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

Because the LA wouldn’t be able to meet any of its statutory duties and would therefore have to declare itself not fit for purpose. It has to hit rock bottom instead of well meaning and misguided individuals like you preventing that from happening.

Is a 'just following orders' defence enough though?

Yes. Even if they are of good character, they cannot be trusted because they are forced to follow LAs policies and ignore law.

So what would happen to all of the kids who are awaiting a plan or placement or get perm wxcluded etc during that process. Do we just write them off for the good of future generation? Do I take it we aren't including your kids in these written off cohorts?

This is a fanciful suggestion and just wouldn't lead to that outcome.

That's already happening.

I'm sure you haven't, but there are a small chunk of parents who do. Who move from therapist to therapist due to making complaint after complaint, ones who, even after 20 years in the job, I worry when I get a message from and need to call back, ones where we always visit in 2's for our own safety, where nothing we ever do is quite good enough. As a senior member of staff I get more of these. I give a certain amount of leeway as I know these families are under huge stress, but there is a limit to how many times you can be shouted and sworn at, racially abused, told i know nothing because i am a women. And we can't refuse to see the children due to the behaviour of the parents.

Like teachers, this behaviour by a small minority is pushing skilled professionals into private practice, making waiting lists longer and provision worse.

And yet some people on this thread claim this could never happen.

I have heard it myself while working in the system.

It's so upsetting as a parent having your experiences disregarded like some other posters are doing with statements like "OK. Sure." Or them claiming that when you've caught a Case Officer lying red handed that they probably just "forgot". It makes parents feel like professionals really fucking hate us.

The one poster who called LA "evil", her child hadn't just suffered but had suffered catastrophically and spent months in a mental health hospital, which only happens when their life is at risk.

Thank you for your work and balanced opinion by the way.

This is obviously terrible behaviour and I'm sorry you've had this happen to you. I'm glad it's a minority of parents.

I still wouldn't trust LA staff though. I say this after personal and professional experience. This is a systematic issue and it appears quite a few people have similar experiences.

Professionals should always be held to a higher standard than families who are stressed, unpaid and their own beloved children are at risk.

Oh I’m name calling. Read your own posts!

If you can’t be bothered to answer my questions after writing several essays on here then I pretty much rest my case.

As for the tribunal process, my solicitor told me that in his experience the outcomes were 98% fair. He was prepping me for the reality that if I didn’t win, that was the fair decision.

They won’t be ‘perfect’ but I’ll tell you what, they’re a whole lot fairer than LA behaviour because the only skin in the game tribunal panels have is to be fair!!!

You think the current situation I
Now is the same as if every case workers in the land walked out.

Our SEND team wrote 245 plans this week. They might not be perfect and they will definitely be later than they should be but they are there. Creating a right of appeal, putting provision in place etc. If you multiply that up and down the land it thinks it's flippant to say the the current situation, whilst undoubtedly in crisis, is it bad as if the thousands of caseworkers around the country suddenly left.

I get that you are frustrated and that is where this comment comes from. And I agree about needing to overhaul the system, it's just not fit for purpose and was designed for a totally different time and situation.

I work to support children in care access all the support available to them, EHCP if appropriate, PEP funding, mental health services. Please explain how I am preventing the system from being overhauled.

Oh it absolutely does happen. The very long story of how I ended up in my job started with my own awful experience with a SEND manager who told me that it didn't matter my 6 year old had received 0 SALT provision because it wasn't going to make any difference anyway. The written response was absolutely hideous. I took it to the ombudsman and was successful. Once he did receive the owed SALT and we were all able to support him with the help of the therapist he made huge progress but he was written off aged 6 by someone who had never met him.

We do what we can within our team to raise these problems but these are also the officers that seem to end up in management positions before long as they align more with the LA's priorities.

There are also fabulous case officers who go above and beyond. There's about 7 within our LA that come to mind, who are frequently working 12 hour days and weekends. Who are good at challenging poor reports and and doing their absolute best to advocate to get the right decisions. Many only last 2 or 3 months before realising they can't stay. Others do their best but aren't in the position to just quit their jobs so try and do their best within the confines of a broken system. It's easy to say they can't be trusted because they stay but lots of us need our jobs and it's not always straight forward to just leave.

Would that magic up another 60 places? We have filled all the special schools (maintained Nd independent). They have to have an offer of a place that the LA have refused for a section I appeal. That's why the other 60 don't there are no places and therefore no offer of places... And they will mostly be SEMH kids with behaviours stuck like this who can least take the uncertainty.
Ir.wpjld be interesting that did happen, to see if you would get a tribunal judge attempting to force a school with capacity for 60 kids to take 100. Clearly that couldn't happen either.

They have to have an offer of a place that the LA have refused for a section I appeal.

An offer of a place is only needed for wholly independent settings. Other settings can be named even if they object.

Are you honestly suggesting that the LA should have named a school with a capacity of 60 in section I of 100 plans? I'm not sure what you're suggesting should have happened here?

By the way this a fictional but realistic situation, obviously I'm not going to post real details. It's also a wholly unacceptable situation, but I'm just interested about what you feel the LA or school should have done different?

