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

I have had to fight long and hard for an EHCP. I can assure you that there is no horse riding , drumming or anything like that in it. Just basic requirements to help my child access education.

Which is as it should be. But there are people who are using advocates, private report and tribunal to get those things.

And your caseworker will be spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to deal with them, increasing the delays for someone like you, who just wants a sensible education offer.

Parents don’t get provision their child isn’t legally entitled to whether they pay for representation, get independent assessments and go to SENDIST or not. Such SEP is only secured if the law legally allows such SEP in their specific case.

The fact you don’t think that should happen doesn’t change the implementation of the law.

Well, that's what a caseworker should be doing, but chances are they aren't.

Just in the last year;

1. SAR showed caseworker refusing to consult parental preference.
2. When forced to consult by manager after a stage 1 complaint, then lying about the outcome. Again, proved by SAR.
3. SAR showed certain documents conveniently omitted
4. Draft EHCP copied and pasted from a historic out of date one still talking about DC wetting themselves when that had been removed in 2021.
5. 6 months of ignored emails and calls.
6. Caseworker "forgetting" to actually tell me DC had a school place
7. Caseworker deliberately not contacting me to tell me of start date
8. Caseworker giving false information about transport application (caught out at tribunal)
9. Caseworker giving false evidence to CC representative for tribunal

10. Caseworker failing to attend KS transfer AR 11. Caseworker lying about evidence needed for panel 12. Caseworker lying to me about policy 13. Caseworker lying about law (whenever I quoted at her that needed an email to supervisor to check)

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. And that spans at least 5 different caseworkers.

To get an EHCP to get my child's needs met, I had to commission private reports, use an advocate and take the LA to Tribunal three times though.

Apparently by dint of this, you’re a grabby arse who spoils it for everyone else

Blooming hope not. She’s posted quite a lot of tangential dramatic irrelevance.

No one is saying that. Literally no one. And you only break GDPR if you use identifying details. Writing in broad brush strokes as illustration is not in any way a GDPR issue.

You keep mentioning your PhD but do you understand we are fighting just for our children to get a chance at primary or secondary education! If they ever get the opportunity to sit GCSEs it will be a miracle. Higher education and post grad qualifications are not even a prospect thanks to woeful LAs illegally denying our children a basic education.

But no, parents are just demanding private horse riding and drumming lessons and that's causing the SEN crisis

Indeed. Schroediger’s SEN parent; simultaneously shit and yet legally and financially grabby.

I know.
It's shit, isn't it?

"Apparently by dint of this, you’re a grabby arse who spoils it for everyone"

I suspect I'm considered that by some when I just want my child to have an education rather than the nothing he is getting now.

I know many many parents who are trying to get some form of education for their children at the moment. One person I know has only just put in an application for an EHCP five months after her child crashing out of school aged 13 and even now the school are saying he won't get one. He's eligible for hospital outreach programme but can't engage online. I know lots of others in similar situations. The only time I've heard of horses is when a child is so broken they can't access anything other than therapeutic provision with animals. I just don't recognise this drumming/ horse riding thing

They are absolutely extraordinary achievements.

Provision that is ‘above and beyond’ is not included in EHCPs. Only provision that is reasonably required. If it went above and beyond the law, LAs wouldn’t agree and in the very unlikely event SENDIST erred, LAs wouldn’t be quick to challenge that decision.

EHCPs aren’t written by OTs. Evidence that informs the content of the EHCP may be, but not the EHCP itself.

@DisabledCaseworker
It's absolutely brilliant that you are so dedicated. It would be wonderful if more caseworkers were and then parents wouldn't be so cynical.

Then the LA obviously won’t agree to the provision and if the parent appeals SENDIST will consider all evidence but not order something that isn’t legally sound. In the unlikely event they do, LAs would challenge the decision.

I never said a caseworker always wrote the EHCP. My point was the OT doesn’t write the EHCP itself.

Common, these aren't malicious acts. Poor caseworker just have been stressed by the horse riding obsessed parental brigade. None of this will have anything to do with the case worker not being up to the job (for whatever reason) and all to do with families making ridiculous demands by the bucket load.

@Bluebell865 are you being sarcastic?