To voluntarily put my child into care

[Crumplesock]

We are at the point now where we think we may need to either put our eldest into the care system or seperate and live in 2 seperate homes to keep our children apart for fear that the eldest will seriously harm the younger two children. However, I'm not sure how we will actually finance two seperate homes (even 2 x 1bedroom flats).

Our son is autistic with a PDA profile. We are low demand parenting, and he does not attend school after being excluded and we are following his lead in Home Education. We followed the At Peace Parenting Course (which is amazing and so insightful, if not a little crazy on price!) but she told us we need to radically accept that this is our son's disability, this is part of it and we need to accommodate it. She shared how her family had to live sperately for a while. We are being advised by all the professionals that we are doing all we can for our son's needs and are accommodating and parenting him in line with his disabilities. But I just feel so broken at it.

As our son is getting bigger, his level of aggression is increasing and becoming harder to manage. We attempt to keep the children separated at all times but this is hard when there is only 1 parent at home and all 3 do need to be watched constantly.

Our other two children, and us parents too, are receiving multiple injuries daily.

Our son has taken to doing home workouts, which is absolutely brilliant and I want to encourage a healthy lifestyle but his strength is crazy. I've witnessed him do 20+ pull ups, he can now lift 1.5× his bodyweight in a Deadlift. I spoke to him about this passion of his and he said its so he can always make sure he is the strongest and to make people scared of him.

I know deep down there's a scared boy in there, whose doing this as a reaction to school trauma and being pushed around by school bullies (he had it quite bad). But it also terrifies me at how he is stronger than me and it won't be long before he levels with my husband.

I have spoke to Social Sevices today who has said they'll get a support package and stated that this is Child-on-parent (and sibling) abuse and that they do need to safe guard our other children

She has to exhaust every other option and then some before there will even be an offer of residential

If by exhaust you mean OP’s DS has to try all the other types of settings (such as MS and day SS) first before securing a residential placement, that isn’t true. Although it is often a misconception. And a myth perpetuated by LAs. OP may have to appeal, many do, but she does not have to exhaust placements in other types of placements that are inappropriate first. Ultimately, the LA doesn’t have the final say. What she does need is evidence - e.g. EP, ISW, OT, SALT, psychiatrist, CP.

@Crumplesock I know I PM'd you but I just want to say that in light of your post that your DS has already been assessed for both ASD and ADHD, I'm struggling to see why you would be charged £2000 for an initial assessment and I'd really urge you to shop around.

@Crumplesock

Crumplesock, I see that you are considering other sources, not only the £2,000 clinic.

I've mentioned Great Ormond Street before and am wondering whether it would help you to get in touch with Isobel Heyman. I'm suggesting this not only because she is a Consultant Child Psychiatrist, but also because she sees children in both London and Cambridge and you have said that you live in the East of England. Cambridge might be handy for you, if she would see you.

It could be that she will see you and then make a referral to another professional, but it would surely be a good start.

I do think that it's important that you see someone who is part of a clearly multi-disciplinary team; it could well be that it's the MDT approach which will help your son most.

Something which might be useful for you to do at this point is to ask your GP about a letter of referral which can be sent to someone like Prof. Heyman as an adjunct to the referral itself.

https://www.gosh.com.kw/consultants/professor-isobel-heyman

Thank you, I sent a request off yesterday to GOSH as well 10+ other clinics, not just the £2k one (that's just the only one that came back to me).

I'm currently listening to a legal podcast around EHCP and SEN. Shall spend tonight swotting up and if anyone can advise on any good templates or resources I'd be grateful. I do think I've clearly been fobbed off by being told only way to go first is to traumatise DS and his new classmates first.

To answer some Qs around the One Plan, that was put in place by his former school who excluded him in the end.

For SEN law, start with IPSEA and SOSSEN’s websites.

For social care information and model letters, look at Contact.

Apologies don't know if you have looked at the Ipsea website, but its got templates of letters and advice around EHCPs.

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/pages/category/education-health-and-care-plans

Apologies I used the wrong rate - it's a bit over £7k as you say. Usually it takes a long time for claims to be processed so there tends to be a large chunk sum at once for the intial payment which I found very useful .