It is lawful for the LA to determine that a different school should be names, and of course the parent has the right of appeal over this.

It is a wholly shit situation though.

Are you honestly suggesting that the LA should have named a school with a capacity of 60 in section I of 100 plans?

Can you quote exactly where I said that? Because I think you are reading different posts to the posts I am posting. I didn’t say that.

My point in my last post that you quoted wasn’t about whether LAs can prove incompatibility or not. It was commenting on the fact non-wholly independent schools can be named even if they object. Where the parental preference is not wholly independent, LAs should be naming the placement if they cannot demonstrate one of the lawful reasons set out in section 39(4) of the Children and Families Act 2014. This bar is far higher than many LAs admit.

Back to the original question, there will be Case Officers who:
a) Are good but leave due to the system.
b) Are good and need the job so do the best they can within the confines of the system.
c) Are just bad and/or bad at their jobs.
d) Have disdain for parents / are actively dishonest and thrive in the system.

Unfortunately every option often leads to a lot of harm although only half of the options are unintentional harm. There is more to it though than just some people are bad at their jobs. Public sector jobs attract candidates who genuinely want to do good in the world, but they also attract people who actively abuse their positions and wish to cause harm for whatever reason. This can be seen in the many scandals of public sector professional roles: teaching, policing, LA, NHS, social care etc. You never get massive supermarket staff scandals or groups of electricians who use their profession to harm their clients.

Healthy and polite cynicism is the best way to deal with the LA in my opinion.

No I'm not saying you said anything. You said you hoped they all took the LA to tribunal, what outcome would you envisage? Genuinely curious

Absolutely, there is also definitely a minority of professionals who seem to only be there for the paycheck, treating both colleagues and families with thinly hidden disdain. We all know who they are, they know who they are, managers know who they are, but the process of getting rid of nhs and LA employees is so weighted towards the employee that's it's almost impossible to get rid of poor staff members. The majority of us are genuinely trying our best in a very challenging system though.

You are confusing me with another poster. I wasn’t the one who posted “i wish to god that the other 60 parents all went to tribunal”.

I did, however, earlier in the thread post, “All parents should be supported to advocate for their child and enforce their child’s rights.” I stand by that. It would force the LA to comply with the law. So, where LAs state the (non-wholly independent) school is full by can’t prove incompatibility, the school would be named and forced to admit.

We had some good caseworkers, but the very worst case worker we had, the one who lied and didn't turn up to meetings and who SENDIASS made it clear wasn't to be trusted and who fucked up countless other cases of people I knew, was promoted. I can only think that he was good at managing demand and or budgets.

Apologies that other post is the one I was responding to.

I suppose the case for incompatibility on capacity would just be a bit stronger with each child admitted. Generally schools reference fire safety regs, the statutory guidance about how many children of an age/need etc can be in a physical space of X size. Clearly it's detrimental to have a child not in a safe speca as per fire regs, ratios etc but there will be a very area where it's schools judgement and less clear cut.

We definitely need a better system and a huge uplift in the number of special school places.

where it's schools judgement and less clear cut.

For non-wholly independent schools, it isn’t the school’s judgement, it is the LA (and then SENDIST, obviously, for those who appeal) who makes the decision. The school can be named against their will. And to prove incompatibility LAs need to do more than just prove there is an adverse effect on DC.

Honestly, you should have seen the response a school came back with regarding us naming it as parental preference for one of my DC. It's less than 10% oversubscribed and wrote this whole story basically about children spilling out into the corridors with dangerous incidents. When pressed on how many dangerous incidents had happened in corridors in the last year it was exactly 0 and only 1 child in the whole building had been temporarily suspended in the year at all. There was just so much drama, I won't write it all out. I know why they did it, because they feel full and a bit stretched but they lied at several points (again, very literally caught out but it's outing) and the LA just bloody ran with their lies even though there us strong evidence they knew it wasn't true.

Well they can, but if a school provides a lawfully compliant response that they can't meet need, or it would be detrimental etc etc you need to consider that.
So saying we are over out admission number is not a code compliant response, but saying if we admit another child we would exceed the number of children that can safely be in a classroom of X size (quote stat guidance that relates to this) or who can be safely accommodates due to fire regs etc is compliant.

Also, if it is a school where children have been placed because they need smaller groups, break out spaces etc, the more kids you admit it incrementally reduces their access to this and dilutes that provision, so there is a decision to be made by the school in their consult response. The LA can still make the school but would not do this lightly. There does have to be a decision made and of course parents are entitled to challenge that through the tribunal process.

These are the difficult decisions, every child admitted over admission number will have a detrimental effect on the existing cohorts by diluting access to resources, the quietness of the space, but there are times when it is right to admit an extra child. You could do this with large numbers though.

I think truthfully these situations are navigated by all on a case by base basis. But everywhere is in crisis. Two of the special schools in my LA can't recruit a permanent headteacher for love nor money because these are horrific pressures on special school heads. That's definitely not doing the kids any good. I don't have know what the answer if other than to create more specialist places and that is neither quick nor manageable without huge levels of investment from central government.