Hi, I'm looking for some advice re: my SEN 11 yo dd who started secondary in Sept. She has been under CAMHS for 3 years and having been referred for an ASD assessment in April 2022, we finally had the assessment 3+ weeks ago and are waiting for the outcome.
Due to persistent absence (she went in around 3 days a week up until half term and has been permanently absent since), we were referred to the Educational Welfare officer last week and on meeting them, were essentially told they need a bum on a seat asap or they will start legal proceedings to prosecute. They gave us strategies which we have already used and failed with (we've been dealing with absence, though not persistent, for 3 years). The only new info we were given was they'd allow a reduced time table.
The main thing right now appears to be that dd has been marked as unauthorised absence for the entire time ( i believe that's what triggered the EWO involvement) and this is despite us having alerted the school to her special needs since 3 months before she even joined, information which they consistently ignored, to the point we had to raise an official complaint with the head teacher in late Sept (by this point she was already off a few days a week and no one at the school seemed to care or even know this was a SEN issue despite my incessant emailing to anyone who i thought would listen).
It doesn't matter how many times i tell them, or tell CAMHS, or have told the school, she WILL NOT go to school and in my view this is because she is ill. Whether it's ASD (i firmly believe it is) or MH issues, she cannot go. She doesn't know why and i can't change the fact she isn't able to vocalise this. I try every day for the last 3 years to try and get somewhere with this and to no avail. She clams up the minute we try to discuss (always has done), has difficulty describing or identifying emotions. For the first 2 weeks of her current persistent absence, she didn't leave her room. She has developed new rituals (which always happens at times of anxiety), i am on my knees with exhaustion as i now have to sit with her every night until gone midnight cos she's suddenly too scared to go to sleep on her own, she is worried she is ASD and she is confused and bored and is all over the place. I also have 2 other dcs to think about.
My question is though, should the school have been marking her as unauthorised absence or given i have been sharing all the info all along and them knowing she was waiting for an ASD assessment ( i had even shared my CAMHS contact with them), should it have been marked as authorised?
I'm also considering writing a complaint to the school board of governors. While i've already submitted one to the head teacher (about the fact no one acknowledged her SEN issues at any point i'd tried to alert them to this on the lead up to secondary starting), which was upheld, we were given lip service. I am of the view now that their failure to acknoweldge her SEN issues and as per their policy put in place meetings with us and SENDCO even before she started there (or in fact since, i have never once had a meeting with the SENDCO) has possibly now impacted the entire path of her academic career. If they had listened when i told them time and time again, i can't help but feel we wouldn't have got to the point where she now doesn't go at all.
Any experience or advice or even a friendly ear would be much, much appreciated. Right now, i feel like she's about to be thrown out of the school cos her bum isn't on a seat, she currently nowhere close to agreeing to go back (she says she's not going back at all), and we're now being threatened with legal proceedings when i think the school have failed to provide us with the support, at the crucial transition window (i.e. from day one, rather than from week 4 when she was already staying off) and have also potentially recorded her absence as unauthorised when it should have been registered as authorised.
sorry that was long!