Sarah Teather, Minister of State for Children and Families, live webchat TODAY, Monday 16th July, 10.30am to 11.30am

[FrancesMumsnet]

We're pleased to announce that Sarah Teather, Minister of State for Children and Families, will be joining us for a live webchat on Monday 16 July at 10.30 am. When elected to Parliament, Sarah was the youngest MP in Britain. She has previously served as Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Community and Local Government, Education, and Housing.

As part of the biggest reforms to SEN provision in 30 years, the government has recently announced the Children and Families bill. Sarah is specifically keen to get Mumsnetter's views on the proposed changes to SEN and statements. Further information about the changes are available here:www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/sen/b0075291/green-paper/progress.

Ms Teather also has responsibility for policy areas like childcare and early education, and the Children and Families bill will also deal with care proceedings in family courts, children's welfare in cases of relationship breakdown, and fostering and adoption arrangements.

Do please join us on Monday; if you can't make it on the day, please post up your questions in advance here.

Please be careful about 'mainstreaming'. 'Mainstreaming' and 'Inclusion' means total exclusion for my son. He needs a very specialist environment if he is to have any freedom at all. Also re GCSEs - they would be totally irrelevant for my son. Please don't forget the children who cannot access a typical academic curriculum and write them off. His special school is great because it provides an environment suitable for him - it allows him to practice independence and it provides a curriculum suitable for him.

Our school has also had rebuild problem sas well. The unit attached to the school (on a mainstream site) was rebuilt (and is lovely). But the main school site has had the funding for a rebuild withdrawn. The buildings are crumbling. Some of the children with PMLD's have to be in long wheelchairs and they can't even get around the corners of the corridors very easily. It's really not good - and it also means they can never get an outstanding Ofsted because each inspection the site is found not fit for purpose . The other special school has had a rebuild by moving to a mainstream site (no thank you - I would be very worried by that).

I whole-heartedly applaud what Agnes has said.

My experience was very similar. I too am a lawyer. I too was 'branded' and vilified for arguing for better provision for my son who has an ASD.

I too know what it feels like to dread the post and know that you cannot trust the very professionals who are supposed to help your child because they are actually out to save money for the LA. This is specifically true of SALT departments who deliver on block contracts for LAs and act as if they are employed by them. Professional ethics and confidentiality go out the window and you would not believe what goes on unless you have experienced the disgraceful tactics LAs pursue.

What are you going to do about that?

Also, what are you going to do about your pathfinder authorities who take public money and are listed as schedule authorities on the SEN Pilot Order but who have absolutely no intention of following the legal obligations of this Order and refuse to even accept requests from parents?

I've always worked with young children and their families as an early years practitioner (nursery teacher and related roles) and I think the resourcing of early years provision is crucial to improving the lives of children and their families. I was interested to see programmes recently highlighting approaches taken in Scandinavia - where early years education and care seems much more valued and better resourced. I believe too that it is such an investment for the country both now and in the future, and find it frustrating and disappointing to see existing services cut, where I feel they should be built upon.

Can you convince me that this government believes in the value of early years provision - which also benefits women and families, and wider society ?

I also have a question about children with chronic illnesses.

There is currently no statutory duty on schools to help with children's medical needs. Is this likely to change with the new legislation? Will the non-educational provision in a statement be enforceable?

I have a child with type 1 diabetes. It is a much misunderstood condition; a very hidden disability. It is unpreventable, and rising at an alarming rate in preschool age children. It needs managing 24 hours a day.

My daughter's school realised just how much support she would need during the early years and applied for a statement for her. Her condition is very unpredictable and will impact on her future health, her immediate safety ,and her ability to learn if not properly managed (both low and high blood glucose levels induce adverse cognitive effects). All the medical and educational professionals working with her agree that she needs full-time support at this point in her development.

So far the LA are refusing to help, because her needs are only medical and not educational (totally failing to grasp the link between the two). Without support she will be unable to attend school. How can this be right?

In theory it would be nice to have a joined up system.
I am rather sceptical that it can work in practice. I worry about having a budget and finding that health issues eat it all up and none is left for education - or vice versa if not much is allocated to us as there is so little money to go around and more and more children being diagnosed with Special Needs.
How do you propose to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen?
What help will be available for people to help with budgeting?
How will parents know how to allocate it?
What guidance will there be and will services be available? or will - like now we just get put on a waiting list - and then like with other council budgets - find that as you didn't use it all the way you said you would - it gets cut the following year so that the help your child should be entitled to gets diminished as time goes on.
Will the budget go up in line with the cost of the services provided and not inflation - or some other measure so that children get less and less benefit as they get older? How will the government ensure that this happens and that cost increases in provision do not cut the services to the people that they are helping as a result?
I second a lot of the earlier questions about legal enforcability and how they will interact with academies.
Also with respect to the criteria for obtaining and EPCH plan as it seems that they will be even tighter that for the current statements if I have understood correctly, how can this be right? How will parents be able to ensure that their child gets help then if they just fall short of the criteria but would have previously met it? Will more money be devolved to schools to help - or will schools be expected to make their current funds stretch ever thinner?