I'm entirely sympathetic to the disability tax. I've got a child with AuDHD and severe anxiety, school refusal and am a single mum who has been unable to work full time since having children due to their extra needs. I still think that money should be being prioritised for the most urgent needs which is Psychiatrist and possibly meds. I had to do this for my child because CAMHS weren't offering the help needed.

Considering residential or social care before there's even been any proper treatment sounds entirely inappropriate. I'm really surprised a social worker would suggest that. My disability social worker actually recommended private Psych assessment if it was at all possible. Most will take payment plans if needed.

Have a look into cbd oil, it changed everything for my son. We needed to tri a couple to find one that worked the best but he went from 10 meltdowns a day and significant violent and challenging behaviour to being now a calm and caring teen. Find a way that you can separate his behaviour and connect with hFor now, remove all demands. Every single one that is negotiable. Also read The Explosive child by Dr Ross Greene

I would contact sos!sen for advice. They helped me get a then Statement for my daughter and a place at an independent specialist school - all while her primary school were telling me we had zero chance of even the Statement. You will get all sorts of inappropriate advice from the local authority in particular.

The LA have not been through the relevant process yet. They will not take a look at a child and roll into action. What happened here was that school wasn't working and so instead of working out support, the OP pulled her son out. The LA was therefore no longer involved.

I used to help parents get ehc plans. Even children in nursery with profound disabilities had to go through the formal process.

Yes i know I was replying to a poster who seems to think it's an easy process to get a residential school place ,my son has always gone ti a special school from reception, he's in year 10 now
The Op,s child doesn't even have an EHCP yet

Sorry I must have got muddled. Home Ed or going private often seemsvlike a good idea but it leaves families stuck and struggling to get back into the system.

The evidence that tribunals look at is reports provided from professionals. LAs might only start doing something once a child has been expelled multiple times, but you don’t need to dance to their tune, just get proper assessments and go to tribunal.

OP both my two have EHCPs. Both are (these days!) gentle, and both are academically gifted too (IQs that place in the 98th, and 99.99th centiles, respectively). No challenging behaviours - they mask. Still had EHCPs at 9 and 7 because we had the expert reports that proved the needs and the mental health challenges in the frame.

EHCP officers are trained to get you to delay, delay, delay because each term lost is a term they don't have to fund, and residential is extraordinarily expensive. Short termism is king.

If you'd like me to talk you through the process, and how to secure proper EHCP support, I would be happy to. I applied for both mine, and one was home educated. One now has an excellent EOTAS and the other a small gentle independent school with lots of therapeutic and TA support. Their needs are very high and complex, but hidden, and your sons are complex and not hidden at all. I am quite certain that with the right support and evidence you can secure what he needs.

I also know that an appeal is expedited, if you ask, for a child not on a school roll, and the LA can and might well argue for a local SEMH school and not a residential, if excluded twice. You need to be in a position to argue that he needs to be "educated and trained" in school full time, which is what a therapeutic residential school can offer him.

Again, please feel free to PM me if you would like support - even just moral support. You are a lot less alone than you may believe, in what you are experiencing.

Hang on in there. There WILL be better days ahead. 💐

Should say, challenging behaviour in school. They were very challenging at home, before the needs were met!

OP - I admittedly haven’t read the full thread (it was making me angry !) but this stands out as being the best advice on here. There are so many different linked issues (EHCP / Child Violence / Residential Education) that you will get better advice to individual points on another more specialist board (eg : SEN). I also have a child with PDA and live with many of the same issues as you. it’s a complex area that many people ‘think’ they know about but don’t unless they are living day in day out with it. Sending virtual support.

Yes. It was a long battle and we spent tens of thousands in reports and legal fees but it was well worth it. He loved it there and did really well and it was a stepping stone for moving on to full time residential .

OP, in terms of private consultations and independent reports just to say that there are some further considerations. If you are looking for hard evidence that will stand up to attempts to discredit it by LA lawyers at an EHCP tribunal, there are small number of specialist child psychologists and educational psychologists. However, take advice as to whether and when you need this, as it can be timed out. This is very different from finding a highly skilled local clinical psychologist who can work with you and/or DS and support you as a family to manage the situation unless and until CAMHS come through with adequately skilled support. In terms of paying for a practitioner to work with you therapeutically, it can be worth finding someone who works or has worked recently in the NHS, in terms of navigating local services, and their views having some traction. You could expect a private practitioner to be writing letters to other agencies in support of DS documenting their needs, and for this evidence to be fed into the EHCP process too. It's just that beyond a certain point you might need a tribunal specialist (who probably would not be providing therapeutic support).

