Battle for therapy funding

[Boolas]

Hello all, I would like to hear from anyone else struggling to secure funding for the vital therapeutic support that their child needs. We are currently entering the second year of battle. Our local authority took 6 months to agree to fund last year's package (with ASF match funding) and are now saying that they will not fund anything beyond the fair access limit of £5k, which lets face it hardly scratches the surface. Our two children have very high needs and need very complex intensive therapy. If they don't get it I seriously think it is against their human right to a family life (and ours as their parents). What are other people's experiences of this and do you have any advice? We are seriously considering looking into legal action, if only we could afford to pay for it. Many thanks.

Also, @Boolas my DD1 is probably on what can be described as the ‘edge of care’ and she is getting no help at all; apart from the fact that an EDT SW from my regional adoption agency very helpfully photocopied several chapters of the Sarah Naish A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting when I phoned the helpline to say I was broken by her stealing and fraudulently using the bank card of her terminally ill, frail and housebound grandmother (repeat offender). Honestly, it’s not just you. The support/funding for adopted children is (quietly) drying up.

Request early reviews rather than wait for the annual reviews. If the LA agree to hold early reviews great, if they don’t unfortunately there’s no right of appeal. You would have to either wait for the ARs or request a reassessment of needs, which does come with the right of appeal if refused.

If the LA refuse to fund the package you would only be able to begin judicial review proceedings if the provision is already in section F. You could however look at JR for failure to provide a suitable, full time education, but that won’t guarantee specific provision/therapies.

I now know that if we take legal action on behalf of our children we (they) will be entitled to legal aid, which could be a game changer.

This depends on what legal action you are talking about. DC aren’t entitled to legal aid in their own right for appealing the EHCP (if you aren’t eligible but can’t afford independent assessments Parents in Need can sometimes help fund them), nor for pre-action letters (SOSSEN are reasonably priced though). But if a pre-action letter doesn’t work and you move forward with JR proceedings DC can be eligible in their own right (in most cases, there are a few cases where the action isn’t brought in DC’s name).

Can I ask if anyone has ever tried to get the press interested in the issue of therapeutic support for adopted children? We've tried to contact various celebrities that we thought might be interested, as well as different journalists, but never had any positive response at all. Somebody needs to shine a light on the battles we face.

but it definitely says that for EHCP appeals and judicial reviews you can claim legal aid

It doesn’t say DC can get legal aid in their own right for EHCP appeals. Legal aid for EHCP appeals to SENDIST is based on parental income/capital. You can for JR proceedings themselves though.

@EmmatheStageRat I totally agree, it's not just us, the system is totally broken and that's why we want to shine a light on it to try to bring some change. I'm sure our children are not the worst off and yet we want the best for them, not the minimum. ALL adopted children deserve the best. I can't believe how you and your daughter have been treated, it's disgusting. And I've heard many more accounts of similar. Very often the finger gets pointed as us, the parents, when we're the only ones who actually have our children's best interests at heart. While all the while dealing with extremely challenging everyday lives. Somethings got to give.

@JustKeepBuilding Luckily our annual reviews are coming up soon. I think the LA called them early due to the lack of school provision. So we will be appealing to get the therapy funding in Section F, but obviously this will take some time to secure. In the meantime, presuming the LA (access to funding panel) reject our request to fund the therapy package proposed by our provider, we will seek JR of this decision (by the panel), which is unrelated to the EHCPs. Or at least, that is what we are considering and will seek legal advice on.
What I would actually like to do is start a class action against the government for breaching the human rights of our children (right to a family life) by not providing adequate therapeutic support. But how on earth do I go about that?! And how would I fund it? But if it was possible that could be the catalyst for meaningful change.

Sadly I think things are going to get worse. One of the very few things Josh Macalister said about adoption/adopted children was to use the ASF to support ongoing contact with birth families. It will be interesting to see the governments response to the review which is due at any time.

@Christmasbahhumbug please would it be possible to send me a link to Josh Macalister’s statement on using the ASF as I have Googled and found nothing (I’m not disputing your assertion, by the way)?

@Christmasbahhumbug how ridiculous, I appreciate that might be helpful for some families but for ours that would be totally useless. Our children are 6 years old and need the ASF for therapeutic support right now, contact with their birth family isn't even on the radar and won't be for years.

