Are SEN case workers to be trusted?

This isn't standard practice though as you will know. In my LA, nobody is picking up the phone. The case workers mobiles are always turned off, when you leave a voice mail, nobody will call you back and all email contact will be ignored.

The only way to get a response is a formal complaint. The LA will usually uphold the stage 1 complaint and instruct the EHCP team to respond. This will then also be ignored so the complaint moves to stage 2. At this point, you get a response, and months will have passed (and it usually does not mean that the final plan is forthcoming, it's just what is needed to get a simple response to an email). I hear what you are saying but you surely know that the practice is your team is far removed from the reality in most other LAs.

If people would use half the vitriol they are directing at individuals doing their jobs and use it to lobby government about policy directly, this would be more useful.

How much lobbying are you and your employers doing and have they been doing over the last, say, ten years,@CleverButScatty? The reality is that they seem to listen to LAs much more than they do to parents. When we get LAs suggesting there should be no right to appeal against their decisions, you do have to wonder whether they really have any interest in doing their jobs properly.

@thinkingofausername they shouldn’t have to. However, enforcement is the next best thing when the system is as it is, so knowledge is power.

We don't either I wonder if you are in our LA? We now have only one functioning email for the whole department only that isn't functioning and hasn't for weeks as it is full so obviously doesn't have the capacity to hold the number of emails generated for the whole SEND dept.

On the contrary, independent reports are usually much better than those produced by LA EPs. Time and again I've seen LA EP reports where they haven't carried out basic cognitive testing, and in some cases haven't even seen the child. If they are OK in terms of describing the child's difficulties, they are almost invariably really vague when it comes to specifying what the child needs to meet those difficulties, and are full of terminology such as "might benefit from", "regular", "up to", support from "adults" etc.

But why should they have to? Why can't LAs just follow the law in the first place!

We absolutely do not have case workers contactable by email or phone.

I've only recently started supporting them but yes, that is all in hand.

If the child is CSA and unable to attend school but the LA has refused to provide alternative provision, has the parent emailed the DCS threatening JR for failure to provide s19 provision? If that hasn’t worked, have they sent a pre-action letter? If they have and that has failed, have they looked to pursue JR proceedings?

Similarly, if the LA is in breach of the EHCP timescales, have they followed the same steps? For a comprehensive EOTAS/EOTIS package they will probably have to appeal once they have the right to appeal, anyway.

Apologies if you already know all this.

It isn’t a case of parents not understanding LAs have a whole caseload. It is a case of that not being relevant to individual cases. Despite what LA’s often think, other DC are not an excuse for breaching the timescales (or any other breach), and parents should not be deterred from enforcing their DC’s rights by professionals saying think of the other children and YP.

They could, but from experience these are often inferior to the LA employed EP ones, which are frequently completed via zoom. And several have had to be repeated by a LA employed one, as the private ones contained very little useful information.

The issue is that demand is massively over supply. Our local borough has more than doubled special school places in past 5 years, but still cannot meet demand. Funding is being diverted from mainstream schools to SEN budgets, but it's a drop in the ocean when a special school place can cost up to 100k, vs a mainstream place costing around 6k. It's called a SEN crisis, but it's actually education crisis, as mainstream schools are struggling to meet needs of all children with reduced funding, all children are loosing out. I have no idea how this will be resolved, huge amounts of increased funding have been directed into SEN but it continues to deteriorate.

I have three children with SEND and EHCPs. One spent the best part of a year on a reduced timetable and then not in school at all. We had a delayed EHCP due to EP waits and his year 7 place was sorted on 31 aug of year 6. I had to change jobs and it impacted us all enormously.

I also work for an LA in a role that supports SEND learners who are looked after (in care). I work very closely with the SEND team and was previously a special school teacher and SENCO.

I know, having seen this from both sides, that there are huge failings in the SEND system, but these are systemic issues not failings of individual people.

In our school age team our case workers have caseloads of 300+ learners. When someone leaves we can't recruit for love nor money (would you do that job for 32k after reading this thread?)

They are hugely behind and all working for more hours than they are paid for to get and keep on top of things. I have documents arriving in my inbox from them on weekends, late at night etc. they can't keep on top of the demand but that isn't because of laziness or failings.

I saw a presentation across the whole directorate looking at demand, and the demands on caseworkers is 238% of what it was pre pandemic. Nobody can sustain that and there is no more money for extra staff.

Is this enough or would you like my CV?

I asked the poster a question given she appears to be an EHCP case worker. Not sure why you are so wound up by it. Just ignore it if you have nothing useful to say.

Can I just ask how you have experience with the system? Do you have a failed child or do you work for the LA?

Where did I say that? You are making things up here.

You are claiming that the poster is doing a good job, sticking to time lines and the law even though you don't know them. Who is being irrational?

I am concerned the deadlines are causing quality issues. We had an EP pulled out of retirement to do my DD’s and a case handler contracted the other side of the country. Both commented frequently on the urgency. Having heard nothing for months I had next to no time to ask questions or think when suddenly it was all systems go. Nobody replied to emails I had needing advice to prepare. it was incredibly rushed. Also it now seems they are contracting “ data specialists” with next to no SEND expertise to just whip up documents that the entire education of vulnerable children rely on. I am concerned re the stance of such data specialists too if this is widespread.

Yes the Quality, Efficiency and Compliance manager for SEND lives 300 miles away from here. She doesn't respond to parents' emails either despite the exorbitant salary.

How are you being screamed and shouted at? Case handlers are impossible to contact by email let alone phone. Emails are ignored. We aren’t given a phone number( ours doesn’t even work for or live in the same county) and the only time I ever spoke to a case handler was when the latest in a string of case handlers contracted suddenly rang me from where she lived the other end of the country to meet a deadline of getting my DD’s EHCP done by wanting to pull the whole thing together in an hour. There was next to no time to draw breath let alone scream or shout. Never heard from her again.

You are accusing a stranger on the internet whom you have never met or had any dealings with of a range of specific actions.

I am sorry you have had an awful time, and I am not saying that you have not experienced these things (you are a stranger on the internet, I wouldn't know).

But can you see how irrational it is to accuse a stranger of specific actions just because of the job they do?

If that comment was intended as anything other than blatant hate speech, it completely missed the mark.

Exactly, you have to self fund to master's level and then there are not very many funded places (I think something like 60 per year for the whole of the north west) and the funding is about 15k.
Bearing in mind you have probably been a top of the pay scale teacher to go into it that's a hell of a drop.

I would have loved to go down the EP route when I left teaching but could not have afforded it.

The EP shortage is by far the biggest cause of delays in the 20 week process. I know from talking to out caseworkers that they have a higher list of cases where they are over that timescale and can't progress then because they are waiting on EP advice.

If people would use half the vitriol they are directing at individuals doing their jobs and use it to lobby government about policy directly, this would be more useful.