EHCP - parental statement for mediation

[Motherofsons721]

Hi all,

My son’s EHCP was denied, we are booked to do mediation (in the hopes of having the decision overturned or take it to appeal.)
Anyway they have advised I write a parental statement of what my child’s worst day looks like and why I disagree with their decision.

I don’t have to write anything but it saves having to give a speech in the meeting and hopefully ensures I get all my thoughts across.

I have never done anything like this before and wondered, if anyone who has done this before, would be willing to share an insight into what their statement looked like - how long was your statement? How much detail? Did you put anything positive (I’m assuming probably not a good idea.)
Google isn’t throwing much up!

Any advice welcome!

I do not have direct experience of this, and hopefully those who do will come along soon to help you, but I have a lot of experience of applying for EHCPs from the school's side. In my experience you really need to emphasise all the most difficult aspects of the child's needs, with a particular emphasis on why it is so much harder for them than for a typically developing child. E.g. if getting ready for school is difficult, I would set out exactly what help they need, how many times they need prompting, which self-care tasks you are helping with that a typically developing child their age would be doing independently, etc. Also talk about how often they are getting dysregulated, what causes this, what it looks like specifically, how much help they need to regulate and how long that takes. If you have other children talk about the impact on them.

Just point out how your application meets the legal test for assessment and ask if they've actually applied the right test because they probably haven't

What are you goinf to Mediation for?
Failure to assess or failure to issue?

Who recommended you detail what your child's worse day looks like?

Poor advice as with either failure to assess or issue the criteria is clearly defined and Mediation is an opportunity to evidence this.

Good luck.

This!!

Just go into the mediation and state that the assessment criteria is “has send and may need extra support beyond what is usually available in MS school”.

Then ask them how they know he doesn’t if they refuse to assess?

For parental statement I’d just type something short.

X has X needs. School are putting in place X y and Z however he’s still not managing XY and Z and therefore may need more than is usually available in MS school.

We made lots of note before going into the mediation meeting, stuff we wanted to bring up and questions we wanted to ask but decided not to send anything in advance. The meeting was our chance to explain more about our child and their needs without having to fit into the boxes/questions on the EHCNa form and writing yet another written letter /statement didn't feel productive or helpful.

While it was one of the hardest meetings I've had to go through the mediator was really good at making sure we had time ti say what we needed and could take a break when we needed.

In the meeting we did bring up things that were going well and the adjustments school had in place, but also why we felt the EHCP was needed to build on that and ensure it was sustainable, especially as our child moved to secondary in a few years.

Overall it was a positive meeting, we were able to explore why the request had returned down (frustratingly the documents from the paediatrician had not got included as evidence because of an error with email addresses) the school were able to add some additional details and itt all went back to panel.

Was this a refusal to assess or refusal to issue?

Exactly what @FloofyBird said. Excellent advice.

You need to cover why DS meets the legal threshold and reference the evidence to support your points. Anything else is not relevant. Be concise. Don’t waffle.

Check the LA is going to send someone with decision making authority. They don’t always!