Hope that makes sense It is worth thinking about what you most need now and taking recommendations from SEND parents locally.

Another part of the scandal of this situation is people having to spend their child's DLA on enforcing the law so state bodies behave lawfully towards their child.

@Intotheoud is absolutely right. In every point.

We always try to use former NHS people with my kids, 1) I know they are likely to be good, and 2) local NHS respect them (always check that out first, if you can!)

We have spent obscene money on this. All the DLA goes into trying to hold the services accountable to the law. Which the services often feel most indignant about - see Kemi Badenoch in the Mumsnet chat earnestly saying the LAs tell her the problem is all these parents appealing... 98.3% of parents win appeals, and you can in fact only win an appeal if the original decision was against the law! The problem is indeed that we have to appeal, but the people who make that necessary are the senior managers at the LAs.

My kids have good support. But it should not take what it does to secure what the law says they are entitled to have.

For anyone reading who needs independent assessment but isn’t able to afford them and isn’t eligible for legal aid (which can fund assessments) there are some charities who can help. Parents in Need can help fund Tribunal standard reports.

There are other charities who can help too. Not all offer Tribunal standard reports, but the information gathered can still be helpful for appeals. A few examples, Boparan Trust provides grants for some therapies. They aren’t tribunal standard reports, but I have successfully used the data from these therapies in appeals. Similar for Hospital Saturday Fund and TCT. Buttle UK provides grants for some therapy/counselling sessions and data can be used to evidence needs. Jessie’s Fund grant music therapy and a report. Again, they aren’t tribunal standard reports, but I have successfully used the reports in appeals. Then charities related to certain groups of people, e.g. Camp Simcha's counselling sessions for Jewish families. Also, several smaller local charities/CICs, e.g. therapy stars foundation and Inspirative Arts. Not an exhaustive list and they all have eligibility criteria, so people may not be eligible for all or any of them, but it is worth looking and asking what is available.

Agree. And a few posters upthread reinforcing this by telling OP that’s what DLA is for. It’s not. I’ll bet that if the decisions were scrutinised at appeal and LAs were forced to repay those costs, the quality of the decision making would soon improve.

if the decisions were scrutinised at appeal and LAs were forced to repay those costs, the quality of the decision making would soon improve.

I doubt it. The unlawful decisions would still save the LA money. Although independent reports are expensive for parents, the cost of them is a drop in the ocean for LAs when you consider the overall costs associated with EHCPs, Tribunals and defending such cases. And also when you compare to the value of bailouts received as part of the Safety Valve programme (which encourages unlawfulness).

Costs associated with JR, LGO determinations and, less commonly, the small claims court don’t deter LAs now. With JR, it sometimes makes them correct their unlawfulness before actual proceedings begin, but it doesn’t stop the unlawfulness to begin with nor prevent parents needing to seek pre-action letters.

I think that's partly because not enough parents are aware of judicial review as a remedy, and/or don't know enough about it. I've heard people saying they can't do it because of the cost, but if it's a case concerning children's rights then they will get legal aid in the child's name if it becomes necessary to start legal action. That's why a lot of local authorities concede if they get a pre-action letter, because they know that if a parent has got to that point it will be relatively easy and cheap for them to take it further and that it could then get quite expensive for the LA. Also they don't necessarily want to set precedents that show their policies and practices are unlawful.

People also suggest that JR is too slow, but again in an urgent case such as a child with no school place it's possible to start proceedings quite quickly on an emergency basis, and also to get at least interim relief within a matter of a few weeks.

@GoldenPheasant I completely agree. I am forever pointing out such misconceptions about JR costs and timescales. Although finding a legal aid firm to take on the case has become more difficult than it was it the past. A sign of the demand. This has resulted in some LAs taking pre-action letters from firms without a legal aid contract less seriously because the LA knows the parents then have to find a firm to take them on.

For things like breach of timescales and failure to provide SEP in F or s19 provision, the pre-action letter can be arranged free of charge too via SOSSEN. There is a wait, so some decide to go elsewhere, but it is free and doesn’t involve a wait of ‘years’ like some people believe.