To wish I’d known how crap and miserable being a lone parent is?

[RibenaRibena]

It’s completely miserable and lonely and I think people kid themselves saying how great it is! I am lonely, miserable, have no money, getting old and feel old beyond my years, no free time to myself ever, haven’t even had sex in a decade! Facing another birthday and Xmas alone, every weekend the same old. I know people say it isn’t forever but it’s a bloody long time.

Do you have the list for the specialist schools in the area from the LA? They should make it available online. There must be more than one option?

The other school said they are full

The rest in my area are for children with SLD she does not have SLD she has MLD

What kind of area do you live in OP? And is your child with additional needs physically able? Just wondering for exercise purposes.

and gaming wise what console do you have?
there are huge communities of people who live quite remotely, I know - I’m one of them!
streaming communities, couch to 5k communities, cross stitch communities, honestly there are masses of people to talk to once you find a niche interest.

It is just very very hard to find the time, inclination and just general oomph though to join groups. I've posted on here that I was a single mum of five, no money, support or visits from their dad and no family support at all. I was lucky in having made several friends locally but during weekends and holidays they were all happily coupled up and we live very rurally too, so everything was 'get in the car and drive'. Having to run a car cost any spare money I had and when the car went kaput (as they did regularly) I had to beg my mum for money to replace them. It's shit.

I think OP doesn't want solutions so much as solidarity. It's all very well being told by others that you can do this, you can do that, but you are just so TIRED. Tired and unsupported, when you really just want someone to pop up now and again and tell you you are doing a good job.

Being a single parent when you have no support at all is utter shit. And I feel for you OP, I really do.

You have received lots of advice about the EHCP over the years. Your case can be strong. This is why you appeal B&F as well as I. To improve the content and thus increase the chance of a change in placement. Did you look at legal aid? As has been explained before, unless the schools are wholly independent, being ‘full’ is not enough of a reason to refuse to name your preferred placement. For non-wholly independent schools, you don’t need an offer of a place. They can be named even if they object. The threshold to prove the legal exceptions is high. Sometimes schools say they aren’t suitable even when LAs can8t prove the high bar. Nothing will change if you don’t force the LA’s hand. Did you ever request an expedited hearing?

The school is unsuitable advice is nice but doesn’t change the fact, the second school is full that is not the school I wanted nor is it the one I am taking them to tribunal for is “unsuitable” apparently. The second one I added just as a back up but not what I wanted.

You need to dig into exactly why it is unsuitable. The specifics. The bar is high. It isn’t enough for the LA to just say it is unsuitable.

I have family members who are educational psychologists. There are many families dealing with the persistent issue of off-rolling by schools across the country. The constant grind of parenting with zero downtime, compounded by the tightness of family finances, means that you are utterly drained and exhausted all the time.

The meticulous notekeeping, in-depth research, and persistence required to fight tooth and nail with the multitude of agencies necessary to fight your corner to secure a place for your child are overwhelming.

I wish you the best of luck @RibenaRibena and hope that some of the advice from other posters on here can be of some assistance.

Have you requested social care assessments (a carer’s assessment for you and an assessment via the disabled children’s team for DD) and challenged the LA if they have refused assessments, refused support, or failed to provide sufficient support? Is your appeal to SENDIST an extended appeal?

They can’t refuse her a place on that basis.

Why have they said it’s unsuitable? On what basis? Are you getting proper advice from a SEND lawyer via legal aid or an advocate who specialises in this area like those I suggested e.g. SOSSEN?

Oh sorry, I didn’t realise the OP had posted for advice about EHCPs and tribunals before, and by the sound of it got advice from people much more experienced in all of this than I am!

@RibenaRibena I hope that you will access some of the support from organisations that have been mentioned and follow this really good advice from @flawlessflipper. The LA will not fix this issue and allocate your daughter an appropriate school unless you force them to do so. They do this to every family I’ve ever come across, no matter how severe the disabilities of their children, how undeniable their support needs are, how many specialists have told them the same thing: they’ll still swear night is day until a judge - who actually cares about the law and is capable of rational judgement - orders them to do what they know they should have been doing all along. The best thing you can do by far for you and your daughter and other children IMO is to focus all of your energy on this and ensuring that your tribunal case is successful in getting her EHCP amended so that it reflects her needs properly, and forcing the LA to allocate her an appropriate school placement.

