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?

@drawingpad

Legal aid? No. Better services? Yes. And the problem with simply having legal aid to help fight against your local authority is that often things need put in place before diagnosis, so legal aid would presumably not be available at that point.

I live in Scotland and have never had an issue with the provision. I often read on here about how awful things are for pupils in England. The answer isn't legal aid though.

I think it depends on the type of provision a child needs ,my son has severe autism and learning disabilities and goes to a special school for children with severe learning disabilities ,we have never had to fight for Sen education because his needs are do significant ,however these type of schools however brilliant they are for my child and other children like him ,could never meet the needs for the more academically able but can't cope in mainstream either There are specialist schools but they are privatley run and cost ££££,s often it's a right for parents to secure a place for their child and secure funding And even these schools are not perfect ,I know of two children ,whose specialised schools , placements have broken down I'm not sure what the answer is .

I'm in the north west of England btw

Legal aid should be available to far more people than it is, unfortunately the current government have worked to deny it to as many as possible.

I paid a few £k in private reports and legal fees to get my son into a specialist placement. I’ve voted YABU because the whole system needs an overhaul and all children should have equal access to the correct provision not just those with knowledge, money to pay or eligible for legal aid.

No, the parents should definitely not automatically get legal aid. Legal aid should be available much more widely for lots of types of case but should always be scaled based on the recipient's ability to pay for private advice.

It would be ridiculous for a billionaire to automatically get legal aid because their child has special needs. Legal aid should be given to those who can't afford all or part of their necessary legal fees.

@Kite22

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.

Legal aid for SEN tribunals is currently paid at extremely low rates, to the extent that the Legal Aid Agency hasn't been able to find anyone willing to take over the full telephone advice contract - it's acknowledged that no solicitors' firm can do it unless they can subsidise from other sources, such as grants. As a result it's currently very difficult to find a legal aid firm able to take a tribunal case on; however, if you can, it's actually a very cost-efficient way of holding councils to account.

Also, of course, the budget for legal aid is a totally different one from the budget for education. If the government abolished legal aid tomorrow, the money would just go into much-needed repairs for courtrooms and prisons.

@Davros

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

Not for tribunal appeals.

I don’t believe “automatically” when tax payers money is involved is ever a good thing

@ChuckBerrysBoots

Something like 4% of send appeals were decided in councils’ favour last year. Since 2015 it averages 7% in councils’ favour. On that basis are you absolutely sure you need legal representation, given the likelihood of success?

This is slightly misleading. Yes, that's the official figure, but an appeal against the contents of an EHC Plan is counted as a success for the parent if they've secured any amendments, and given how bad local authorities are at writing EHCPs it's quite difficult to come away without anything. However, from the parents' point of view they may well not count it as a success unless they've secured the school of their choice.

Nevertheless, I do agree that you don't necessarily need lawyers. Tribunals are meant to be parent-friendly, and there are some very good sources of advice out there - try SOS SEN, IPSEA etc.

For anyone in this situation it might be worth checking for any local charities that can help with this eg Advocacy services - even those who make a small charge will be a lot cheaper than a solicitor

It's cheaper for them to not provide what they are legally supposed to and deal with the few court cases than to provide the level of support each child needs.

They rely on most parents being unable to fight.

When we were going through the appeals process for our eldest we were told to think of the other children they need to help.

I told them I really don't care about other people's children. That's a budget issue and their problem. I want what my son is legally entitled to.

You have to be that blunt and forceful because you get blocked at every turn. I was unwilling to not have my child's needs met.

We have fought and fought and fought for both our children for over 20 years.

And we're still fighting. Only now we ask them how much it would cost them to place our youngest - now an adult - in a home when he is violent and needs 1:1 minimally and at times 2:1 and whether that's cheaper than giving us the direct payment budget we're asking for.

You have to give no shits at all because when it comes to provision, the only people who care about your children are you.

We all have a belief when we have a child. Baby- toddler - child - teen - adult and off they go, spread their wings, make their way in the world.

But that's not always how it goes and we have a system here that promises to meet the needs of disabled children and adults then utterly fails to do so. So yes. We fucking fight it every step of the way.

Education is a human right.

