To be so angry that people like this are in charge of SEND budgets

[Dalmatron]

Has anyone seen the thread on twitter/X about the Warwickshire Councillors at the scrutiny panel for SEND spending?

I am so angry!

Some quotes:
(Talking about institutions) "They had better ways of dealing with them at that time. Let's go back to those ways"
"I don't know what the fix is, I just look back at years gone by those people by whatever means, it was right at the time".
"Is it something in the water?"
"Families are swapping tips to get diagnosed"
"Why are there so many people jumping out with these needs? Where were they when I was at school?"
"Why do so many people have this badge of SEND and special needs?"
"To stop this spend fix the problem at source"
"the plea of a Mother saying Little Willy has ADHD when Little Willy is just really badly behaved & needs some form of strict correction"

How can people like this be in these positions? Why has nothing been done to remove them or apologise? I felt sick watching these clips.

Warwickshire Council thread

Not everyone who didn't pass he 11+ had learning difficulties and ended up working in factories( not tat there's anything wrong with working in factories)
Neither of my parents passed the 11+ both ended up.getting jobs at the Gas board and my Dad in particular was quite well paid (certainly on above average wages )
And we had a good standard of living
Far better than mine now

They were teens; not small autistic children. It’s a separate issue I think just same outcome.

The point is that it was an unfair 'system' which favoured the rich, so those who were in fact ND had an even tougher time. They were naughty, or stupid. Or both.

My parents also left school at 15. Dad has his own business and mum was a TA. Of course there's nothing 'wrong' with it. But there were significant numbers of children, including those with learning difficulties and neurodivergence, who believed they simply weren't 'good enough' and couldn't/ shouldn't therefore have aspirations of becoming, say, a lawyer or a doctor.

I always say to my kids that I don't care what they do in life, as long as they find something they enjoy/ have a passion for. But equally, of their aspirations are to become an astronaut, why wouldn't I support their dreams?

@Morph22010 I am sending my SEN child to my own secondary, a comprehensive, where I know from the inside they are decent to children with SEN. My friends and neighbours all think I am mad (we are surrounded by private schools, grammar schools and that large academy trust started by the carpet baron). Sadly, having worked in all those types of school, I no longer trust them with SEN.

People seem horrified by numbers like 1 in 9 are disabled, 20% need extra support etc but this does not seem unrealistic to me.

Why do we have such different expectations/experiences? I honestly think that this is the crux of the misunderstanding. And I strongly believe it IS a misunderstanding. There are bigoted views about disability, SEN etc and IMO they come from misunderstanding.

Because it's logical based on this premise - if you have been told all your life and believed all your life that disabled people are a tiny minority, that they are "other", to be pitied, that they are "not like you and me" (which is all pretty astounding and offensive, but it is the way a lot of people grow up, likely including both of those councillors) if you've never met anybody "like that" because they have been shut away in private not to interact with the rest of the world, then yes you probably do think it's a very small amount - maybe less than 1%. That would match up with your experience, and people tend to have a worldview formed by experience.

AND if you hold a belief about the world that everyone has to contribute and this is our collective responsibility, which some are exempt from because they are (too young/too old/disabled), but nobody really wants to do, we would all take the lazy/easy life if it were offered, then the idea that there is some kind of "elusive golden ticket" which is a disability diagnosis, and that anyone would seek it out if they could, that makes perfect sense in this context.

So yes, if you simultaneously believe that only a very small number of people are disabled, AND anyone would want a disability diagnosis because it exempts them from responsibility, AND THEN you're presented with numbers like 20% - then it's totally natural to be suspicious about where all these "extra" disabled people have come from, and to assume that they are just chancers after the "golden ticket" and not people who genuinely need support. Especially since in this case they are reading "support" as in financial support/freedom from responsibility.

It's logical based on those two baseline beliefs - but these are distorted. This is where the society-wide view probably needs to change (which, ironically or not, starts with NOT locking "different" children away in "different" schools because they can't possibly disrupt the education of the "normal" children!)

Disability is something normal, everyday, disabled people are just like everybody else but they have more difficulty in certain actions. What I find very frustrating about this is that those councillors are not sheltered young men. They are probably in their 50s or so. Surely they know of people who are diabetic, have a problem with one limb, are hard of hearing etc. One of them even had a visible tremor. I would imagine that they do not see these things as "disabilities" in the way that they think of disability. But they should not be thinking so separately about things.

Anyway, if you're seeing disability through this lens - as being a specific difficulty in certain area(s) of life, then the word "support" has a totally different meaning. It's things like ramps and lifts being provided for people with wheelchairs or other mobility problems, subtitles on TV, hearing aid-compatible systems, exceptions to animal bans for guide dogs. And support in schools for children who struggle to access learning as given in an ordinary way.

I did look at that Times article where the 1 in 9 comes from but I could not read most of it due to a paywall so I don't know what it refers to - it does seem to be 1 in 9 children (so not including elderly people) and the sentence I read said "disabilities, like ADHD", which makes me think that it probably includes both physical disabilities (cerebral palsy, deafness, visually impaired, paralysed, shortened limbs etc) and named SEN conditions. ADHD, dyslexia etc are not usually referred to as disabilities except in cases where funding or legal protection is relevant. Then they are sort of lumped in.

