How the hell do you get an EHCP

[Crystallizedring]

How the hell do you get one ( My DS has been rejected. He's 4, non verbal, can't use the toilet, according to nursery assessment he has the social and emotional development of a child half his age. He struggles with changes or different routines. He recently had a settle at school and would not enter the area where the other children were meaning one of the TAs had to stay with him but apparently some shit expert pannel have decided he will be fine.
I'm clearing going to have to delay his start date as no way will he cope with no support.
Nursery applied for the EHCP but we fully backed them. Everyone, Senco, doctor, speech and language therapist were convinced he'd be accepted first time.
I can't work out how to appeal or if I have to pay or how much.
I'm exhausted and nursery put so much in to applying for it. I don't know what to do and keep crying.
How much worse does he need to be to get help? Anyone appealed successfully (the %l looked low on the website)?

Unfortunately Local Authorities are more scared of not hitting made up targets to keep EHCP numbers low, than they are of parents, or concerned about the needs of individual children, or indeed the teachers, TAs and schools who do their best to meet their needs without adequate funding.

Don't delay his school start. Start him with his peers and you will have the school fighting with you too.
As so many have said, go to mediation and that will hopefully resolve it.

IPSEA are great for support, template letters and so forth.

As per PP. Don't delay starting school. Their ongoing support will be invaluable to you.

LAs are under huge, huge pressure to make it as hard as possible to get an EHCP. It sounds like you will get one eventually. A no at this stage doesn't even really mean that they don't think you'll get one, it just means they are delaying. They will do this for as long as they can get away with it. Most appeals (almost all) are successful and you will need to persist and persist.

Special Needs Jungle, IPSEA and SOS!SEN are good sources of support and advice. You'll always find lots of support here too.

I hope your DC has a lovely birthday.

Yep. Delaying tactics are their speciality. Last appeal fighting a cease to maintain, cost us around £30k. The LA could not win, they never had a chance, they had no evidence, they submitted no evidence, they didn’t comply with any of the deadlines. They did send out an independent advocate who agreed with us completely and the LA took the report and just buried it in the paperwork. I found the report when I did a GDPR request. 2 weeks before tribunal they conceded . They just dragged it on and on until they were likely to get in trouble with the tribunal. The monthly bills from the solicitor were crippling. Absolute arseholes.

I’d Like to say it’s over but now we’re fighting to keep our son’s continuing healthcare funding. All the same tricks have been used.It’s been dragging on for over 2 years, They hate me. Sat in a meeting for 7 solid hours a few weeks back! I’m resigned to the fact that this is will never end but there no other option than to keep going !

It cost you 30k? That's depressing, no way we could afford that.

Appeal. You're going to have to become a warrior parent if you have a child with special needs. My son is almost 42 and no longer living at home (residential care) and the battles have lessened somewhat. I'm saddened to hear it's no easier now though.
My advice to you is to document everything; every phone call, every letter, every email and any important conversation. I still recall the look on someone's face when I turned up with a big fat ring binder to hold them to account.
Good luck OP.

My sister has nothing but hesitancy from the school regarding my nephew. It was all " we need more evidence, we will start a plan etc " . Never happened. She collected all of the medical evidence, made a request for all of the information the school held on him and deep dived 2-3 years of WhatsApp messages and emails etc to back up the days when things had gone wrong in school and she had discussed it with us. Then she created a diary of evidence for 2-3 years listing everything with back up proof. She applied on her own using information from Facebook groups and special needs groups. School told her she would 100% never ever get it. It took her 5 months to get the application accepted after chasing up drs etc for support but then about 13 months after applying she got an EHCP and fought for a place in a SEN unit and got it. I didn't doubt her at all from the day we discussed it and she decided to apply. But it did take a huge emotional toll on her .

Within 12 weeks of my DN being in the unit in a different local school, he could recognise letters and could reliably write his name and sound out very simple 3 letter words like cat dog. Now, a year later he can actually read a very simple book, think "the cat sat on the mat" type stuff but he does it really well. It took the new unit just weeks to put in a foundation of knowledge that his first school had continually failed him on for 4 years. That school has changed his life immeasurably.