Emma this is from the children and young peoples review:

• The Adoption Support Fund should provide support for better contact between adopted children, adoptive parents and birth parents

from the full report: Page 18 of chapter 4:

Given the ease of contacting birth relatives due to modern technology, contact between adopted children and birth parents should start to be assumed by default and supported unless this is not in the child’s best interest. The Adoption Support Fund should specifically include provision to support better contact between adopted children, adoptive parents and birth parents.

There may not actually be a funding ‘panel’. One MN’er many years ago caught their LA out with a FOI request which showed there wasn’t actually a panel. Many LAs are the same, they use the ‘panel’ to hide behind.

It may not be possible to challenge the refusal to fund the therapies via JR. JR is only possible when there isn’t an alternative remedy and as you will be appealing to SENDIST there will be. And JR isn’t about the decision itself but how the LA reached the decision, and unlike e.g. failure to provide full time education, there is no hard and fast legislation that states the LA must fund that specific provider for you. Obviously though I don’t know all the details of your particular case.

If eligible class action can be funded via JR, if not eligible or for the first part you would either need to self fund (which could become prohibitively expensive) or find someone to take you on pro bono. Rather than a large class action, it may be easier to use a smaller number of claimants as a test case. For example, see R (L, M, and P) v Devon County Council [2022] EWHC 493 (Admin). The case is about different content, but it’s the same theory.

@JustKeepBuilding thanks, I'll check that out. We have one woman who apparently chairs the panel but basically if she doesn't agree with what you're asking for she refuses to take it to the panel, and therefore you can only succeed if she says yes! Seems very corrupt to us!! Interesting about the FOI request, I might just do one of those!

@Christmasbahhumbug thanks for the information. Personally speaking, from what is written in the report, I think that what Josh Macalister is proposing is not unreasonable. I know of several teen adoptive households where placements have broken down due to the young people making birth family contact via social media or being contacted through social media. My DD1 is unlikely to want contact with the birth mother who, in her mind, is wholly responsible with her losing her sight (it’s an accurate conclusion so one I find hard to argue with) but you never know. DD1 is obviously vulnerable and I would prefer for any potential teen curiosity about her birth origins to be professionally supported.

Also, conversely, I support DD2 (my children are non-birth related) to have ongoing direct contact with her birth mother and not only does it cost me a fortune but the regional adoption agency keep trying to pass the buck to me to organise directly, by giving my phone number and email address (or buying a second phone - more expense to me! - and setting up a separate email address. BM bombards the SWs with emails and phone calls about these contacts and they’re irritated and want rid of her. My view is that this is above my pay grade and if they are keen to promote the contact, they can organise it and manage BM’s communications.

by giving my phone number and email address (or buying a second phone - more expense to me!

Surely that’s a breach of GDPR? I’m assuming you didn’t give consent to your contact details being passed on to birth mum? It’s for the LA to negotiate and support ongoing contact if it’s in the child’s best interest, as opposed to being organisationally expedient.

Absolutely no way, @Jellycatspyjamas ! I’m no fool! I agree with you about the onus on the regional adoption agency to manage the direct contact appropriately; this is why there has not been any direct contact for a while. I will not be bullied or blackmailed into buying a second phone or SIM for BM’s text messages (life is complicated here enough as it is without adding another layer of complexity) or setting up a secondary email address. I’m wedded to both my mobile number and my email address, both of which I have for donkey’s years. I am not leaving myself open to a bombardment of inappropriate messages from BM.

@Jellycatspyjamas I am so using the expression ‘organisationally expedient’ in my next communication about direct contact with the regional adoption agency. On a separate note, do we not think that the whole ASF carousel is organisationally expedient? My agency has a wholesale contract with a national therapy company (crap) that is rich enough to advertise heavily in the AUK magazine and sponsor columns etc. It’s like it’s a cynical tick box exercise (we can offer Theraplay/art therapy/drama therapy/music therapy and we we will trawl our list of ‘therapists’ who have a one-year diploma, pay them £5K - ASF limit - for a course of sessions, boxes ticked, job done, kid ‘cured’.

It’s a complete racket, and agencies buy into it cos it’s a rich funding stream, albeit an incredibly cynical one. The therapists won’t be seeing much of that £5k, many of them are on £30k a year and if they’re paid per session rates can be as low as £30 an hour. The one year diploma won’t have touched on trauma (there was a whole half day on my diploma course) and they might top that up with a day course!

I’ve had 8 years post qualification study and research on trauma, and am too expensive for employers but I think therapists need in depth study and well supervised experience to do this work. It’s appalling, and of course trauma has been trendy in the last few years so everybody and their dog have done a bit of trauma training. Doesn’t mean they’re competent.