This is a useful chart - overall, 24% of the British population is classed as disabled, while the majority of these are adults over the age of 50, disability is not rare. Most disabled people are participating in ordinary life.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/449258/disability-prevalence-age-gender-united-kingdom-uk/

I went to a talk about disabilities just after the Equalities Act came in. The speaker (who was in a wheelchair from a lifelong issue) referred to everyone without a disability as TABS (temporarily able bodied) as she felt everyone would go through a time where they might need extra support for something do do with mental or physical health, even if it wasnt until very old age.

Whilst i know dusability has a definition in law. It did make me think.

That's actually brilliant. Would be great to come up with something that covers non-physical disabilities too, but inspiration's failing me at the moment.

earlyfeb24 · 05/02/2024 21:34

"But at the same time Prenatal testing means that there are fewer children born with eg Downs Syndrome than there were a generation or more ago. I don't know stats on birth injuries etc but imagine they may well be less common too due to more C sections."

True, but they outnumber them massively. Children born with Downs are down 50 % in Europe according to https://docs.downsyndromepopulation.org/factsheets/down-syndrome-population-europe-factsheet.pdf . There were 614 000 live births in the UK 2020; children born with Downs syndrome is about 1 in 10 000 live births, ie just over 720 in 2020.

Compare that with the fact that there are 53 000 children born prematurely each year in the UK (https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/premature-birth/premature-birth-statistics) and many of these have some kind of disability:
“1 in 10 of all premature babies will have a permanent disability such as lung disease, cerebral palsy, blindness or deafness.

1 in 2 of premature babies born before 26 weeks of gestation will have some sort of disability (this includes mild disability such as requiring glasses). [Just over 4 000 children were born before 28 weeks]
In one study of 241 children born before 26 weeks' gestation the following was found:
22% severe disability (eg cerebral palsy + not walking, low cognitive scores, blindness, profound deafness)
24% moderate disability (eg cerebral palsy + walking, IQ/cognitive scores in the special needs range, lesser degree of visual or hearing impairment)
34% mild disability (defined as low IQ/cognitive score, squint, requiring glasses)
20% no problems.”

This doesn't even include autism, where there is 'a statistically significant increase in rates of autism was found with each additional week of prematurity.' (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7452728/)

So the fact that perhaps 700 children were not born with Downs syndrome is a small change compared to the 4 000 children born extremely preterm, which is not counting the 53 000 children who were very preterm (before 32nd week) or 83 % who were moderately preterm…

The number of children who will need help based on this factor will only increase as long as medical progress means that we can help them survive – but whether we can/want to help them thrive in life is another matter, often considered too costly :-(

I disagree that EVERYONE with a medical or mental health issue is disabled. I think this is the kind of mindset that frustrates the public and minimises true disability, making them assume everyone is overplaying their struggles.

It also means an awful lot of people with more minor conditions simply state ‘I’m disabled’ without clarifying, knowing this will advance something they want, and people feeling a bit conned when they go out of their way to help only to realise the ‘disability’ is something most would call a minor health issue.

It’s a bit like how everyone has ‘anxiety’ now. I can’t remember the last time anyone said they felt nervous or afraid, it’s always ‘anxiety’. It used to mean a serious MH issue, now it applies to any Tom Dick or Harry and nobody really takes it seriously.

On paper I’m (physically) disabled but I don’t consider myself such. There’s nothing I can’t do if I’m on top of my meds, so I don’t see any value in aligning myself with somebody who has cerebral palsy or Spina Bifida.

I agree but even someone with cerebral palsy can have it very mildly I have a friend with cerebral palsy and I didn't realise until of she told me
She has a very mild limp
My older son waa diagnosed with Diabetes last year ,its difficult because he is covered by the disability act
And whilst he has had to make some major adjustments because he's insulin dependent, he's coped very well
He's not disabled in the way his severely autistic non verbal brother is.

So it's a terminology issue - what would be your understanding/definition of the word disabled, in that case?

The thing is that it does have a legal definition, so if you're talking about policy, funding etc then it makes sense to use the word disabled to refer to the same description that is set out in law, doesn't it? Otherwise everybody is confused, how can you have a discussion when Person A thinks "disabled" means totally unable to work, needs full financial support and possibly complex medical support on top, Person B thinks "disabled" means physical restriction in movement and nothing else, and Person C is using it in the legal definition which includes things like well-managed diabetes.

Surely that is the point of having specific legal definitions of things and those ought to be used in meetings like this, people can't just bring their own totally made up definition of a word to a meeting and expect to have a productive discussion with others if you're all using the same word to mean different things.

When I was a parent governor at 2 primary schools from 1999 to 2010 the Government brought in policies supporting Every Child Matters.
What has been the current Government's attitude to education since 2010? Does every child matter?

No in a nutshell!!

