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

I am definitely not up for any mother of the year awards (I’ve made plenty of mistakes or left things too long) but I don’t get this. My job is to teach my DD to be self sufficient and shepherd her towards independence. Children LOVE it as well, “I’m a big girl, I put on my own clothes, I’m a big girl, I’ll do it myself”.

Most things we teach kids is short term pain for long term gain, potty training is no fun but I find a bit of pee in clothes miles better than nappies. If I had waited for her she’s probably still be in pull ups, not able to use cutlery, unable to dress herself.

I don’t find being a mum easy at all, I’m not a natural but it hurts my heart that so many kids seem to be just left to it, it feels neglectful. I can’t help but to think it sets the tone for their lives as well “you don’t know how to do this thing, I’m here to help you learn so listen, watch, keep trying and you’ll get it” seems better than “you aren’t ready, lets not try”.

Having had anxiety I’m determined that DD build resilience, it took me literally MONTHS to get her into a gymnastics class. But we kept going and now she runs towards the front door when it’s time to leave. It would have been easier to just not do it, it caused a lot of upset at the time but I took her over and over. We now have a bank of challenges she has overcome that I can point to “do you remember when you were scared of x but you gave it a go and now you love it” “do you remember when it was really hard to learn y but we kept trying and now you can do it”.

I worry that part of the rise in anxiety is down to parenting (mine definitely was) on both extremes. Children who experience neglect and children who are never allowed to be uncomfortable. The extraordinary rise in anxiety has to be looked at. It is horrible living with anxiety, truly dreadful. There are those who whatever the context would have experienced mental health trouble but there are probably a lot of people who suffer when they didn’t have to.

I know this is separate from children with ND but the figures thrown around seem to include a lot of MH issues as well. We can’t function as a society if so many of us struggle to function as individuals. Those kids are tomorrows workers and parents. We have to figure it out.

Having had anxiety I’m determined that DD build resilience, it took me literally MONTHS to get her into a gymnastics class. But we kept going and now she runs towards the front door when it’s time to leave. It would have been easier to just not do it, it caused a lot of upset at the time but I took her over and over. We now have a bank of challenges she has overcome that I can point to “do you remember when you were scared of x but you gave it a go and now you love it” “do you remember when it was really hard to learn y but we kept trying and now you can do it”.

I think this is very interesting to think about re MH problems in children. I have 2 friends currently dealing with primary aged children who are anxious and mildly school refusing (they are both in most of the time but attendance v poor). They have both decided their children must be ND. School say no in both cases. I’ll admit having known them for years I have seen some signs such as sensory issues but certainly no more than any of their peers and in my own dc. And nothing that’s put then out of the realm of normal. My personal view is that it comes down to the way they’ve been parented. Very child led, have never been encouraged to persevere with anything at all. The moment they don’t want to do something the parent backs down and lets them out of it. For instance one child is never expect to leave the house and their gaming station if they don’t wish to. Then the parents complain that they never want to go out! I’m wondering if this is fuelling childhood anxiety because lots of children are never learning to face discomfort or fears. Parents then want an explanation for childhood anxiety and the most obvious on is ND. I know this has been suggested up thread and I do tend to agree from personal experience. Again important to stress not all. Also have experience of asd children and I know how debilitating the anxiety can be and that it is very much part of ND. But when it’s the only or main symptom a child is presenting with maybe they are just anxious, rather than ND.

@Grandmasswag i think you’re spot on in some cases. Anxiety symptoms can mimic ND because they’re quite similar - unable to face busy/crowded situations, repetitive behaviours, feelings of overwhelm and so on. I wonder if helicopter parenting plays into it - never building up that small tolerance of danger/discomfort from toddlerhood because there’s always a parent watching ready to step in.

@Noicant fab post, agree with every word.

It starts early I think. I read a thread on here where posters said it was cruel to leave a 9 month old to happily play in their cot with a few toys for 20 minutes while mum did a household job. Baby was perfectly safe and happy, but apparently you should be with in the room with them 24/7. Just nuts.