Imagine how transformative this would be for her and for you, and your family life in general. This is an achievable goal, if you seek the right advice and help. It can be done. I really hope you will pursue this and not give up because the future for your daughter and for you will be orders of magnitude better if you will continue to fight for her and make this happen. I’ve been on my knees doing the same alongside a full time job, sleeping only a couple of hours per day while my daughter was unable to go to school, try to homeschool her and fight the LA during the daytime and having to do my actual job at night, for months on end. It is soul destroying and exhausting, but focus on how much better things will be if you can get her a school placement so she is happy and has a peer group and you then have 30 hours per week of child-free time to rest/ work/ retrain for a new career.

@TheClaaaw OP has posted numerous times over several years under many different names about the EHCP, which is, of course, her prerogative.

She has received advice about the phase transfer, about how part of the problem was although the primary gave 1:1 it wasn’t detailed, specified and quantified in F, about how she could request leave to appeal out of time, s19 provision, how to enforce the AR when the LA were in breach of that duty, legal aid, about the exceptions for not naming parental preference, about requesting an expedited hearing, and so much more. She has also received advice about school transport and social care assessments.

This is why it isn't 'nasty' to point out when a poster has posted before frequently.

Well, MN didn’t agree Alice. You did it to turn posters against her, so I’m not sure where the pure and compassionate motivations were tbh.

This is a perfect example of how the distinction between situational sadness (often temporary & tied to external events), and clinical depression (biochemical imbalances) has been blurred in everyday language and it's done a disservice to both those who are e.g, like @OP or grieving and those who are truly ill. Now, sadness is pathologised, and people are either dismissed as in 'cheer up!' or over medicated without addressing the root cause.

Tbh I do think the OP is depressed, which is where a lot of the feeling of hopelessness and pointlessness comes from.

That’s not going to be cured by exposing her posting history on MN; in fact it’s likely to make her feel even more shit.

No, I didn't do it to 'turn posters against her'. You seem to be taking her situation very personally. I did it because her threads always end up the same way, with people making a lot of in depth and helpful suggestions, and her having a reason why nothing will work. After about the fifth or sixth time it gets really old.

So what was the motivation then, if it wasn’t to turn posters against her? Because the above looks like ‘I didn’t want to turn posters against her, but I don’t like her or her posts so I wanted posters to turn against her.’

And - I’m not taking her situation personally. I just think that exposing past usernames is a shitty thing to do, especially when it’s done in the way it was here.

I don’t really like saying this but there’s absolutely nothing to aspire to or envy in the OPs life. She’s lonely, alienated from family and any previous friends, unable to work, frustrated and depressed.

Being blunter than I normally am on here because I don’t want to upset the OP but yes, I suspect that her own tired and defeatist view has probably been partly responsible for that, but she’s been on MN for over five years now at the very least, nothings changed so a bossy post exposing her isn’t going to help.

I genuinely don’t really understand what it achieves and it isn’t just you. I actually prefer your directness over another posters simpering faux niceness. But either way, nothing will change. I just feel sorry for the OP, I guess. I’ve never been in her situation but I have experienced absolute hopelessness and people wagging their fingers at you doesn’t buck you up, it send you into despair.

I don’t know about the other poster, but I originally mentioned OP’s other threads because she would find it helpful to re-read the advice about EHCPs, school transport, social care assessments, etc. on the previous threads. She has received a lot of good advice that would be helpful to re-visit and work her way through.

I’m sure she’s capable of finding them herself.

I didn’t say otherwise. I haven’t linked to any other thread, mentioned the title of any of thread or any previous names.

You haven’t, but you have opened a very unhappy woman up to a wave of criticism.

It is up to you if you think that’s OK.