EHCP - preparing for mediation / tribunal. Please share your experiences!

[SinkGirl]

Posting here for traffic

My twins (3.5) had final EHCPs issued in December. To cut a very long story short, they have highly detailed section Bs and utterly useless section Fs. All the provisions are vague, unquantified, not worth the paper they are written on.

On the basis of section B, the LA agreed that can both have specialist placements, to be agreed at a panel in January which I’ve not heard the results of yet.

However, because the provisions are so weak and could be met by their nursery (or anywhere at all) so if they come back and eat sorry, no places, try again next year... there’s nothing at all I can do. They’ve given nursery limited funding because the provisions are so weak. Nursery don’t seem to realise that they are now supposed to provide the salt provisions (the only vaguely specific part of section F) and the nursery don’t seem to have given them any funding to do so. They’ve got a few extra pounds an hour and that’s it.

After the LA refused to get OT reports despite lots of sensory needs, I managed to get a referral for one of them - they went into nursery and were quite shocked I think that they’re not even doing the basics, which is why I feel I can’t just leave it with no specific provisions.

There’s been a catalogue of errors with them not requesting assessments I requested despite them being needed, not requested mandatory assessments (like vision support for the twin with a VI), forgetting that one twin exists (not requesting reports, not sending his final plan to nursery etc), leaving crucial parts of the advice out of the plan.

I have booked a mediation session which is the last week of February. I’m not expecting them to volunteer to fix everything, but it buys me a bit more time to sort things out, plus the opportunity to make it clear that I have no intentions of dropping it until it’s sorted. Maybe I can get them to agree to some of the easier points so that tribunal is less complex.

So I’m looking for any tips for getting prepared for tribunal so I can get a jump of things and reduce the stress as much as possible.

I’ve got the tribunal forms which I’ll complete.
I’m going through the plans to highlight the gaps where there are needs with no provisions
Picking out advice that hasn’t been included in the plans (they told me they aren’t allowed to write 1:1 supervision into the provisions for example) 🙄

What else can I do to get prepared? If we need to we can pay for private reports but I was told to wait on this as they have to be dated within six months of the tribunal and it could take longer than that.

[Drinkciderfromalemon]

Tribunal is horrible, so I hope mediation resolves it first for you!
I think the first thing is to establish their placement as, for example, 1-1 would be highly unusual in a specialist placement unless your dc have needs over and above that which could be met by specialist provision.
Reports from VI and OT can be added in and provision reflected in the plans as amended finals, have they requested those now?
If they name specialist as the type of provision needed, the LA are obliged to find a place regardless of local availability. Do you have Ipsea support yet?

[GulliBelle]

Are you working with your local SENDIASS team? They can offer you a lot of support and guidance.

[SinkGirl]

They haven’t written a specialist placement into the plan - their nursery is still listed. It says in the decision letter that they have agreed to a specialist placement and are consulting with specific schools and the specialist schools panel would be in January (it was 10 days ago, I’ve heard nothing).

SENDIASS have told me that the LA just need to ensure that all the provisions in section F are provided, they are under no obligation to provide a specialist placement because it’s not in the plan, and because the provisions are so vague the nursery can meet them.

They haven’t arranged OT or VSS assessments. I have managed to get both for twin 2 because his needs are more extreme. Despite notifying them in December of their involvement, the LA haven’t requested statutory advice from VSS (unsurprising - they never requested SALT or nursery advice either).

OT wrote a quick initial report for nursery on a specific issue - it states clearly that he needs full time 1:1 supervision due to sensory seeking behaviours that put him in danger. This will be the case in any setting. Because his understanding is so minimal, there’s little any of us can do to reduce the behaviours. She’s going to write a more in-depth report which should be useful.

They’ve also left advice out of twin 2’s report from SALT stating that he needs a teacher with experience and training in working with autistic children, working in small classes and a host of training in specific areas.

I have spoken to IPSEA but not since before Christmas - trying to book another call before the mediation meeting.

It’s not like they can just agree to changes at the mediation meeting - best I can hope for is that they agree to seek further advice to make the provisions more specific. I’ll still need to file the tribunal paperwork in case they don’t do it, or don’t do it adequately. Twin 1’s plan says he needs assessment from an OT in provisions but they haven’t actually done it.