SEN funding isn't a bottomless money pit

[Sogfree]

I'll preface this by saying I really enjoy my job working in a SEN school. I care deeply for the children and families I work with.

I've had 4 different conversations this week with parents where they expect an excessive amount of additional resource to be allocated to their child. They expect this as, in their opinion, it's needed. I disagree with 3 of the 4 parents that this is needed.

All 4 of the parents are going to fight the decisions county have made. Their decision to fight will mean county spend more money arguing the challenge.

Services are already broken with the increase in need. Recruitment fails, as there aren't enough speech therapists/OTs/CAMHS practitioners etc to employ.

One parent demanding extra from one of these services means another child gets less.

One parent demanding a child goes to school X at £100k per year when a place at school Y at £30k is going to meet their needs means the child who needs the place at school X doesn't get it, and extra £70k per year is wasted. And the parent keeps their child out of school for 12-18 months whilst they fight for the place at school X.

That's the reality.

Every parent wants the world for their child. I understand that. But taxpayers can't afford to give every child the world.

AIBU - parents know their child best and we should fund what the parents say the child needs

YANBU - there's only so much money to go around and parents need to accept hard decisions have to be made without challenging them

Perhaps dare I say it you’ve seen it happen because another professional has disagreed with you. Other posters were right that parents have to spend thousands on private reports that counter local authority reports.

Employees for the local authority have a maximum allowance despite the need of the child (I’ve been told this first hand for my own child by these employees). Always said with a really quiet whisper because they know they are at risk of losing their job if said louder.

So no I think with that level of corruption I don’t really blame parents for losing trust in people/professionals telling them x,y,z can meet their child needs.

Which is very different to pp saying that all SEN children belong in SEN schools.

What we need is an in betweener schools - where needs are not £100k a year but could be £20-£30k a year every child is different. My DD we pay for private mainstream but she’s autistic and has PDA and anxiety. We need a school that has the means to offer some SALT, some OT and on-going counselling/tools for anxiety. She’s v bright and academically able child. But I feel like the school we have can only offer so much and in regular mainstream she’d really struggle - she also has auditory processing issues.

I think that’s what the LA’s are trying to achieve with their autism units which sit within the bounties of a mainstream school.

@Sogfree I am currently in one of the positions you mention and am going to mediation next week. I suspect mediation won’t work and I will have to go to tribunal and am also looking at trying to get DD’s EHCP review brought forward as it doesn’t meet need. She is autistic, adhd, dyspraxic, has anxiety, PTSD and depression. She hasn’t attended school since half way through year 8 and had no education provision until a year afterwards. The LA then provided a home tutor for 4 hrs per week, but she left after 3 weeks to start her own business ( this was April). There were no tutors available to replace her until September. During this time we were turned down for EHCP assessment twice and I had to go to mediation to get that overturned. The EHCP caseworker has changed 3 times during the 12 months we have now had it and each time i’ve found that out by chance not because they’ve had the courtesy to let me know. For the mediation meeting next week i’ve been trying to get an answer as to why they don’t want to let DD’s tutor attend ( tutor has been told it’s a conflict of interest!) but from an education point of view she knows DD best . The LA sent out consults to over 30 specialist colleges in total starting with a more local area then spreading out to a 30 mile distance . One initially contacted me and said they d told the LA they could meet need so I went to visit and immediately thought I might actually see DD going there. I persuaded DD to visit with me ( took 3 weeks to get her to agree) she also thought she could attend there. I told her EHCP Transition caseworker about this and confirmed this college was her choice. When the final EHCP came through it named a different college I hadn’t heard of, the accompanying letter said this college had been allocated due to cost but could meet need. DD is absolutely refusing to set foot in there as it’s a fair bit bigger than the tiny college we visited and she cannot tolerate large spaces with people in, plus at the college we visited the teachers there are all also ND in some way which reassures her a lot.
Im not even sure what my point is anymore but my experience has been constant fighting to get DD any education for the last three and a half years with mountains of paperwork and meetings in between with caseworkers who don’t know DD, only to finally find somewhere that I truly believe is the place to help her but we are being told by the LA who referred her there that she can’t actually attend there because they can’t afford it.

There are little offerings for childcare for SEN children beyond SEN trained nanny’s or multiple nannys at the same time if more than one child.

I think there are areas where the government needs to look at where money ends up. The wages of superheads and trust leaders. The small independent school owners who often contain children but claim to offer the earth and also at why mainstream school is so anxiety inducing and undoable for so many children without extra support.

Two of my DDs are at specialist independent schools costing c£70,000 per year. I didn't even have to fight that hard for their placements because their mainstream schools did such a good job of destroying them that by the time they had their EHC Needs assessments they were shells of their former selves and the professionals had no choice but to recommend high levels of provision.

One of my DDs would have been ok if the mainstream school had invested a bit of time to help her with her learning. Now, she is 4 years behind because she had a breakdown and 2 further placements failed.

The other was doing brilliantly, heading for 8s and is in her GCSEs, until she developed a mental health condition and the school put her in the SEN area, where she was badly bullied. She became very poorly, had a year completely out of school, then the special school has taken this whole year building her trust.

