Are SEN case workers to be trusted?

[Ricecakesaremyjam]

Are local authority SEN case workers to be trusted? Do they work to serve the child, or on behalf of the school who aren’t delivering EHCP interventions?
Can anyone advise?! Thanks x

Yes, as I said, your comprehension is poor. I never said you killed anyone. Get a grip.

@CleverButScatty the second ‘you’ was clearly supposed to be ‘who’. The poster was accusing you of killing people. They were pointing out the 2 people you listed aren’t the only ones.

"You forgot to mention the young people, you end their lives...."

Tell me how I have misinterpreted that please...

That want not clear. I am not psychic. And it is very convenient that it was apparently a typing error that you have noticed now you have been pulled up on it.

@CleverButScatty I am not the poster who posted it. It isn’t convenient in any way. You didn’t have to be psychic to realise.

*was not accusing you.

You and who rhyme but are not spelt similarly. It's not an easy mistake to make ...accidentally omitted a w and a h then moved the order of their letters round. Convenient.

@CleverButScatty it is actually quite a common mistake for some disabled people.

I don’t think it’s the people themselves that aren’t trust worthy more so the system they are working within. I do think some parents believe thst the case worker is saying no to something just out of spite when in reality they don’t have free choice even if they thought something was suitable for a child. It is a thankless job as you are getting pressure and blame from both sides

As is omitting commas between clauses.

I'm also not convinced it was a mistake.
And apparently neither was the moderator who removed the comment.

I am endlessly empathetic to families struggling in the SEND system (as previously stated I am one, as well as working for an LA).

However bullies can get in the bin.

Nothing to do with being psychic or not.

It's hard to understand any point when there's name calling and phrases like "get in the bin" being used.
I've been called a bully and that I'm mistreating people, yet there's no proof of that. I think this highlights just how sen teams believe their own judgements

Not true. Tribunal panels do not differentiate like that.

You shouldn't have to use the SEND tribunal to make an LA follow the law. However, this is the route open to you to force them to do so when they don't.

Tbh it's the only way to get LA's to comply with the law. LA's use the long wait for SENDIST as a money saving measure increasingly. They don't particularly care about the child at the heart of it they are kicking the can down the road knowing that the 14 month wait (maybe even longer now) will save them money.Don't waste time with back and forth with the caseworker it's unlikely to change anything other than extend the time before LA are forced to make provision. If your child is at a transition stage you can ask for an expedited hearing to speed things up.

I am going to sidetrack here. I am from abroad. I have done everything private for one of my children. No severe needs also. What an EHCP actually should provide

What is the ideal outcome of a working EHCP , give me a link

My son has an echp which in the key places is pretty well written (I threatened court and it worked thankfully) so it is very clear in giving him the support he needs including full time 1-1. He is in year 10 at a mainstream secondary and because the plan in clear and worded in such a way there is no ambiguity it followed well and DS is thriving at school.

the hard bit though is ensuring section F is clear. It needs phrases like “Fred requires 15 hours 1-1 support a week during x lessons providing y support” rather than the normal “Fred would benefit from extra adult support” which could mean anything

@MuffinsOrCake an EHCP is a legal document. It sets out a child’s needs (not just special educational needs but social care needs and health care needs) and the provision (not just special educational provision but social care provision and health care provision) they reasonably require to meet those needs. It also covers what, if any, placement they will attend and any personal budget.

The vast majority of parents cannot afford to fund the provision a well written EHCP can provide. Then you have to consider some provision can’t be bought, so it isn’t just about the funding. It isn’t possible to self fund some placements even if you have enough money to. Many schools wouldn’t allow parents to self fund some provision within the school even if the parents could afford it.

If you want to read more about EHCPs, IPSEA and SOSSEN’s websites are good places to start.

You cannot access a specialist school or certain school support without an echp. Even if you were a millionaire. It's not how the UK system works. If your child has high support needs, the only way to get them met is through an EHCP which is a legally binding document and sets out exactly what extra support as a specific named school the child is to receive.

There are multiple outcomes listed in each Echp which are relevant to the child's needs. It clearly depends on the disability and the needs of the child. There is no 'one' outcome. A good summary is here.
https://www.ipsea.org.uk/pages/category/education-health-and-care-plans

A minority of specialist schools accept self funders. Although some are very expensive so the majority can’t afford them.

Maybe if they are commissioned by the parents independent ones are sometimes better. But my response was to a poster stating LA should pay for private ones to bring down wait times, and it's these I was referring to as substandard, rather than parent commissioned private ones. Our LA EP's are excellent, really take the time to get to know the children, visiting them in current nursery/school settings at least twice to get a more thorough understanding, as well as also meeting with the parents both separately and with the child, and speaking with theur teachers. But the downside of them being so thorough is that wait lists go up as get through less children. So is it better to have a longer wait but with a helpful report, or a shorter wait with a more generalised report? Obviously neither is ideal, but that us the choice we are currently faced with.

Some parent commissioned ones are also unhelpful. I recall a child who had 8 hours per day of interventions stipulated in their EHCP. They were only at school 6 hours a day! And within that, after personal care, feeds etc there were only about 4.5 available hours, and the child was never actually in their classroom as it was all "1to 1 OT in a separate space 1 hour per " "1 hour speech therapy" " 1 hour sensory room" "1 hour physio hands on" etc etc.

The ideal outcome is that it is linked to well thought out, meaningful, realistic targets which are important and relevant to the child, which can be clearly measured by a reliable scale or test whether it has been acheived. And then provision is detailed specifically to meet this. I have lost count of the number of families, where I have asked (as a paediatric physio) what their goals are for their child, and they say it is to 'have daily physio with a qualified physio'. Unfortunately many families and many caseworkers don't understand what a true SMART outcome looks like, and as this is the starting point for a good EHCP, if it fails at this first hurdle, it will never be truly effective

I really feel for parents of children with SEND who are battling to get the correct provision for their children, but this is why I have never applied for a SEND case officer role despite being qualified, experienced, available and seeing roles advertised in my local area. I’m an experienced teacher with additional postgrad qualifications and extensive additional experience plus knowledge of SEND.

Any knowledge of the SEND system tells you that it is a horribly stressful job at which you can simply never succeed. You will always be doing wrong by someone…