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

I’m furious on your behalf. The law is clear. They don’t get to ignore it and invent their own rules.

You only have to consider mediation. You don’t have to actively participate in it. You can just request the mediation certificate and submit the appeal to SENDIST if you don’t want to partake. If you go ahead with mediation, be careful. LAs can use it as a delaying tactic. Make sure they send someone with decision-making authority. They, including Essex CC, should, but they don’t always.

I've requested that if the mediation date cannot take places within a fortnight then to issue the certificate of mediation.

The LA will have firm rules about evidence to proceed. There is every likelihood that you don't have this evidence tbh.

Every LA interprets the SEN code of practice and has a manual for sencos to follow. There are strict rules for schoolsvto follow in terms of submitting evidence - showing what has been tried already and what impact it had.

You probably don't have this, which is why they automatically refuse to assess.

This is where meditation can work - you are not in the system and can't meet their requests for evidence.

If they play hardball you need to appeal and you need your own evidence to convince the tribunal. This is where it helps to have advice on what evidence you need, who should do it, and at what times.

It IS harder to do this when a child is not in school - you can never give the LA the evidence to tick their boxes. But you can use mediation and tribunal instead.

Their refusal to assess letter states that

1. My son does have SEN and;
2. That there may be a need for an EHCP.

Those alone are enough and all that is required by the law to undertake an assessment. It is then that assessment that needs the evidence.

LAs can make up all the guidance they want but it doesn't matter in appeals and JRs if it's not in line with the law

Tbh I think anyone who works in these departments have a special place in hell.

In the meantime I've requested SARs from all Essex departments and NHS services and his two schools in relation to my son.

LAs can make up all the guidance they want but it doesn't matter in appeals and JRs if it's not in line with the law

As difficult as it is, ignore the LA’s games. Remember ^this and don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.

It's infuriating dealing with the LA. That's why you need good advisors to interpret what is going on.

LAs turn people down all the time sadly. Any excuse and they will do it.

And OP, you likely know this already, but in your dealings with the LA, get everything in writing/ follow up by email. I’ve had experience of the LA saying one thing and then lying and pretending they never said it.

Also, if the LA say they will do something as part of the appeal process, such as obtain a report… they may not do that and you may need to obtain it yourself.

I'm in a bit of a different situation to you OP in that my child is in school, although EBSA, and does have an EHCP however he was refused specialist provision and the school warned us not to use the mediation as you can only do this once and you have to have a substantial amount of evidence in order to prpve your child needs specialist provision, and so we're evidence gathering and requesting an early annual review.

The challenges you've got are that he doesn't currently have an EHCP and he also needs specialist provision so it's like jumping through 2 hoops at once. It's evident to everyone here he needs an EHCP and specialist provision, but you really need ironclad evidence of how his needs have not been met in mainstream which you may already have sufficient of, but if you haven't already contact IPSEA and get their advice.

Actually let me just refer to my notes for DS appeal: if your child has also been off school for more than 15 days with emotionally based school avoidance then the local authority are legally obligated to assess the child's needs, provide appropriate support and arrange a suitable alternative provision. So if they're refusing to assess then they are breaking the law. This can be cited in the children and families act of 2014, section 22: local authorities have a general duty to identify all children in their area who may have SEND and ensure their needs are assessed and appropriately met.

If the emotionally based school avoidance is due to SEND then the Children and Families act 2014 obligated local authorities to perform an education and health care needs assessment.

Under the children's act 1989 the local authority have got an obligation to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area. Under section 17 they have a duty to promote and support overall development and ensure that their development isn't hindered by unmet social, emotional or educational needs. The act emphasises that development is an umbrella term that covers: physical, intellectual, social, emotional and behavioural growth.

Under the education act of 1996 the local authority must make arrangements for suitable alternative provision for children who cannot access education because of illness including mental health, exclusion or for other reasons would not receive a suitable education. This places responsibility on the local authority to assess why a child is not able to access school or the curriculum and find a suitable resolution. The first step to this would be a needs assessment.

Again under section 19 of the education act 1996 it covers that suitable education not only covers a curriculum based education but the overall development of a child.

The local authority should work with health services to acquire appropriate supporting documentation and ensure that it is legally compliant, and this usually does cover an educational psychologist report- which in many areas are hard to get a hold of, although they can't really refuse compliant private educational psychologist reports either if you're able to acquire one. They should be requesting this as part of their needs assessment though and it is their responsibility and legal duty to assess a child's needs especially if they've been off due to emotionally based school avoidance when attributed to SEND.

Just be sure that you're armed to the nines with all of your supporting information if you are going to mediation so you don't wind up back at square one.

I'm not a lawyer by the way and you may want to fact check what I've said as these have just been taken from various notes I've taken with various professionals and I've not yet appealed myself as I am waiting for an early annual review to be called but if these notes can help you get a foot in the door then I will have been glad to have shared them.