The process is difficult but it's 2000% worth it.

Definitely appeal and become familiar with the legislation.

Ours was rejected on the first go. In spite of reams of evidence including a very detailed three-page letter from a private SEN school detailing why DS's needs were too complex for them (all DC there had ASD and EHCPs).

The council conceded the day before the tribunal. That was several months of support they didn't have to pay. I don't know a single person who has not been rejected on first application.

We appealed for my son, they denied to assess him because of lack of evidence. The schools senco and I when to the appeal meeting and the LA overturned their decision - we are waiting for the assessment.

I was advised hear that the LA uses the appeal as a delay tactic, so I was gonna get the certificate and go to the tribunal but they said it would take a year for the court the review it - so I went for the appeal with the LA and we won.

Go with your gut instinct, you have to advocate for him and be his voice - good luck🤞🏽

I forgot to add between the rejection and appeal meeting, we got loads of evidence even from a child psychologist, pre-autism assessment and SALT report from the schools in house speech therapist.

OP, you don’t have to spend £30k to get an EHCP.

Hi OP. Sorry to hear you're going though this. I have just today got our final EHCP. I'm sorry to say it took two academic years, but it hasn't cost us anything (although I did pay for a couple of independent reports, but that was optional). You don't need a lawyer.

The tribunal process is free and the guides on the IPSEA website are good.

EHCP support thread no. 3 - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5077140-ehcp-support-thread-no-3

Rejection to assess is the default position for local authorities and they'll try to delay further through mediation. Refuse mediation. Go to Tribunal, you'll likely win. Our dd is undiagnosed, masks at school, so we had precious little evidence with which to build a case. We appealed when they rejected us, and the LA caved before it went to Tribunal because they knew I had them. You don't need representation, the legal threshold at appeal is quite low. And it cost us nothing except good personal research and time. You just need a bit of fight in you and a determination to get what your child deserves. Check out the SEN board, loads of good advice (amd advisors) on there.

I feel really lucky. It took me ages to get the EHCP - 40+ weeks and lots of chasing, but they agreed to assess and to issue, just didn't name a specialist when my son really needed one. They conceded a couple of weeks before the tribunal date, but even getting things in place is taking time for this September, and I'm worried it won't happen even though the tribunal have ordered them.

In this last year my son has had a 1 to 1 without an EHCP in reception, so you can get support without one and the school should know about this. This time last year I went into the school to discuss my son and how things would work. His mainstream have been excellent, but he is incredibly behind the other kids, and he does need specialist. He is just like your child, but if left on his own he would likely come to harm due to no sense of danger. They are usual quite well staffed in reception as there are these issues with EHCPs. Head up: you may not be able to use wrap around care or holiday clubs if your childs needs are high. This has royally fucked us over.

If you do go to tribunal and you get a long date you can ask the tribunal date to be brought forward. Just adding that in as its not been mentioned.

LAs can be arseholes, but many of them have been forced into this position due to underfunding. My LA asked the DofE for funding to build two new special schools and this got declined. I wouldn't have gone through what I have just been through if the DofE listened and funded those schools. Instead they are trying to impose safety valve policies, which is basically denying children have needs as a tactic for saving councils from bankruptcy. All party manifestos yet again mention little about SEND provision. Very disappointing.

I personally think councils should be held accountable for using tribunal services as a delay tactic. I'm not sure what this would look like, but there needs to be some sort of deterrent or an independent body that can fine them.

How far do you live from the border of your next local authority? I've met a few parents who have asked around about how obstructive the LA is and moved to a more accommodating one by getting them a place in that authority’s school. Not sure if it still works, but it’s worth a shot.

You chase and you fight and you review and you move schools and you cry to the SENCO and the SENCO cries back then you fight some more and then the SENCO has a breakdown and leaves and then the school can't recruit cos the pay is shit and the work is thankless and then you do it yourself and you fight to get services and assessments and evidence then you're denied so you skill up you learn a lot you get a posse of like-minded mums you tread on toes you become bolshy you cry a bit more...

Then if you're incredibly lucky, your kid ends up in the right setting, and you can breathe for 30 seconds before they move up to secondary. And you chase and you fight and you review and you move schools and you cry....

