I wish I could contribute more often but I'm homeschooling two children and I'm genuinely wiped out by their bedtime so often end up in bed catching up before I conk out, you're all so hilarious.
Two things stand out to me from last thread and this new thread. Firstly I know someone mentioned already the diagnosis process of autism might vary (sorry I can't remember who it was) but Jack's story about this is niggling at me because I know for a fact an educational psychologist cannot diagnose Autism, they make an in depth assessment of abilities in different areas of learning, then from those assessments will place them on a percentile on each area so you can see where they are comparatively against the average range for their age. They will then make suggestions on how to help your child progress in those areas they may struggle with. They do not speculate nor make suggestions of suspected learning difficulties they think your child has.
The findings from these assessments, IF they show your child is behind significantly for their age will have to be passed on to other professional i.e Pediatrician, who will gather the information from the other network of professionals, like educational psychologist and teachers, occupational therapist, speech and language therapist, then and only then will there be an official diagnosis and if there was a recommendation to send her to a different school because of this diagnosis a parent would not be able to 'sweep it under rug' they would have to act on this recommendation, as to actively ignore this would cause Social Services to get involved as the parents would be actively neglecting what's in the best interest of their child. Health professionals would be expected to, have a DUTY to report these instances to social services.
Secondly I believe the cat could be coming from abroad, from places where there aren't protections for animals so people take it upon themselves to rescue stray cats and dogs, they have a working relationship with some rescues in the UK (like the one where I live and almost adopted a dog through them this way) they bring the pets here then connect them with the owners. After finding out a bit more about this process I decided not to go ahead with the adoption as I found the process completely strange and oddly WAY laxer than the UK's adopting rescues regulations and a lot of these animals are brought here with diseases and health issues, that you don't know about and there's no way of knowing if the money that was sent goes towards the animals being rescues because it's completely unregulated.
I'm sure someone out there has adopted this way and all has been well so I don't mean to taint this route with how I feel about my particular experience but it's just how I felt.
It is however completely irresponsible of her to adopt an animal with such complex needs when she has admitted multiple times she is not financially stable