To think parents of SN children should automatically get legal aid?

[SquarePegInACircularHole]

We have spent years fighting the system for support for our SN child. It is a complicated system to navigate and is literally a baptism by fire (well in DS’s case anyway). The local council will try every trick in the book to get out of their responsibilities and avoid extra funding IME and many other families I’ve spoken to, while parents are already in a stressful situation trying to deal with challenges at home.

I was recently quoted upwards of £10k by a specialist solicitor to assist with a SN Tribunal including professional reports which are needed for evidence.

Seriously! Many parents of SN children have to give up careers or can’t work due to the needs of the child, not being able to get wraparound school care, especially with teens etc. So it’s only well off families who can actually afford to fight for proper provision for their children while poorer families are left hanging with little support and much worse outcomes for their DC as usual!

We can now get legal aid as DS is an adult so he’s entitled to it in his own right but if we’d had it about 5 years ago when he was still a child. we may not have been in the situation we’re in now!

AIBU?

None of us decided that the children we wanted would be severely autistic or have CP or be deaf or..... Just so we could get one over on the tax payer

Meraas wowzer.

Of course yanbu

I simply can't understand the mindset of anyone who would think you are. They are absolutely clueless as to the reality.

@Meraas

Message deleted by MNHQ. Quotes deleted post

Why do you think children with SEN would even need free legal support?

(Hint, it's because the government doesn't give local authorities enough tax payers money to properly fund SEN support and the government doesn't spend enough tax payers money on providing equitable access to provision for children with SEN so that their parents can make equitable choices about employment, housing, childcare etc as parents who don't have children with SEN)

Perhaps if the government actually provided services they are certainly morally and often lawfully obliged to provide rather than just.... not doing so then families wouldn't need to ask for legal aid to try and achieve a basic standard of life that anyone living in state like the UK would expect?

I'd have thought the money would be FAR better spent in the first place actually providing enough school places / SaLTs / OTs / Paediatricians / EPs / all the mental health teams / specialist teachers etc, rather than funding lawyers and massively expensive court cases. All those people cost a LOT less than lawyers do.

I thought a child in this situation can be eligible for Legal Aid. The parents are not

So it’s only well off families who can actually afford to fight for proper provision for their children nope they just pay for the education the child needs.

A child with special needs getting the right support in mainstream school would actually benefit all children in the class.

Parents would get support rather than fighting the system, so less stress.

Then look at the bigger picture, mental health services over stretched, parents unable to work so claim benefits - they don’t have the choice as someone needs to be there or on call - the whole system forces people into poverty.

It’s shameful.

I know of two families who are currently go down the legal route to force the NHS to find out whats wrong with their kids. They’ve basically just given up and said they don’t know in one case, and are calling another child’s highly complex physical and mental needs ‘autism’ so it’s blocking her access to the right physical /medical and SEN support. Both families seem fairly wealthy. I shudder to think how many poor kids with SEN probably fall through the cracks because their families don’t know how to or can’t afford to navigate the system.

As a parent of an autistic child I don’t think parents of Sen children should automatically qualify for legal aid. I do however think that local authorities should comply with the children and families act which they currently don’t, hence the number of tribunals that they lose. Local authorities already spend enough on legal representation trying to fight families against giving what children are legally entitled to, giving parents legal aid is just more money into the legal profession and less where it’s really needed

@Davros

I thought a child in this situation can be eligible for Legal Aid. The parents are not

They aren’t. There are some very limited specific situations where the child can claim legal aid but on the whole it’s based on parents

I would say the government should just be providing the right support for these kids in the first place, not finding lawyers to fight to get them that support.
One of the reasons is hard to get into a special school is because there are at few around. If there were more, they could have a lower threshold to accept children who might need it.

Just a thought but would insurance policies help with the legal costs?

I agree. When I looked into legal aid for our situation, my income was too high to qualify... But I'm a single parent, self employed but earning very little, mostly reliant on tax credits! It was the disability element of my tax credits award that pushed my income over the legal aid threshold, my son's DLA isn't counted as that's his income but the tax credits are my income, so no legal aid for us

.

The legal aid budget was slashed by the Tories in 2012, it doesn't just affect the parents of SN children, it affects us all.

The bigger picture here is legal aid has been cut for so many things and its impacting on access to justice.
The other issue is LAs dont apply the law as there isnt much insentive to do. Parents win the vast majority of cases.

The disability elements on my benefits meant that I didn't qualify for free legal aid the person on the phone said his DLA was taken into account too as "family income" so I would have to self rep or pay I self repped its ridiculous that money given to cover extra costs are taken as "income"

I agree with what Kite22 said. The money should be spent on providing proper provision rather than paying lawyers. We have paid for everything for our autistic DC so far, diagnosis, healthcare, medication, education, therapy but now we’re approaching secondary, we can’t access anything without an EHCP so we need to fight with the council for it.