I understand that money isn't limitless, but children who need very expensive educational packages have often been failed at some point, when a cheaper package would have been effective.

Yes, I would like to believe that no registered therapist would do this, but unfortunately have seen it happen many times. Like any profession, there are many excellent trustworthy ones and a few rubbish dodgy ones out to make money from vunerable families desperate to help their child, who write reports which are false. The tribunal takes this report at face value, after it, it comes from a professional, why wouldn't they.

To be clear, I'm am not placing any fault with the parents, but with a few therapists who put money before honesty.

At ten ds2 needed 2:1 TA's to stop him jumping out of a first floor window. I honestly think some posters would have been happier if he had just been allowed to jump.

The fact that he is now just completed his second year of a computer science degree is obviously totally irrelevant as clearly he should have been written off at primary.

Except the state has made it their business by funding childcare to some degree and by expecting parents to use childcare to go to work once their child is a certain age.

How much money would be saved if there was a clear process for accessing additional support for your child, with clear support from services to assess the level of support needed.

I advocate strongly for my kids, I know the systems and supports available and I argue their case. I shouldn’t have to - there’s no question about their needs and the kind of supports that will benefit them. Me arguing does mean my kids get support that others don’t, because their parents aren’t able for various reasons to argue for them. I’m not about to deny my kids valuable support because others don’t get it - how ridiculous would that be.

DS1's college hasn't been a huge success and they're pushing to transition him onto Adult Social Care to have PA take him out once a week. I'm just a delulu parent, but I believe he can gain more qualifications and eventually some employment but needs therapy first. He is now at a point where he wants to engage in therapy, but I'm going to have a huge fight to stop his EHCP being ceased. He's 19

And you dont think someone's child deserves bells and whistles, but yours of course does.

I think that if every area had some smaller, more nurturing, secondary schools, with slightly lower pressure on academics that might prevent the cliff edge that tips some children from 'coping' to 'not coping'.

I also think that if some LAs didn't appear to have a policy of refusing all EHCNAs as standard forcing parents to go to tribunal just to be assessed then maybe parents wouldn't get into 'fight' mode early on.

If the government rules about what has to be studied and sat at GCSEs in mainstream were more flexible then maybe some who end up not coping would be fine.

SEN funding may not be a bottomless pit, but you can't blame parents for fighting for what their children need.

This is a very much broader discussion than SEN children and schooling. It covers all services provided by the government. Not everyone can always have what they want or is best for them. Social care is a good example as well. Adult day centres, care packages etc are all getting cut. It would be best for every town to have a sports centre and a library but without raising taxes these can't be afforded. Social Work teams need more workers for the workload they have. Who should be the priority for the available funding? Choices have to be made. Or do we need to accept that higher taxes are necessary.

Totally agree - expensive places for what essentially constitutes supervision and respite for parents isn’t a good use of tax payers money.

I am a pacifist at heart. But realistically I want my country to be able to defend itself.
Pretty pointless all being highly educated and healthy if we get bombed to oblivion

You are unreasonable to expect parents not to fight for their children, not to expect what is needed and to think you know their children better than them.

It's interesting to read all your opinions. I expected some of these posts to criticise me for even thinking this and questioning if I should even be working in SEN. I expected that because most of the SEN parents I work with feel that the world is against them as everything has had to be a fight. Understandably so feeling that way, as you have to find out how the system works before you even can begin to navigate it.

But there is a finite budget for our children. And limited resource. It's a fact. We can't meet every child's every need. Not every child can go to the £100k school. I agree with PPs about the waste of money by the LA and their poor decisions. I've also experienced similar to PPs regarding who shouts loudest getting more.

Maybe each child should be allocated a yearly budget based on their needs, and parents get to decide how it is spent. They then make the choices. Completely unworkable I know, but the system needs an overhaul and some radical thinking is needed.

Surely one of the marks of civilisation is how we treat those less able to care for themselves?

I don't really understand this attitude. If the state doesn't provide appropriate schooling for children, and parents have the child at home, they won't be able to work. They won't be able to pay for housing and food. It's not about expecting 'childcare'. Society is set up so that children go to school and parents work during that time. Parents of disabled children are asking to be able to do this like everyone else.

The thing that frustrates me is that there was a local tiny primary school near us that ended up being a defacto special school because the small classes and mixed ages meant it was perfect for children who struggled in a normal school environment

But the county council closed it. And now many of those children ( I know several through my volunteering) instead to "private" special schools paid for by the state at huge cost . It was so short sighted. Everyone in the consultation pointed out what would happen

But some parents probably don't realise how much is being done in school and how stretched staff and resources already are.

What a horrible thread. I’d be interested to know how many of the posters commenting actually have disabled children. The OP doesn’t.

But education is massively under funded and a huge amount of any extra spending any government announces is going to a small number of SEN students - whilst everyone else has to tighten their belts. Genuine high needs children- absolutely fair enough. The problem is the overdiagnosis of ADHD etc. Every child should be considered- not just SEN.