Is your kid neurotypical? If so it’s going to be much easier for you to move almost anywhere in the UK.
If not, and/or if you can afford it, look into smaller private schools with lots of extra curricular activities going on.
With the smaller class sizes, education and potential for assimilating with peers will be drastically improved for your kid, and you will have a much easier time meeting other parents and forming a community too.
Otherwise state schools with lots of arts and sciences funding are probably your best bet, so look into that, find a good one and try to move to their catchment area.
Also if you or your kid have any mental/health issues, get health insurance.
NHS waiting lists are very long and the quality of service is often poor, especially for people in vulnerable situations and for visibly queer/trans/neurodiverse female presenting/bodied folk.
Honestly, just get health insurance anyway if you can afford it, it should be cheaper here than in the US at least.
Disclaimer: I’m neither a parent nor an American in the UK, but I am from here and went to a lot of schools as a kid (moved a lot) and I am queer.
Thanks for all the info. Unfortunately she is not neurotypical and she does have mental health issues. We will try to get insurance ASAP, but we may just have to deal with the NHS at first. I have major medical issues myself.
For the beginning, as long as we can get our medications refilled, we’ll be okay. We’ll see what we can afford in terms of other things. That said, she is very willing to put in the effort herself to make this work because she knows what’s at stake, so hopefully that determination will help her.
Some areas in the UK have drastically better autism and adhd services than others. Like day and night drastically.
From memory, and sorry to direct you back there, Reddit’s UK autism and adhd boards did have some resources on this, and will probably have enough of a user base to be able to give you a good idea of where is currently good or bad.
Cheltenham is probably still really good for both NHS and charity/independent adhd, autism and mental health services for both kids and adults- but my information on the area is now nearly 5 years old, so you will have to look it up for yourself.
And I can only speak for NHS adult adhd, autism and MH services in North London, but they’re next to non existent here and will, from experience, very likely be actively detrimental when you are able to access anything.
Thank you, that is all very helpful. We have no idea where we’ll end up quite yet. The first goal is to try to get a job before emigrating, but failing that, trying to do the logistics of who to stay with at first. We have options, thankfully.
Is your kid neurotypical? If so it’s going to be much easier for you to move almost anywhere in the UK.
If not, and/or if you can afford it, look into smaller private schools with lots of extra curricular activities going on. With the smaller class sizes, education and potential for assimilating with peers will be drastically improved for your kid, and you will have a much easier time meeting other parents and forming a community too.
Otherwise state schools with lots of arts and sciences funding are probably your best bet, so look into that, find a good one and try to move to their catchment area.
Also if you or your kid have any mental/health issues, get health insurance. NHS waiting lists are very long and the quality of service is often poor, especially for people in vulnerable situations and for visibly queer/trans/neurodiverse female presenting/bodied folk. Honestly, just get health insurance anyway if you can afford it, it should be cheaper here than in the US at least.
Disclaimer: I’m neither a parent nor an American in the UK, but I am from here and went to a lot of schools as a kid (moved a lot) and I am queer.
Thanks for all the info. Unfortunately she is not neurotypical and she does have mental health issues. We will try to get insurance ASAP, but we may just have to deal with the NHS at first. I have major medical issues myself.
For the beginning, as long as we can get our medications refilled, we’ll be okay. We’ll see what we can afford in terms of other things. That said, she is very willing to put in the effort herself to make this work because she knows what’s at stake, so hopefully that determination will help her.
Some areas in the UK have drastically better autism and adhd services than others. Like day and night drastically.
From memory, and sorry to direct you back there, Reddit’s UK autism and adhd boards did have some resources on this, and will probably have enough of a user base to be able to give you a good idea of where is currently good or bad.
Cheltenham is probably still really good for both NHS and charity/independent adhd, autism and mental health services for both kids and adults- but my information on the area is now nearly 5 years old, so you will have to look it up for yourself.
And I can only speak for NHS adult adhd, autism and MH services in North London, but they’re next to non existent here and will, from experience, very likely be actively detrimental when you are able to access anything.
Thank you, that is all very helpful. We have no idea where we’ll end up quite yet. The first goal is to try to get a job before emigrating, but failing that, trying to do the logistics of who to stay with at first. We have options, thankfully.
I wish you all the luck.
Thanks!