I also know a mum who drives her 16 year old daughter to school, which is less than 10 minutes walk away through a very safe, busy town. It’s absolutely crazy. At 11 I was making the 1 hour journey to school alone, which included a train journey.

Children are born with ND. Trauma doesn’t cause it. ND children will however find trauma more difficult to process and overcome.

https://www.childdevelopmentclinic.com.au/adhd-and-complex-trauma.html

big overlap though. Lots of children will end up with ADHD diagnosis simply because that’s the most straightforward diagnosis to give. It’s pretty hard to delve into early trauma and what impact that will have had by the time a child comes for diagnosis. Plus it would be massively uncomfortable for society to acknowledge.

I think you need to be careful blaming nd diagnosis on parenting as it’s very much a chicken and egg situation. My child was diagnosed autistic age 6 and the way I parent is not the way I would potentially parent a nt child. He is now a teenager. I did all the usual parenting things when he was little and found parenting really hard, but everyone says parenting is hard so you think that is normal if you don’t have any other kids. A friend of mine whose older child was later diagnosed with asd/adhd said she thought the same until she had her second child a few years later and realised. So for example pre kids I’d have said we would all sit at table and eat the same meal. Now my child eats on his own in the living room and we make him something he will eat, luckily he eats fruit and veg and doesn’t like chicken nuggets but I am no way taking credit for this it’s just how it is. We don’t force him to go to places he doesn’t want to anymore. People can look at parenting in isolation and blame it for the way he but the diagnosis came first and we’ve adapted to make life not as difficult. You don’t necessarily know what has gone on in people’s lives before they got to the stage they are at. It is really hard having an autistic child and parent blaming attitude makes it even harder

I do understand that Morph. It does make it rather difficult to have these conversations. In this particular age these are children who are in families where multiple children are parented the same and the dc in question have not raised any alarms before the development of anxiety towards late primary. I’ve known them really well since dc were babies. I absolutely would not make judgments generally.

The key point is also that neither school believe there is ND at play. Once this would have been enough to satisfy but now I think there are some parents who read about ND, fit all behaviour into that framework thinking they are just ‘informed’ and ‘schools don’t understand ND’. This may be the case for some poor schools and staff but generally I think the vast majority of schools do know how to recognise ND. There are also the parents who don’t recognise it in their children and schools are the 1st to raise it. I know some of them too and it’s again a very tricky situation because it means their dc are diagnosed way later than they should have been and have missed out on vital support.

No they absolutely don’t. All of my children have adhd and autism and as do I. The NHS process is robust and doesn’t work like that.

We get the government we vote for.

Helicopter parenting accusation is another one that gets to me and is very much chicken and egg. As I said i prior post my child was diagnosed autistic age 6 and he’s now a teenager. I have always had to watch him as we can go from total calm to total carnage in about 5 seconds given the wrong circumstances. I would have loved to be sitting chatting, drinking coffee and taking no notice of what my child was doing, but I know he deeded it be watched. Added to this he would have been blamed and scapegoated for a lot more stuff due to being less articulate if I hadn’t seen exactly what had gone on. We are building up on independence but it’s very slow and very behind a typical child

I Don’t doubt NHS process is robust. But if a child is presenting as having ADHD they are unlikely to come away from the process without a diagnosis for ADHD. It would be virtually impossible for the NHS to unpick each individual when you consider resources. I have experience of adult diagnosis involving childhood trauma and it’s incredibly difficult. 2 different psychiatrists came up with 2 different diagnosis for a start.

Well all our diagnoses delved hugely into childhood difficulties and linked in with education. It’s perfectly possible and happens. 2 of my children have trauma too but it is very different and you have totally ignored the non overlapping ADHD and trauma symptoms in your Australian clinic article.