'' I feel like we are hindering our kids emotional development by not letting them work through unpleasant or irritating feelings, and by encouraging them to see danger or emotional spirals wherever they look. The thread on here about a 13 year old having a glass of Nosecco was full of posts saying it would lead to alcoholism in later life''

@Pleasehelpimexhausted

Absolutely!

I work with 16/17 year old who are almost all convinced they have' social anxiety' as one example.

No dear, you just feel uncomfortable as we all did when starting a new place of education or when a teacher asks you to read a few lines out loud etc. Most of them have a HUGE resilience deficit.

It is going to hinder them massively when they go out into the big wide world.

Baffled by these comments. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. The brain develops differently to NT children. Very well documented and researched. If it is all nurture and parenting then please explain how I've got one child who is NT and doing very well at school and another that is non-verbal, has low IQ and autism and is hyposensitive to sensory information so doesn't even know he is going to the loo. Both raised the same. Would be interested to know your thoughts.

Oh and re not working full time - I work full time, but it is pretty difficult to do so with no wrap around care or holiday clubs for ND children and having lots of appointments and admin from a chasing a shit LA to even acknowledge my sons needs and send my son to a SS (which they agree he needs to be in, but there are no spaces). This incompetence and lack of provision might lead to me losing my job. I just want my son to have access to the same things his brother has to help us stay a working family. You really don't know what you are talking about. I'm sure there are a few that cheat the system, but I can assure you for those that don't, it's exhausting, frustrating and relentlessly shit.

If you dont really know what you are talking about it would help if you didn't spout judgy ill-informed crap. Do you really think you know better than a consultant paediatrician?

Early neglect and trauma can lead to symptoms that present similarly to ND conditions. It also does affect brain development. We know this from years of research too. No one has said it’s the same but by the time a child is school age it’s almost impossible to pick apart and those children are just as likely to end up needing EHCPs, regardless of what the actual diagnosis is. People have just pointed out that that will be part of the increase in needs because austerity slashed early years services despite it being well documented that the 1st 2 years of a child’s development are absolutely critical in determining their later life chances. So in past years at least some of those children and families would have had much better help before nursery years. I suspect underfunding in SS contributes too. There are many many children who are quite badly neglected by most mumsnetters standards but SS wouldn’t even look at them. Sure start etc would have picked up those children once but not now.

@Grandmasswag early trauma is one of the reasons that conditions like ADHD are more prevalent in adopted children than in the general population.

Why there has been a rise in SEND children is irrelevant to their role until there is robust research that can be used to inform their decisions.

What they should have been asking is what are we spending the most on? What the makeup is of SEND kids in the area, what is the number one need, which services are providing the most value, which services have less impactful outcomes etc questions which could help inform the budget now rather than in the future. Cause doesn’t prevent the need to provide the service in the present.

There's a really interesting book called Tenants by Vicky Spratt I think she's called. It outlines the fact that a vast number of people are now living in modern slums, totally unfit for habitation and causing massive health problems. The NHS actually pays towards housing improvements in some cases because they found that people would get better in hospital then relapse when they went back home because of all the damp and mould and stress and misery from living in such awful conditions. Which would cost them more money. They can't fix all the houses though even though they are disabling people. We've given away so much of our council housing provision too, which was a massive social good, that many lower income people are now unable to access the kind of safe and non-disabling living conditions that their parents could in the past.

i think the failure of modern capitalism in general is also driving people who would have managed on their own 30 years ago to have to seek every ounce of financial support they can get. They're not scrounging. Just unable to support their needs and those of their children given real wages have fallen for so many.

I also wonder if part of the reason is undiagnosed special needs in the birth family parents as these both adhd/ asd run if families

I think it is definitely the case that many family’s whose dc experience trauma possibly do so because family has undiagnosed SEN. I work with families like this and can see LDs or neurodiversity in the parent.

it also reflects my own family and siblings. My dad was a drunken violent arsehole. Probably self medicated with alcohol due to undiagnosed ADHD. All my four siblings have MH problems though none of them have, or will have, dc.

I’d agree with the terminology point and also that having what is now seen possibly seen as a disability doesn’t necessarily mean support. I had a pretty difficult generalised anxiety disorder, it was managed with medication and then therapy, I worked throughout that period, no periods of unemployment and never claimed anything for it either (it wouldn’t have occurred to me that it was a possibility tbh).

I’m not sure if I would have bene considered to have a disability but I certainly wouldn’t have seen myself as having a disability.

I think thats a very insightful way to look at it, I hadn’t thought about it from that way round before. Thanks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66592814#

This is interesting

Working in the field, I also wonder daily about the increase of SEND and while those comments were completely misinformed and wrong, as a society it is important we do keep asking questions. Personal theories re the rise include the school curriculum being too challenging and not developmentally appropriate; leading to a greater number of children being excluded from it, reduced funding in schools, as in adults on the ground actively working with children rather than layers of management in academy trusts, poverty and deprivation on increase and abuse and trauma being misdiagnosed. I think we need to ask big questions about the purpose of mainstream education and how it needs to evolve to fit emerging needs.