Unless you have ever experienced the SEN system you have no idea how far LAs will go to deny children with additional needs and disabilities this human right. SEN Teams with local authorities whose jobs should be that every child gets an education are measured on cost savings.

There are a lot of deleted comments on this thread, I'd hazard a guess that those of from people with kids who sail through the system. I'll never forget the day that a Tory Councillor who held the seat for education in my LA told me to my face that she didn't believe in autism and she thought tax payers money would be better spent on gifted and talented children. Unsurprisingly her children, who were school age at the time, are deemed gifted and talented.

Sen education has suffered from budget cuts as have all public services. Sadly the children who are suffering from these cuts are often the same children who suffer from unacceptable wait times for other services, such as mental health services.

Inclusion sounds like a wonderful thing but scratch the surface and you'll see that this is really about less appropriate school places. Thousands of children have no school education because there are no schools that meet their needs. I parent two of those children.

I have more or less navigated the legal system without paying for lawyers so far using charities like IPSEA which are fantastic but I now have a prospective claim for disability discrimination against the LA, the issues are complex, and I can't find a solicitor so far, fee paying or not that is prepared to take on this case because there is not enough money involved in it for them. I am still looking.

So on the whole I don't think that free legal aid is the answer. The whole system is flawed and discriminatory. Until we have a government that genuinely believes that ALL children are entitled to an education and fund local authorities adequately to do so then this will go on and on.

@IncompleteSenten

It's cheaper for them to not provide what they are legally supposed to and deal with the few court cases than to provide the level of support each child needs.

They rely on most parents being unable to fight.

When we were going through the appeals process for our eldest we were told to think of the other children they need to help.

I told them I really don't care about other people's children. That's a budget issue and their problem. I want what my son is legally entitled to.

You have to be that blunt and forceful because you get blocked at every turn. I was unwilling to not have my child's needs met.

We have fought and fought and fought for both our children for over 20 years.

And we're still fighting. Only now we ask them how much it would cost them to place our youngest - now an adult - in a home when he is violent and needs 1:1 minimally and at times 2:1 and whether that's cheaper than giving us the direct payment budget we're asking for.

You have to give no shits at all because when it comes to provision, the only people who care about your children are you.

We all have a belief when we have a child. Baby- toddler - child - teen - adult and off they go, spread their wings, make their way in the world.

But that's not always how it goes and we have a system here that promises to meet the needs of disabled children and adults then utterly fails to do so. So yes. We fucking fight it every step of the way.

Completely agree. I’ve just found a perfect place for my adult son. I expect to have a battle for funding as it’s out if county. However if I had enough money to build an annexe and have carers come for some of the time so I could go out to work I would happily do it but I know it won’t happen. It would work out a lot cheaper. I know my son’s current placement if nearly 200k a year.

There are a lot of deleted comments on this thread, I'd hazard a guess that those of from people with kids who sail through the system.

It was just one comment, deleted multiple times as quoted by several people.

That's good drawingpad, it looked as though it might be more than one from the deletions.

I come across it loads irl though, I have a 'friend' who thinks it's unfair that my child, who can't be in school, gets any funded education.

Most people genuinely haven't got a clue.

@lifeturnsonadime the comments were deleted because they quoted a disablist post. We've had a reasonably straightforward run with Ds2 but Ds1 was one of those more able kids that x2boys mentioned. I spent a lot of times d energy collating evidence for tribunal to get him into an out of county specialist placement - LA withdrew at the last minute because they knew they had nothing else to offer him, all along.

Even for ds2, we've had an anxious few weeks waiting to hear if he would be allowed to stay at his current school, post 16, without a fight.

Have you tried sendias? They're free and have been brilliant at helping us. I agree the system is shocking and many many kids are being failed.

Sendias are funded by the LA. You’re better with IPSEA or SOSSEN

@Doratheexploret have you sought a disabled facilities grant? I know of families who have had extensions over garages with bedrooms and bathrooms, or extended annexes with their own entrance, through DFG. It’s unlikely the mandatory grant would cover the full cost but there are discretionary grants where the adaptations will meet needs and other sources to pull on. It’s a fight, but it sounds like you’re used to fighting.

