To think that there should be enough funding to provide the sort of care/ education a severely autistic child needs

[Reallytired]

The tax payer spends huge amounts of money keeping people like Rosemary West, Moira Hindley, Ian Braedy, Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley behind bars in high security prisons. (OK I know that some of the people I have named are dead)

Yet a severely autistic child who has committed no crime is often denied the sort of education and respite package they need. I realise that boarding schools for severely autisic children are often in excess of 100K, but surely they and their families are more deserving than the mass murderers I have named.

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about the death penalty and I would probably disagree with these awful murderers being executed. However I think we as a country could do more for our most vunerable citizens.

I completely agree with you. Children with special needs are often seen as an 'after thought'

It makes me so angry

absolutely.

And shipman and fred west did us a favour.

Absolutely, YANBU!

Of course you aren't being unreasonable...it makes me sad that we have to fight for every scrap, and go private to access proven treatment programs, ie go without. YANBU.

surely any child deserves a good education regurdless of need, shame they should think about puttin more money inot education fullstop

Totally agree. Special needs children should get education that is right for them. Sadly a local special needs school closed in the Borough I work in. They then lumped them all together in a bigger school not right and not fair.

I agree!! In fact I will go one step further and say special needs children should take priority over alot of other budget choices. These innocent children that deserve extra and consideration from our government and society!!!! It makes me so ANGRY.

I'm hugely glad that as tax payers we spend money on keeping those people behind bars. Because the alternative penalty takes us to a place where I don't want to be living, to a society which is primitive and unthinking.

However I also want to pay for provision for children with SEN! I agree with Mels that we need to re-prioritise them to a much higher degree and I do sometimes wonder if it's 'got away' with because children are THE most voiceless people in our society. Even parents who do find the time and energy and capacity to speak up and campaign are still not able to provide much of a 'voice' because IMO the education system is so monolithic and so vulnerable to political pressures and changes.

I agree with Leo that keeping criminals safely locked up is vital to our welfare as a society. And I am also not keen on the death penalty though I think in some cases, looked at individually, it could be appropriate.

However as a Mother of an autistic child, I know what you mean, Reallytired. My DS is too young to go to school yet but just getting any sort of treatment or help through the NHS has been impossible. And I know a lot of parents have it much worse than I will when my son goes to school as he is HFA - for a severely autistic child it must be so very much harder.

I think the government needs to most certainly look at what is happening and more money needs to be put into those children who need the help. That is always going to be the bottom line. MP's bonuses, write offs, whatever, they need to go if they are holding everyone else back. Thats just the first thing I thought of, I am by no means an expert on what the government spends that they shouldnt.

If only they'd been able to pour all the money into schools, that has gone into banks recently. But money alone doesn't make a good system.

I think politicians need to be much less directly involved in education and it needs to be much less vulnerable to sudden changes of approach or policy based on political issues.

My ds has some specific SEN and I have been hugely unimpressed with the level of extra help he's had - and that's despite being in a lovely school with the most well intentioned and committed teachers. So many things are wrong with the system. Not enough SEN experts in schools (the teachers I know are very willing to admit they are generalists more than specialists), children starting at barely four and no account being taken of whether they are ready; numeracy and literacy stuck there in front of them like a brick wall whether they are ready or not.....

they don't seem to want to pur money in to autistic schools units children as the government wont aggree to tell us thimersol in jabs and chemicals in food environment and clothing is damaging our children....
there is a march in london in march for more awareness!

YANBU except it not just autistic children that loose out, there are other disabilities out there as wel.

YANBU , disabled children do not get the support needed , and i do mean all types of diability. In my own case my DS has autism and i have had to fight for years to get him the support he needed in school, he is now attending a private special school costing 66k a year, this is not because im a pushy parent who wanted this but is because there was no other suitable school for him in our county. the problem is that now he is being educated privately (not our choice!) we are no longer entitled to help from our autism outreach team as DS is not in the system! so according to the government and our local council DS is only autistic from 8am to 4 pm school term times, and we dont need any help at home.

