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

That’s exactly what I’ve been seeing since 2015. I left in 2021 after 22 years in SEND.

I do totally get this, but you can’t force EPs to see more kids, someone could offer me £2k to see a kid tomorrow but my first available appointment would still be in September and that’s the case for most EPs I know. I don’t know what the answer is, it’s not just about money, it goes beyond that. LAs are throwing money at the EP problem at this point.

It did used to be mandatory for EPs to be teachers before they became EPs, I’m not sure when that stopped.

Some academies pay private EPs to write reports and bypass the LAs altogether for this reason.

If LAs pay enough (and in some cases I am talking about a lot more than the £1.2k mentioned earlier in the thread), they can and do find an EP to assess when faced with enforcement action. No, money isn’t the only problem, but it is part of the problem.

Some are notorious for that. Others will push you that far then back out when your breezeblock of evidence is submitted because they admit they have to justify every penny.

Also as a caseworker, hearing words like “evil” and “abuse” isn’t great for your mental health and I’m sure it doesn’t motivate you to work even harder.

Haha yeah that’s pretty much what I do now! With a bit of LA work thrown in.

They do not work for you, or your child.

In an ideal world schools would always gain EP advice as part of the graduated approach and try to implement that before requesting EHC needs assessment.
It's good practice, not something underhand.

I accept a lot of this. I know that caseworkers have ridiculous caseloads and they are almost invariably badly trained, and many are also under massive pressure to save money. I also accept that local authorities generally are ridiculously underfunded for SEN provision.

However, what I cannot accept is the fact that both LAs and those they employ choose to take the path of making blatantly unlawful decisions, time and again, rather than taking the fight back to government. Anyone who works in the SEND field can cite countless cases where it must be absolutely obvious to all concerned at the LA that they cannot conceivably justify some of the decisions they make, and the only explanation can be that they have made a cynical decision to break the law because it will save the LA a year or more's worth of the costs of making proper provision for the child in question. And we all know that losing a year's worth of education will cause irreparable harm to any child, let alone one who already has problems. So essentially SEND Caseworkers who go along with this have chosen to put the imperative of saving money over and above the future of a vulnerable child. I do wonder sometimes how they live with their consciences.

I know - unfortunately some senior leaders don’t understand, or choose not to believe, that a graduated approach is needed and think that if they pay for private EP reports that will somehow speed up the EHCP process. Usually these are senior leaders who opted for the lowest tier of EP support through traded services and are then surprised when they run out of local authority EP hours.

As a very experienced SENCo I’ve had headteachers tell me the graduated approach can be done and dusted in 6 weeks if I “work smarter” - it’s impossible.

But surely they still have to comply with the law?

I think that some caseworkers can’t live with their consciences and that’s why they leave.

I'm so sorry you're family is going through this. Our 3 year ehcp crisis was traumatic too. Solidarity and empathy ♥️

Have you considered the mental health of the children that are being failed time and time again? Or the mental health of the family trying desperately to support their child when the LA are making it impossible. Impossible to work, impossible to therefore pay bills, impossible to just get through each day.

Do you know how many parents of SEN children have considered suicide? And predominantly because the LA aren't complying with their legal duty, leaving parents hanging on by a thread.

So in all honesty, a caseworkers feelings getting a bit hurt because a parent on MN called a generic evil is nothing compared to what the children and their families are dealing with.

It is abuse. It's neglect.
If an abled child's parents were choosing to not supply adequate care and education they would be charged with neglect. The individuals that make the decisions to purposefully neglected disabled children should be charged with child abuse.

Yes, but assuming that every caseworker is a living saint is just naive. I have recently been supporting the parent of a child who has had some very traumatic experiences in school and who is now unable to cope with even walking into a school building. The parent has been told the LA won't even begin to consider offering home tuition or alternative provision until they have consulted every possible school in the area, and for some reason they seem incapable of consulting them all together, so it is taking forever.

OK, I get it that the caseworker is probably doing what they have been told by others. However, they have taken it a lot further by trying to bully the parent into going along with this farcical process, by suggesting that the tribunal will take it against the parent if she doesn't enthusiastically promote every suggestion they make. They must know that the threat about the tribunal is completely untrue, as all they will be interested in is what the child needs, full stop, and they won't be interested in petty little digs at the parents. Making a decision to bully a parent and then to use lots of complicated lies to bolster up the decided course of action is not something the caseworker can legitimately blame others for,

I know this is only one example, but it happens to be a recent example of a very regular issue.

Just to add: Caseworkers are not the individuals making the decisions. I know that. But they should follow whistleblowing policy to report the ongoing neglect, law breaking, negligence and discrimination or they are complicit.

Yes. I considered it constantly as a SENCo and as a LA advisory teacher for 22 years. I couldn’t sleep for years due to worrying about it. I took suicidal children to A and E. I made hundreds of CAMHS referrals. I attended meetings in secure mental health hospitals to discuss how admissions could have been prevented. I spent over two decades educating myself about child mental health and advocating for children with SEND.

The verbal abuse of professionals who are working themselves into the ground isn’t limited to MN posts. It also happens by email and in face to face meetings. Blaming professionals for a broken system doesn’t help children - it eventually breaks the professionals and makes us leave.

Yes, councils are lobbying central government to stop parents from bringing SEND appeals to tribunal. Which, by the way, parents wouldn’t need to do at all if Local Authorities actually followed the law and honoured their obligations.

When parents go to tribunal, they will never get the moon on a stick. They will only get what’s fair and what their child is legally entitled to. My solicitor was very clear with me about working within the legal framework. Tribunals do not order things unless the law dictates it.

If anyone is ever looking for a good, sound SEN solicitor who follows the law, I’d recommend Chris Barnett.

My friend (ex Senco) was an EHCP caseworker and lasted a year. She said it was an impossible job in a broken system and received so much hate from parents, relating to issues she had no control over. She’s now doing supply teaching and is so much happier.

I would trust them the same way I trust my plumber when my boiler is broken

This is the issue - I understand parents being frustrated and at the end of their tether but the hate just gets too much, people leave, less experienced people pick up the cases, more delays, less continuity.

Don't trust them. And by them I mean anyone in the SEN department of the LA.

By the time I took my LA to tribunal we'd burnt through 5 caseworkers because I kept complaining every time they acted unlawfully.

At their worst they lied about a positive consultation with a learning support unit, got me to change the type of provision named so I could accept a place and then I got an email the next day saying the consultation had just been sent out. Another time they gave my daughter a place in a mainstream school despite the school saying they categorically couldn't meet section F of her EHCP. They broke the law so many times during tribunal that they got barred halfway through the process.