To ask you to sum up your council’s SEN provision in a sentence?

[Starwomanwaiting]

Hello all,
Some very brief background: I have an autistic child, referred at 18 months, saw consultant before age 2, diagnosed age 3, extra funding at nursery for at least a year now. Nursery is applying for EHCP which will take 12 weeks. Have seen educational psychologist and looking to defer reception for a year.

My question: it seems like we have been very lucky with our experience so far (except for speech therapy provision, which has had to be private). However we can’t stay in the city forever and need to buy a house/want a garden. So we need to find somewhere that isn’t going to be total shite for SEND.

If you are outside London and have had a good experience please tell me! I know each case is unique but it would help me do more research. Equally if your experience has been awful and you’d like to warn me off please do so.

I want to do right by my kid, but in a SEND crisis it’s hard to know where to start.

Thanks x

Beyond shite, even the overpaid SEND team staff are leaving because they’ve had enough of not doing doing any work,

I don't really want to say where I am, but I am in the south, but you can PM me OP if thats the region you are looking at. There are some great people in our LA, but overall it is chaotic and dysfunctional, and they use appeals as a means to delay doing what they are legally supposed to be doing. I don't think they are arseholes as such, just utilising the only means they have of managing their budget. Our local MP is very good with SEND issues.

We do not have any wraparound care for more complex needs in our area and tough to get respite too.

Once you have been through the fighting process it is fairly consistent. Great local charity also provides lots of support and activities, but it is a bloody fight and I nearly had a breakdown last year after struggling and not really managing my own MH. Housing is also diabolical if you are in need of that.

I am glad we are not a Reform council though. I genuinely worry about what mess they would make, even though the law is the law.

Hi without wanting to get sidetracked on it, it’s done a bit differently here because of the way services are integrated. They basically do it all for you. I will need to add my voice, yes, but I don’t do the paperwork. I have full confidence in them!

Hi I am aware. I’m sure there are exceptions but I have full confidence in them. Perhaps I’ll be back here in six months saying we still don’t have one but I highly doubt it. Don’t want to get too sidetracked as it’s not the point of the thread!

Nothing should be submitted without you seeing it, agreeing it and signing to give your consent.

All LAs act unlawfully sometimes, so you should be careful having full confidence in any LA.

Surrey. The (mainstream) school is wonderful (but under resourced) but the county council nearly broke me with their lack of compassion and failure to follow the law.

The OP hasn't suggested it is.
She is appreciating that the Nursery are taking the lead through a process they have no doubt done many times, and the OP probably hasn't.
They can take the lead in organising but still involve her.

I think some posters are also forgetting that a considerable number of parents just don't have the confidence, knowledge, literacy, or even English needed to "insist" and force their "rights" through. (Not suggesting that is the case for you OP, but it is for an awful lot of parents, who very much appreciate the Nursery, or school, or visiting teacher service / portage sharing their expertise and taking the lead on paperwork.

Chessington? That comes under Kingston.

What is would say is that lots of people commenting on how awful their LA is are really talking about getting an ehc in the first place. As you already have one, you are not in the situation of being turned down, queued, badly assessed etc. The new LA has to take over the existing ehc so you should focus on things like transport policy, identifying the school you want to name (if mainstream you will probably get it), what the secondary and post 16 options are and and how far away you would be from these. Good luck.

Yes Nursery can take the lead completely agree but as the parent her input is vital and she should be included and her views sought at every point. She should have had a copy of everything, LA or Borough should have confirmed request made and any decisions directly to home address. It never pays to be too trusting.

For DD: Fabulous.

For DS: Provision? What provision?

Same council

ETA: the point being, some children's needs are more easily identifiable, and therefore more easy to meet, than others. A council might struggle with one and be great with another.

Central Beds do anything they can to delay, and SEN school provision is woefully lacking.

Thanks God I didn't want anything from any council, home ed too. They are rated awful but I give them a nice mark. We do things privately here.

That's the plus of knowing what communism is. Don't touch the council with a barge pole. Definitely don't church your parents in there too.

Solihull awful. 27 months for my ds to get his asd assessment, 2 years waiting list for speech therapy.

Its slow.

But the main issue is the total lack of coordination with social care.

So for instance the special schools can tube feed and change catheters, but the learning disability sixth form colleges or adult learning isn't commissioned to, so they ship children miless from home for residential care.

But as the commissioning body they could have negotiated this was provided. But education and social care fight in funding.

This is awful but Health rather than Education I'd think? Doesn't fall under the council's remit.

If SALT is in F of the EHCP then Education fund. They usually have commissioning arrangements with the Health Authority. For dd education so LA fund both independent SALT and independent OT as there aren't the services needed through commissioned services.

Suffolk/Essex
I dont need a sentence just a word, Non-existent

Health care provision that educates or trains is actually deemed to be special educational provision. Thus it should be detailed, specified and quantified in F, and it is ultimately the responsibility of the LA. That includes SALT.

Dd was discharged from NHS SALT at 4 all provision since has been through the EHCP and independent providers. Now 22 she still has fortnightly SALT and 5 hours OT a term funded by education.

Similar here. I have 2 DSs with EOTAS/EOTIS, they both have multiple therapies as part of their packages which are all provided via independent providers. I also have a DS in school and we have an upcoming appeal for his EHCP and part of that is for therapies.

I would strongly suggest you get advice on the draft ehc at least.

I used to work in a sendiass team supporting parents to get an ehc plan.

One of the biggest problems is that the specialists they consult eg Speech and Language write reports that say things like "X would benefit from...." and the case worker copies and pastes BUT this sort of wording does not give you any entitlement to a service.

The ehc has to state clearly what is to be provided. So, instead of saying "Charlie would benefit from a weekly session with a speech and language therapist" it must say "Charlie will receive a weekly session of 45 minutes from a speech and language therapist".

And if you leave it to the LA and nursery, the chances are you will get the cut and paste EHC, and you will think you have a legal right to something, and you might even get it at first, but then the therapist leaves or you move to an LA and they say "ah yes, he would indeed really benefit from that but we can't do it, sorry" and you are absolutely stuck.

Thanks! Don’t worry, I am going to read and sign everything. I’m involved I just mean that it’s very much a guided and supported process as opposed to me doing it all if that makes sense

I agree it needs to be specific but think it's unfair to say 'leave it to the...nursery'. The nursery just provides information, same as all the other services. They don't write it, and crucially don't get a say on the draft EHCP, whether they agree with the way it is written or not.