing now that all we can say is “wait, it will be ok”, and knowing that we know as much as she does.  And so, every day, she loses more hope, in a solution, in people, in the world, and in us.