We self-represented vs LA who engaged a barrister. It was an incredibly stressful time for our family, there were 2 adjournments, relationship with school completely broke down, I had a terrible experience with an independent professional and the LA EP submitted a really nasty report.
We did win, largely due to evidence obtained via Subject Access Requests.
But although we gained a specialist placement for DS3 we now EHE DS4 because of the school breakdown.

IPSEA and SOSSEN are great resources and IPSEA can provide free advocates but that's very limited.
SENDIASS are LA funded so I would act with caution as some are less impartial than they are supposed to be.

I have known my LA to engage a barrister whrn it's a dispute over 2 mainstream schools. They are incredibly combative.

I do feel there should be some way to balance it when LA are engaging barristers etc.

Ds falls into the group who don’t fit into anywhere! He is academically pretty able but socially/emotionally/physically struggles massively. He goes to school to learn.

When he was in year 3 we hit crisis point. Me and school knew he needed a lot more support than his ehcp was going to provide. School funded as much 1-1 as they could and fought alongside me to get the 1-1 written into his ehcp.

When he got the full time 1-1 he was able to thrive. He could get the support he needed to enable him to access the curriculum and he is now in year 7 at mainstream, still with full time 1-1 and a lot of accommodations but again he is thriving.

But if the fight for 1-1 hadn’t worked he wouldn’t be in mainstream anymore. If the primary and secondary schools hadn’t been so accommodating and helpful he wouldn’t have been in mainstream anymore.

But the specialist provisions locally as brilliant as they are for many children wouldn’t work for DS because of his academic ability. He wouldn’t go to school if he wasn’t getting the chance to learn.

The whole system is messed up. Too many children don’t get what they need because their parents aren’t in a position to fight (through no fault of their own the system is designed to fail) and the schools often aren’t willing/able to support the fight.

In the long run things will cost a lot more for these children when things hit crisis point because their needs aren’t being met

www.specialneedsjungle.com/councils-wasted-253-million-fighting-parents-send-tribunal-2014-reforms/

I second the dfg suggestion. We got a £30,000 grant to add an extra bedroom so our sons didn't have to share a room.
There was a long assessment and lots of evidence supplied that moving was not an option. It's worth a try.

@gogohm

But at what point is the cut off? I have an autistic dd and a dyslexic dd - both had individualised education plans as were and the elder autistic dd would have benefited from a school designed for higher functioning very bright quiet autistic girls but they do not exist in this area (the specialist units are full of rough boys) should I have been given funding? Actually I advocated for her myself and essentially got her individualised teaching, own office space at school with lap top and supply of cups of tea (sounds silly but the tea helped) whereas the solicitor when I spoke to one for a free consultation suggested she board half way across the country at £70k a year and we would fight for funding aka solicitor get paid a fortune.

Solicitors do not have your childrens interests at heart and funding from the public purse will make it worse - your mp is the person to approach

Now imagine you had a child who was extremely low functioning. You knew there were birth complications but the GP / consultants etc dismissed them and diagnosed autism when none of the symptoms except being low functioning applies. You don’t have money to get legal advice. You don’t even have money for a reliable internet connection to approach foreign specialists - that is even if you knew about them. Then later on (maybe months, maybe years), as your child is seriously unwell, a routine check discovers they had complications associated with a genetic condition / severe allergy / autoimmumine conditions and it was all treatable before 2-5.

Not so clear cut then is it?

As I’ve said before on this forum people with kids that are nt / are high functioning need to really stop wading into issues they will never understand. You may not have needed legal action (and I don’t think that’s true by the way. I think you just don’t understand the value legal action might bring to your dd). But the parents of lower functioning parents need to take legal action to be able to afford the millions required to support their physical and mental needs. For them it’s a lifeline and solicitors very much do take their childrens interests at heart.

@JaceLancs

For anyone in this situation it might be worth checking for any local charities that can help with this eg Advocacy services - even those who make a small charge will be a lot cheaper than a solicitor

I wouldn't go for local charities unless you know they have a good track record and, preferably, you have a personal recommendation. Whilst doing a tribunal appeal shouldn't be too daunting, nevertheless you don't want it messed up and if you are getting help it needs to be from someone who 100% knows what they are doing. The bigger charities like SOS SEN and IPSEA are a better bet.