LA are now reassessing following receipt of JR pre-action letter.
Parents have stated that needs identified in statement are still relevant and provision needed to meet them remains the same. The statement was written for tribunal and so specifies and quantifies direct weekly SALT and OT therapy, weekly ASD specific counselling, qualifications of staff, size of school and class, similar peer-group (DS is of at least average cognitive ability).
Yesterday he was reassessed by the LA EP. He actually met with her (rewarded with FIFA points). He has never met with the EOTAS tutor who has been visiting since November and she was expecting that he wouldn't meet with her. I think the LA were counting on it as their principal excuse for doing nothing for the past 14 months is that DS1 will probably not engage.
We had agreed to go through the statement and agree what, if any, extra or updated assessments were needed. She told me that Part 2 is no longer relevant and so we could ignore that section of the statement except for the last paragraph which listed his needs. In isolation, this list is meaningless - 'literacy and numeracy skills', 'social use of language and communication' etc and could apply to any child as it makes no mention of ASD or SpLD etc. The EP then said ASD/SpLD or any diagnosis itself was not important and that the EHCP focuses on outcomes. She said that the outcomes are written first and then the provision needed to meet them.
So she tried to do this for the first 'need' which is just described as 'literacy and numeracy skills'. She asked what outcome I wanted, and could reasonably expect given that DS1 had missed the last five terms of school and had no education whatsoever, by the end of year 11. I said OK, expectations should not be lowered due to needs not being met and placement breaking down and as DS1 is of average cognitive ability we should expect the 'average' i.e. 5 GSCE's grade A to C. I said we should not lower expectations just because DS1 has ASD or dyslexia. She did not like this. She tried to find the words to politely say that these expectations only apply to NT children. She gave up trying to reach agreement on that or any needs with me.
I had persuaded DS1 to meet with her saying that he just had to give his views by completing a 'questionnaire' on the laptop and would not have to speak to the EP but when he had finished she then took his views using pen and paper and asking him all sorts of questions. He said very little - eg., she asked him where he was going to live when he was older. Logically he said 'I don't know'. So she would ask more questions to push him. Logically, again, he said 'in a house'. So she would make suggestions and then write them down as his view. When it came to 'writing' she asked him why he wanted to improve his spelling? 'What do you want to write?' 'Words' 'Do you want to write essays or fill in forms?' 'Is it to get english or maths GCSE's or so that you can do everyday stuff, which you will need to do, like managing a budget so qualifications aren't really important to you, or am I putting words into your mouth?' 'What about cooking - you will need to know how to cook for yourself.'
I think that the LA are trying to remove provision in the transfer so that the aspect of the JR relating to non-provision of SALT, OT and counselling or appropriate tuition becomes irrelevant. So academically, we are down to functional skills, they are arguing that anxiety is a health need and the responsibility of the NHS to provide counselling. They claim that they have not been able to find suitable and available indi SALT or OT but I expect they will also try to remove this on transfer as well and so there will be no point in continuing to try and find anyone.
There is going to be a transfer/AR meeting next week. I have asked SENDIAS to attend as there are going to be a lot of LA staff present. We told them that this number of people (SNO, EOTAS head, EOTAS tutor, EP, CIR) would guarantee that DS1 would not be able to attend - even sent them the 'nothing about me without me', pointed out that DS1 is 15 etc but to no avail.
I have looked at the LA transfer review report and there is no mention of needs other than a box to mark with an X the areas of need (communication and interaction, cognition and learning etc). Also for each area of need there is a box or bullet points that seem to only permit one outcome and three 'provisions'. Can I ignore the boxes and forced focus of this document?
I feel like I'm going to get royally screwed over if they make confident assertions as I don't understand EHCPs in the same way as I had to come to understand statements. Does anyone have any good links? I need to see what a 'good' EHCP looks like. If your DC have been transferred, did Part 2 (every sentence of which is cut and pasted from expert reports) survive the transfer? If not, where is the description of the child's needs.
TIA and sorry this is so long.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.
SN children
EHCP transfer - is the content of Part 2 really now irrelevant?
22 replies
KOKOagainandagain · 20/05/2016 10:56
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.