To wonder how a £36k a year education can meet DS’s needs if a £250k one can’t?

[GoneBatty]

Private residential SEND college (out of area) costs £250k a year. They are saying DS’s needs are too high for them to manage.

Council are saying a £36k a year local outreach provision can meet his needs.

It’s all very fishy as SEND college at first said they felt they could meet DS’s needs so we visited, all was OK. As as soon as the council (who will have to fund it) got involved, college backtracked and said they couldn’t meet his needs.

They have given nonsensical reasons which I have mitigated numerous times. Both the college and council have told blatant lies and I’ve caught them out in two big ones!

Now we have reached Tribunal the college is suddenly full which was not an issue a few months ago so know they’re lying again as they would know numbers of students months in advance due to Tribunals and the time it take to get funding. Also most Tribunals due to take place over the summer were postponed for this age group.

AIBU to suspect the council has given the college a backhander to say they can’t meet his needs? It would cost council £750k for a 3 year program. They could have given a £100k ‘investment’ per se? Still saves a lot of money!

There is literally no other provision like this in the country. I have approached 21 other colleges, local and out of area. DS has had no proper provision for over a year and he is running out of time as age 20 - EHCP is to 25.

Do I sound nuts (I feel it)? Can this actually be possible?

The package would likely include occupational therapy, speech therapy, nurse, over night staff, 1:1 staffing during the day, staff training, food, college teachers, specialist equipment and teaching spaces, transportation, fuel for college and residential areas, specialist activities and so on.

Why doesn't it make sense?

Yep. Shocking how ignorant some people are.

"All sorts"? What exactly?

The simple fact is that OP's son clearly has significant needs, as demonstrated by the fact that he has had psychiatric involvement after self-harming and even specialist schools feel unable to meet them.

What doesn't make sense to you?

He was at mainstream school. And was highly regarded by teachers as polite and no behaviour issues

Why doesn't 25 for a person with significant disabilities make any sense to you? What exactly is your problem with this to the extent that you are 'really shocked'?

Maybe read the thread and try and educate yourself a little 🙄

Do you really think violence is the only qualifier of serious disability?

Can you not comprehend that actually, someone that is completely passive and does not react to persistent bullying, is incredibly vulnerable. Potentially more so then someone who fights back.

Seems odd that if they need all that it only became apparent at age 15 though?

I thought I'd seen the worst of mumsnet but no, plenty of it here.
so many of you ought to be ashamed.

i think there are people much younger than 25 who do have meltdowns, behaviour issues at school, violence towards their siblings and other (none of which the OP’s son has) who would need this help more urgently but aren’t receiving.

"That’s really shocking. Age 25?!! It doesn’t make any sense."

Many of these young people will require life long support and staying in education can be the most appropriate place to get it. I know of some young people who have stayed extra years in FE send colleges because there is no appropriate adult social care provision.

Because kids that just sit there quietly get overlooked. The EHCP at 15 actually says a lot. A "oh shit we need to do something before GCSEs" moment. The passive-ness, even despite bullying, speaks volumes.

And what an earth has been at mainstream school and being highly regarded by teachers got to do with his special educational needs and disabilities?

Shock horror....my Ds has 5 grade 9 GCSES and our local authority pay £70k+ a year for his specialist college.

Seems odd that if they need all that it only became apparent at age 15 though?

It didn't become apparent at 15. OP says he got his EHCP at 15. Could easily have become apparent with the transition to secondary school, where the senco says "let's wait and see", then apply for an EHCP, assessment denied, 8 month wait for a tribunal that says "yes go ahead and assess him", so the LA do, another 6 months of assessments for then to say "we aren't giving him an ehcp" so back to tribunal, but a 10 months wait this time, for the tribunal to say "yep give him an ehcp", then the LA has to draft it and has more time to finalise it.

I am not trying to hijack the thread, but for those who argue that there should not be significant investment to provide education and training for one young person, I would like to ask this question.

How much money is being saved (indirectly) from the fact that a large number of young people with SEN (especially if their primary need is SEMH) are NEET?

I will give an example. My eldest son's fees for his residential care were something like £1,000+ a week, of which he paid a component from his benefits, and health and social care divided the cost of the rest between them. This is about the same amount as someone would pay for staying in a care home. In fact, the placement was categorised as a care home (and fell under the draconian restrictions of the Corona Virus Act 2020 during the pandemic). Over three years that would be £156,000+.

His brother (now 21) had 5 hours of tuition from an LA tutor per week, from Y8-Y11 and five sessions of CBT (which he refused to attend). He has had one week in mainstream college, two days of employment and spent a month on an outdoor course. For the past three years, he has engaged in nothing and receives no benefits because he will not even engage in the system. He has an EHCP.

So, I would say, for every expensive out of county specialised placement that is authorised, there must be many, many children and young people who are saving the local authorities and other agencies a small fortune because they either slip through the net or refuse to engage.

Lots of cancer "treatments" don't cure the cancer nor ultimately save the life. Many ARE just to prolong life, i.e. the cancers which aren't curable, and where you life WITH it, and the treatment enables that. My OH has an incurable cancer, but it is treatable with permanent chemotherapy drugs which cost thousands of pounds per month - that is to prolong his life and hold back the effects of the cancer, but ultimately the effect of the drugs will diminish and/or the drugs will cause other health problems such as damage to organs. As said above, it's all about quality of life - the NHS will spend thousands/hundreds of thousands on a patient if there is quality/extended life. It also enables the patient (i.e. my OH) to continue working, earning money, paying taxes, etc rather than him being bed bound and hanging on to a pretty low quality of life, needing daily care, etc for a few years which is the alternative to the daily chemo drugs (and probably cost the country around the same!).

My needs only became apparent aged 16. But sure. I must be lying.

Never mind the masking. The stimming. The meltdowns in private. The being called difficult. Told to just try harder not to be disabled.

What. The. Actual.

If I said what I truly thought about this post, I’d be banned.

But as a more general comment, there are some thick unfeeling cunts all over this thread.

Sorry "apparent" should have been in quotation marks.

Well done for getting an EHCP sadly unless you fight with solicitors the reality is you are at the mercy of the LA who just don't have the budget
Good luck Op. 👍

My daughter who has no behavioural issues and is high achieving was at Mainstream until she had a breakdown too and then she went to a very expensive independent specialist school costing nearly six figures because the LA decided that my dd with an IQ of 162 would be adequately place in a generic special school with children with MLD and SLD and no GCSE curriculum, the law said otherwise. Now our LA are funding a bespoke package of education from tutors to therapists and other stuff because she left her school at 19 and her EHCP is still needed.

'In last night’s Panorama, a father living in Kent showed how his county council offered his family, with two sons with SEND, £100,000 in a non-disclosure agreement if they would move out of the authority’s area and made their home in another council’s jurisdiction.' insidecroydon.com/2020/09/08/send-campaigners-fight-on-after-panorama-revelations/

OP, you do not sound nuts.

Then their parents can, and should be support to, advocate for their DC and enforce their DC’s legal rights so they receive the provision they require to meet their needs. What it doesn’t mean is OP’s DS is any less legally entitled to provision that meets his needs.