I agree that it is not just autistic/special needs children that lose out, but like I said our government and society need to think carefully about how they prioritise the budget. There are many more deserving funds than hardened criminals. I wasn't necessarily saying that they should execute these criminals (Although, some of them don't deserve to have money spent on them that would be better spent on a deserving child), but maybe reduce the amount they spend on them and allocate it to a more deserving fund.

I think that the reason the criminals are kept in prison is a lot to do with protecting the public, rather than for the criminals, so it isnt as if they are having the money spent for thier benefit.

I believe that in America it is cheaper to keep someone in prison for life than to sentance them to death, go through all the appeals, and then carry out the punishment, so there isnt a straightforward economic arguement for the death penalty.

I don't want the death penalty brought back. Only for the simple reason that mistakes do happen and the death penalty is irriversible.

But seriously, it is wrong when children are set up to fail in their education. I know one or two serverely autisic children who are in the school I work in and even a non teacher like me could see from day 1 that there was no way that child X was going to cope. Why should it take two years to transfer child X when it is obvious that the placement is a total utter disaster.

What about teacher Y or LSA Z who suffer things like a perforated ear drum from the child screaming in their ear, being kicked, bitten or given a black eye. Especially when the child in question is acting in that way because he is under extreme stress and needs something different.

Of course the gvt should do more for all kids and adults with special needs or medical needs, but why mix this up with the death penalty debate?

People aren't kept in prison because they 'deserve' to have money spent on them, they are kept there to protect the public and to provide punishment for their crimes.

Sorry but I think it's a lazy and ill thought out argument, though of course your motive is a very sympathetic one.

I never even contemplate the way the govt spends money compared to how I think they should. That way lies madness.

Of course children with severe ASD should get more help. But it isn't going to happen. And as the numbers are going up and their conditions are getting more rather than less complex it really isn't going to happen.

Reallytired- I think school ill thought out school placements often have more to do with inclusion policy though rather than money.

When ds1 was 4 the EP came to talk about schools. I requested that we see a special school and was told it wasn't appropriate in his case. So yes he started mainstream school completely non-verbal and in nappies. He managed reception by barely being there (spent most of his time at nursery) and it very obviously fell apart in year 1. But still we were not told the placement was failing. It took me to ask the EP directly 'Will you please answer me honestly: do you think the school are coping?" for it to be agreed that they weren't. Then he was able to quickly transfer (was there by the Jan of year 1) to SLD/PMLD school. He should never have been in mainstream-even with the full time 1:1 her had. However that had far more to do with misguided policy than money.

There's the idea that mainstream is 'better' than special as well, which for many children is utter crap.

DS1 is far more included than he was at mainstream. Has peer friendships (impossible) at mainstream. Is taught independence skills in a way he couldn't be in mainstream and is learning in a total communication environment (again not possible in mainstream). It's time that policy starts celebrating special schools not seeing them as an unwanted poor alternative to mainstream.

There are ill thought out placements in special schools as well. Don't you believe it.

Our local authority still has a range of different sort of special school, yet there are plans to have units on mainsteam sites that lump all the different needs together.
Ie. anything from behaviour problems to learning difficulties.)

The special school has to be the right special school or else its pointless and no different to mainstream.

Well at the moment inclusion policy means that special schools are being replaced so it doesn't exactly help there either.

I think that local authorities want to sell of the sites. The special school I work in has loads of land. They would make millions selling it off to a developer and bunging the poor kids in a portacabin in the corner of some failing secondary school.

Oh yes they're doing exactly that in our lea

The thing that really really fucks me off is that the policy of inclusion is being pressed ahead because the Govt like the principle of it and fuck the consequences for the individual child.
New Labour all over. Cant over consequences. Principles over results. Wankers. Total wankers.

( are any of you getting the sense here that Pag is having a particularly bad day)