You would never get a ND diagnosis on anxiety alone. I think you need to be very careful re pushing reliance and dismissing ND. We are seeing a huge amount of undiagnosed women and girls. The fallout of undiagnosed ND is massive. I see it in primary school and have first hand experience of it in teens. If left until teens it is catastrophic. ND children and teens are hugely resilient often far more than their peers. They cope with so much just to give an appearance of being what they are expected to be.If young people aren’t aware of their ND the fallout is massive and costly to the NHS and within education. I pushed resilience on my children and probably didnt acknowledge their anxieties and struggles enough. If I’d known they all had ND I would have handled things better. I think I patented well however they masked and pushed themselves too much. They then fell apart- massively! CAMHS and hospitals have been a big part of our lives the past few years. I see so many late diagnosed teens who fell apart and ended up getting enveloped in debilitating mental illness. All have very proactive loving parents .

Early diagnosis and support within education and CAMHS would save this country a fortune. Some of the increase in SEND must be due to better awareness in girls. Until very recently how ADHD presents in girls literally didn’t exist in the diagnosis process. Re Autism girls were just left as their symptoms weren’t the stereotype. We are now slowly starting to recognise this.

Its interesting as id say the diagnostic overshadowing is the other way. The assumption is you have trauma if you come from a chaotic home and no one bothers to see if you also have adhd. But perhaps times are changing.

But the flip side of that is my son does have asd but he also has trauma and getting treatment for trauma was delayed due to views on mental health care for asd which is basically 'you need to change the environment' so we wont treat it.

I don’t think the education system suits SEND ( and often mainstream)children at all now and we have the current government to blame for that. They have also massively underfunded SEND( and education). It is a problem of their making.

I also think the high tech fast world is proving to be catastrophic for those who have ND.

I don’t think SEN is underfunded as such, it’s literally bankrupting councils and we spend over £1 billion a year just transporting SEN children to school. It could be argued that the money could be more effectively spent but I couldn’t say it’s underfunded.

Do you not see that if trying to meet their legal obligations is bankrupting councils, it must mean SEN is underfunded?

Though I don't think school transport is really the best illustration of that. Eligibility is certainly not restricted to children with SEN, and it tends to be notoriously badly managed. I really think there is a fortune to be saved by the council that gets a proper grip on transport and sets up its own systems which are not at the mercy of whatever the local cab companies want to charge.

No, it may mean they’ve overcommitted in terms of what they can provide, or committed before the rise of diagnoses which has now resulted in the spend spiralling beyond what they ever expected. Realistically there’s only so much money that can be spent on one thing. I agree about transport.

I don’t think this can be the case. Traditionally ADHD has been way more prevalent in lower socioeconomic cohorts. There’s been lots of studies that show this over various countries. Although I’m sure I read that it’s now swinging the other way in the U.K. because middle class people can essentially afford to pay for private diagnosis where as the rest are for years on the waiting lists if they can even get on one.

If you look at the councils that have issued notice, the reasons include an equal pay claim, a cock up in a properrty portfolio (in an LA that isnt even responsible for send as its not unitary) a cock up with solar farms. Adult social care is another big and rising cost.

I'm not dismissing that council funding is in dire situation and noone likes the taxi situation.

I think there’s an underlying idea in many of these posts that send education is optional. That we’ve spent “too much” on it and that children without education additional needs should be catered for first.

What makes you think the school knows better? I was told by senco that I'm not Autistic. That was after my diagnosis. Funny how everyone who knows me would disagree with her. Including my sister who has a PhD in Psychology.

But given that this is the same woman who told me I'm Dyslexic and the person who tested me said I can't be it's difficult to believe anything she says.

I don’t agree with that. I suspect in the past cohorts with less life stresses have handled it better. Now they can’t as more and more and struggling with life stress such as cost of living, anxiety etc. In my support group there are sufferers from all walks of life.

The NHS will also expedite you on the waiting list according to need. You’d only don’t get on the list if there isn’t enough evidence that ND is likely. Surely everybody shouldn’t be put on the waiting list regardless?If there is enough evidence that ND is likely you’ll be on the list.