I'm sorry x x

Our LA has a different tactic. They delay making any response to the EHCNA request for as long as possible, then agree to assess but don't actually assess, because waiting lists (which is no excuse).

So you have no right of appeal. If you refuse to give in, after months of phone and email messages (because there is no way on earth to actually speak to your coordinator), they may produce a draft. Which is rubbish as it's not based on any actual evidence.

They refuse to get any evidence, so more messages, formal complaints etc and eventually they finalise it. So you can finally appeal except then there is a 13 month wait for tribunal.

We started nearly 3 years ago and DD will be in high school when we finally get it.

You’re going to find it an awful lot harder to get one now Keir Starmer has confirmed SEND kids with an ECHP plan in private schools won’t have to pay VAT. There is a massive rush from SEN parents in private schools, who currently don’t need one (because they are funding their fees), but now do need one to avoid VAT. I know of about 200 in my 1500 intake school now applying.

My son had a refusal to assess too. He is in year 5 with average intelligence but emotionally delayed by 7 years. He also has autism and needs 1-1 support all the time. His teacher is amazing but she is really struggling with him. The head teacher was furious that he had been refused. We won at mediation and we are just starting the assessment.

we have and tbf it's not really been use nor ornament.

Yep this, sadly. Where we are they seem to down them all down first time I think in the hole that a percentage of people just won't bother appealing 😡

It doesn't cost anything to appeal but it's so draining to have to do it after all the effort that's gone into it in the first place, I know

Sorry if this sounds blunt, I don’t mean it to. I work in this field you are welcome to message me. I’ve not read previous responses (apologies) but this is my area of expertise so wanted to offer a hand of support.

1. Have you read the SEND code of Practice inits entirety? Worth doing so to be sure of what your LA and setting ‘must’ and ‘should’ do.
2. Have your setting run through several cycles of the ‘Graduated Approach’ (sometimes referred to as APDR- assess, plan, do review)? Essentially they assess the child’s needs, plan what input needs to occur, do it, then review impact before running the cycle again.
3. Are there external agencies involved in #2? This could be health, speech and language, educational psychology, specialist teacher etc?
4. Are the nursery/ school able to evidence that they cannot meet need (despite implementing the graduated response described above)?
5. If the nursery cannot meet need, what do they need to do in order to actually meet need (qualify and quantify), can they evidence the cost of this?
6. if #5 has been implemented then what is the impact?
7. Is the cost of the necessary support beyond what is available in the school’s ‘notional’ SEND budget (please note, ‘notional’ means it doesn’t actually exist- school are not getting any more for this, it’s what should be there… but isn’t). For info, it’s about £6K per year. If a school can evidence a need in excess of this then that’s great evidence (doesn’t include shared resources such as shared lunchtime support).

If you have answers to the above then you should have the required information to apply for an EHCP. if you meet the criteria (differs slightly in LA) and you believe your child meets the criteria then go to mediation.

Agree with PP’s, appeal the decision (rejection seems to be first default for some LA’s) and you hopefully win the appeal and stats are definitely on your side. If it was still rejected as he gets older they will find it even more difficult to reject as it will be more evident he needs extra support.

good luck op x

It is shit no matter where you live - don’t give up - I know it’s exhausting…
Those saying the Councils refuse first time as a delaying tactic - absolutely disgusting - they should be ashamed of themselves!
Head up, keep fighting for your little man (my DGS was non verbal but reading and speaking at 5 years ) never give up darling xxx

You have read the entirety of SENDCOP - hats off to you. Bet that cured any insomnia.

I’m not sure if this is a response to my comment. 290 odd pages. A lot but gives the legal framework as a starring point. Dull as dishwater? Maybe, But you need to know this stuff if you’re heading for a fight (sadly, most parents in your position need to fight to some degree or another. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. Read it, it may take you a couple of hours first go and then it’ll be easier to locate the bits you need.

Anyway, OP, as previously offered, please feel free to message me. I read/ refer to the CoP most days in my professional life and led the school training on it across my county when it came out (and remain a SEND SLE).