Good Morning Minister.
As one of a number of parent representatives from Medway Parents and Carers Forum working on the SE7 Pathfinder, we have been working very hard with professionals in health, social care and education. It should make things much better all round. It has meant a lot of intense work for everyone and generally we are pleased at how much we have accomplished so far. There are a few concerns however, mainly around the very short time allocated to get a major change like this up and running. Are you sure that the partnerships have been given enough time to prepare and pilot any new systems they develop and what happens if some of the pilots don't work or are not suitable.
You will also need to consider accountability. What recourse have parents got if a professional organisation decides not to stick to the single assessment process and who will be responsible ?

Hello Sarah,

I think some of the ideas in the green paper are great, particularly surrounding parental choice and control.

However, I have some concerns around the regulation and monitoring of provision that parents might access. How will this be done? Like Agnes I withdrew my child with ASD from most of what the LA had to offer because it appeared to be lip service, lacking in evidence base or tangible outcomes and extremely poor quality. However, we cannot deny that there are cowboys out there that will prey on parents vulnerability. Presumably these changes are in order to improve outcomes for children as well as efficiency and because it has been noted that the LA provision model provides neither.

Given this, how are you going to ensure that LAs have the skills required to monitor provision outside of themselves? And how are you going to ensure that LA assessment of need and therefore funding is fair and not a continuation of the current system whereby each budget-holder sees their main job as delaying funding for as long as possible in order to push the costs into the next budget up the line. I.e. NHS into early years, early years into education, education into social care. Proper Early intervention has been proven to save significant amounts of money.

Finally, given that the Green Paper really has afforded the opportunity to get so many frustrated parents onside with your party, why not just do it properly and allow the consultation pathfinder process to run, rather than rush through the paper and leave people thinking that the pathfinder was nothing more than lip service to a policy you had already decided on?

Thank you

Dear Minister,

I appreciate there is a lot to read but if you have to choose a select few to respond to, PLEASE respond to Agnes' post.

Many thanks.

But what do you do when you don't withdraw your child from school and the child refuses to go for issues the school won't accept and I'm talking special school. Is it right he doesn't fit anywhere for the last 3 years and thats after forcing him in for years previous!!

Oh, and please can you define both physical inclusion and educational inclusion.

Many children with developmental disabilities are being physically included 'I.e. sitting on carpet, lining up, eating snacks' alongside other children giving the illusion of being included, but actually they just coping the other children, or through repeating the routine. Many of these children can sit do these tasks but have no idea that they are supposed to listen to the teacher whilst on the carpet, or apply what he/she has said.

Someone on twitter has asked me to pose the following question to Sarah:

How is the government going to ensure quality in SEN provision? There is no indication as yet.

Thankyou.

sorry to be dopey, but will the "chat" with Sarah Teather take place here or in the "chat" topic - ie how do you find it /join the discussion?

When evaluating/monitoring impact and budget implications are you going to enforce Local Authority reporting on legal costs with regards to SEN?

Marking my place - so many good questions!

Has the department calculated how much money these reforms will save in the first year of implementation? If not, why not, and if so, how much is it?

Thanks Hothead - I'm "supposed" to be working so will be dipping in and out - but looking forward to some interesting discussion....

Pleased to say Sarah is here at Mumsnet Towers now and ready to get started on your questions in a few minutes

Typicle I am too ill to go to my meeting, oh well theire loss Sarahs gain!

another one who agrees wholeheartedly with Agnes' post.

I too got the 'well, you'll never get that' response, and plenty of comments about how I was 'chasing gold standard provision' when all I wanted was a place where my dd could actually learn and fulfil her potential (whatever that may be, and wherever she ends up)

I would like to ask how and why it is that some (independent) SN school provision get LEA 'approval', and others don't?

I live in Surrey (not actually by our choice, btw - we moved for statementing reasons - another farce that needs sorting out, as we are unable ot live in the perfectly good house we own in Kent, as we would not get the same provision for our dd if we did), and dd was put into an 'approved' independent placement, paid for by the LA. it was hopeless for her, and we had a ridiculous fight to get her into a placement (ABA based) which would work for her.

the LA were happy to keep paying out fees which, if she had progressed into the main school, were about £6k less than her current placement. a lot of money, yes, but in reality the difference between dd being at that school, where she learned absolutely nothing in more than a year, and the school did not know what she was even capable of (ie a total waste of £44k), and at her current placement, where she is learning, progressing at astonishing speed, can now read and write (and type) and has a chance of (at the least) a semi-independent life - and all this for £6k more (yes, a lot of money, but a hell of a lot less than the cost of 24/7 placement once she is out of school age if she does not learn independent skills now)

why is it that LA's are so anti-ABA? we got approval for an out of county, independent placement so easily - as long as the placement was a Teacch based one (at £44k) - the LA were falling over themselves to place dd at one of 4 different independent schools. none of which would have suited dd, but they were 'approved'. whereas ABA is not to be mentioned, under any circumstances, and in many cases other services (such as SALT and portage and OT) are withdrawn if you dare startup a programme, as they are deemed 'incompatible' - what rot.

we have so far moved house 3 times (3x removals costs, plus 4 years of paying rent needlessly) funded an ABA programme at home, and self-funded an ABA school placement while we took the LA to Tribunal to get them to fund the school placement. we now live in a town we would never have considered, and have much higher housing costs, because of all this, and are unable to move closer to dd's school (16 miles away) as it is over the county border - so higher fuel costs as well. this has all cost us (conservative estimate) in the region of £125-150k. Easily. Lucky us () to have been able to afford it - but all in the name of trying to get dd into a school where she is able to learn. how long will this farce continue?