I have already pretty much said that word for word. I've put in formal complaints and written to the Chief executive stating exactly those words in regards to the 15 days etc.

They have said that because he had a period of home education they no longer have any duty over him. Which I know to be wrong! But they just keep on writing absolute crap tbh.

They've forced me to instruct a solicitor, so got to wait for that now. £900 just for 1 letter 🤢

you ate sprouting so much nonsense... one could almost assume you are an EHCP caseworker who had training in how to bend the law in order to delay EHCP assessments. The SenCoP is very clear on when an assessment must happen. unfortunately too make LAs make Up their own rules.

It's eye-watering isn't it. The disability tax at large again! For £900 I would expect it to sprout legs and walk itself to them personally.

I would look into a specialist residential option and convince either social services or the Local Authority to pay. This would be a much better option than the care system in my opinion. He would have wrap around therapies and people who are trained and have experience supporting children like your son.

Mediation is not only limited to once. You can request mediation whenever you have the right of appeal.

OP does not need to prove specialist provision is required. Right now, the only legal test she needs to focus on is that for an EHCNA which has been posted in a pp.

OP’s DS clearly meets the legal test for an EHCNA set out section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014.

However, the LA’s duty under section 22 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to “exercise its functions with a view to securing that it identifies— (a) all the children and young people in its area who have or may have special educational needs, and (b) all the children and young people in its area who have a disability.” does not mean they have to undertake an EHCNA for each of the aforementioned DC.

And whilst section 19 of The Education Act 1996 requires the LA to ensure CSA DC such as OP’s DS still receive a suitable full-time education, section 19 does not require LAs to undertake an EHCNA on all DC who need s19 provision. For OP’s DS, s19 provision should have begun as soon as it became clear 15 days would be missed and should have started by the 6th day of absence. However, they do not have a duty to provide this if OP EHEs. If she is EHE, they will say she is making suitable alternative arrangements thereby relieving them of this duty. OP should make it clear in writing she is not EHEing and they must make arrangements.

OP, the timescales of the formal complaints process are too long. For failure to provide s19 provision, you should go down the pre-action letter route.

I think this will still go in your favour even for that ridiculous price to instruct a solicitor as their responsibility is still to ensure that he's receiving a suitable education if you've instructed them that you will no longer home educate.

I think the solicitor will be able to help clear up that his episodes of home education were necessary due to a lack of suitable provision rather than a voluntary deregister from mainstream school, and it was essential to remove him for the sake of his mental wellbeing and with any luck this should force their hands into accepting doing an EHCNA, by the nature of him simply not being able to attend or access a curriculum due to the distress it has caused him.

When are you expecting to receive this letter from the solicitors?

Why are you so rude?

In fact, I have 2 children who had ehc plans. I spent 2 years working for a charity supporting parents with ehc plan applications and I know EXACTLY how the system works.

Tell me what I said that was wrong.

I worked with lots of parents who had removed children from the state system either to home educate or go private and they all had the same problem - they didn't have the evidence the LA demanded and the LA dismissed them out of hand. Same with young children starting nursery, children arriving from overseas.

If you don't tick the LA boxes the LA will decline your application.

They've said it should only take 48hrs to write once I've paid, they sent over the client letter this afternoon and so now waiting for them to send the invoice tomorrow. So I guess by Wednesday?

Yes the LA may decline because their boxes aren't ticked but they are wrong in doing so. They are not following the law. And anyone advising parents of SEN children otherwsie are also wrong.

I am not rude. I am pointing out there is law which needs to be followed. LAs cannot make up their own rules which you suggested is fine. It's not. Period.

I obviously can't say if this is happening here, but IIRC recently our LA rejected 95% of EHCNA requests first off. It was essentially nothing to do with how strong the evidence is, more their policy to reject everyone as a delaying tactic. A refusal to assess doesn't always mean anyone's actually looked at the evidence and assessed it on its merits. People get through on appeal with the same evidence that was refused first time, no legal help or anything.

I don't have the data but you might be able to pull out the data for your county here https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans#explore-data-and-files and get a sense of what proportion of EHCNA requests are refused first time. It might give you a sense of whether this refusal might be one of those that is done as a blanket policy rather than having actually considered its merits. Even if the latter, plenty of decisions not to assess get overturned on appeal so there is no reason to either panic or be put off by this refusal.

I didn't say it was fine, I simply explained what happens.

That proves completely that 1) they know you are absolutely correct, and will win, and 2) that your child's provision will be extremely expensive.

They do this to parents. I know some told that they could never win and to spare themselves the stress - only thinking of them, you understand!

Because its just that simple????
It doesnt work that way ,currently the Op ,s child doesn't have an EHCP if a residential placements is agreed and its,a big if ,the school would then have to agree it can needs ,and it's the LEA that would fund it.