Are SEN case workers to be trusted?

I know one. Went into the job last year openly stating she would thwart as many applications as possible as she believed a lot of it was rubbish and people just wanted benefits. We are not friends anymore.

Ours are largely awful, pleasant but deliberately incompetent because I can't believe that they have been in the role sometimes for years and still fail to grasp the basics. We have an EOTAS co ordinator who can't describe what her role is but every email sent by her contains the words "sorry this isn't my role" when everything asked pertains to EOTAS. Funnily enough though when you send your question to her line manager he directs her to respond so it apparently is her role. The Tribunal lead who my advocate described as a muppet is no longer Tribunal lead as his incompetence deliberate or otherwise cost the LA an extra £40k. I try not to have to communicate with any of them if I can help it tbh as it either results in a formal complaint, Tribunal or threatening Judicial Review.

I used to be one and left because I had no training or support, I was given a high caseload without really understanding the process and not explained or trained on the processes. Eventually I learnt the processes or the "way things LA" do it often was against the code of practice which I learnt myself. I quickly left. I got the job because I was experienced in supporting children and families with SENd.

I initially had an awful manager who didn't care about the families we worked with and didn't care about training me. Whenever I asked questions I got told just do this but when I asked why I was told not to question. Eventually I got into a good team with some good case officers and a good managers who tried to challenge the LA panel themselves on decisions. They helped train me and explain why x, y, z was done. But ultimately send case officers are ultimately just the messenger, and collating other professionals reports into an ehcp, albeit it should be a high quality written one (e.g. not just copying and pasting) but case officers do not make decisions. It is usually a panel and oversight from a send manager that makes the decisions.

What's frustrating is it is advertised as being a supportive role, supporting families through the ehcp process, holding meetings with them etc. it wasn't....

So I think you can't trust the system unfortunately and not about the individual person

Do they work to serve the child, or on behalf of the school who aren’t delivering EHCP interventions?

They work for the LA and are trying to cut costs as much as they can.

The ones I have had dealings with in my own and neighbouring LAs over the last 25 years have been good at ignoring emails, passing the buck, not returning phone calls, writing dreadful EHCPs and refusing to take parent or school views on board. None of the ones I have dealt with were teachers-they had backgrounds in admin.

I wouldn’t trust them personally. I would get in touch with your local SENDIAS to support you or a paid advocate. Are you confident the EHCP is written in a way to mean the school have to implement the provision. Or does it say lots of “access to” and “up to” type statements? It needs to be water tight to be enforceable.

Putting aside whether caseworkers are evil, which I don't think they are, I think the answer to the OPs question is definitely no. LAs are underfunded and they manage their budgets by managing demand. As a parent you need to be aware that they work for the LA and not for your child

I'm not clear if you are using such a terrible word to describe caseworkers or the children they work with. Either way, get in the fucking bin.

It's hard to be rational when you are dealing with a crisis. I find it highly unlikely that there are 'evil' caseworkers at your LA who are sitting and laughingly choosing not to help your family, taking pleasure in the distress that causes.
I also doubt that there are caseworkers sitting filing their nails and drinking coffee who 'cant be bothered' to deal with your child.
I do think it likely that they have not completed tasks they should have because they are way behind on the workload.
I think you know this deep down, but I understand your anger and frustration. As I said earlier, I have three children with SEND and have personally seen my children suffer because of the shortcomings of the system.

I had one who was just completely incompetent. Mistakes, just completely awful.

One who was rude

And #3 is super lovely and really helpful

If parents intentionally harmed children that LA staff do, they would often end up in prison.

In our LA, caseworkers with a conscience rarely last more than a few months. Anyone who sticks around does so because they can cope with deliberately causing harm to vulnerable children and their families. Ours is known to be one of the worst but I don't think any LAs can claim to have the interests of the children truly at heart. They can't do the right thing for all the children who need it.

Remember that the caseworker is likely to be directed to behave in an unethocal way to protect LA budgets so, even if they are personally of high moral standing, their actions are likely to be harmful.

I see reprehensible behaviour on a regular basis and they still seem to be able to surprise me as they plumb new depths.

You sound just like the guys in my LA who are, once you get to speak to them, are only good at gaslighting. Maybe you should consider that as a career move. If I would refuse to send my child to school, I would be hauled in front of of the courts. But it's ok if the neglect is caused by the LA? right.

What exactly do you know about my LA and my team? Nada. Exactly.

You can absolutely be upset with them. You have not described any individuals perpetrating abuse.
You have described a team that have more work than they can get through.

Nope they point blank lie and misdirect at every opportunity breaking the law and ignoring all court deadlines when your forced to go to sendist to try to hold them account. Honestly the system in our La is completely broken. The whole EHCP process is horrendous

We've had some good caseworkers, although I was always aware that they were very constrained by the system and couldn't always help us in the way that they might have liked.

We have also had awful ones. One in particular did a lot of damage. He just lied all the time. It wasn't just me who thought this, out headteacher at the time also despaired as all the children at the school were under him. He let a lot of children down and caused a lot of trauma to them and to parents.

Most are somewhere in the middle in my experience but hid behaviour was so damaging. It was brutal

As a result or not replying to emails, not updating the draft plan, nor answering phone calls etc, our EHCP is now well beyond deadline. My child has not had an education for 9 months and as a result, went into a mental health crisis. They are currently on our 8th week in an inpatient ward as a direct result of being pushed into crisis by being denied an education. We are going through absolute hell. Is that a good enough reason for being a tiny bit upset with the echp team??? Case worker has a clear job to do and is not doing it. we are paying a very high price.

I don’t doubt that there are some good ones, but I’ve yet to meet one within our LA. We’ve been actively lied to and thwarted on several occasions by ours. I mostly blame the managers as the SEN officers themselves often seem woefully underqualified and are obviously overworked. It’s no excuse for dishonestly though, and it certainly isn’t an isolated problem (our LA’s recent Ofsted/CQC report proves this).

I wonder why they keep leaving? ...

Can you give an example of an action you are aware of a caseworker taking that is abuse?

I agree that the shortcomings of the system cause trauma to families (mine included). But there are no actions of individuals that could be described as abusive.

It's not saving money, most LAs SEND budgets are in defects to the tune of millions, along with social care budgets etc.
They are trying to make not enough resources reach too many people, not squirelling money into a a LA savings pot.

What they are doing to families is abuse. Period.

Mine was good (if incredibly patronising) and did her best in a system stacked against her. Then she got taken off our case and now we are like the above poster having to submit formal complaints just to get a response to an email. Our LA has a generic inbox and no allocated caseworker so all a bit of a mess.

where I am we have had a never ending supply of different case workers and none of them seem to care about the actual child. Even for transition echp reviews they don’t turn up and then go against what everyone knows is needed.

This. Some of them probably want to do the right thing but it instilled in them that saving money is the ultimate aim. They will pretend to listen to you then do everything they can to not so what you want.