EHCP support thread no. 6

[Needlenardlenoo]

This thread is to support everyone engaged in the EHCP process. The purpose is two fold: so that you don't feel alone if you're involved with it, and so you can easily find posters who are experienced with the various difficulties to help point you in the right direction, whether that be by giving general advice, telling you specifically what action should, or could, be taken in a particular situation, or countering common myths you will hear, such as:

"Your child is not X enough to get an EHCP"
"The school has to do/pay Y first"
"EHCPs are only for Z situation"
"The local authority do X/say Y/won't do Z" (the SEN Code 2014 applies to the whole of England: it doesn't vary by local authority). [Wales and Scotland have different regimes].

It is particularly important at the moment to understand clearly what your child's rights actually are in law (not what the school or LA or Sendias say they are), when the government are actively trying to remove EHCPs and are leaking stories regularly to the media, with the intention, I suspect, of deflecting attention from their own shortcomings onto parents who are already in a difficult situation. If in doubt, the charity IPSEA has neutral and factual information:
https://www.ipsea.org.uk/

Here are links to previous threads:

Original EHCP support thread - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/4834986-ehcp-support-thread
EHCP support thread no. 2 - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/4989146-ehcp-support-thread-no-2
EHCP support thread no. 3 - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5077140-ehcp-support-thread-no-3
EHCP support thread no. 4 -
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5197351-ehcp-support-thread-no-4
EHCP support thread no. 5 -
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5309128-ehcp-support-thread-no-5?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share [please post on here till it's full]

@KeepItSpinning Thanks. The LA did put the EOTAS cor-ordinator in their draft amendments (but hours/week was not clear) and I've added the details from the EP report.

I was planning to put every provision that has a cost in the EHCP into a PB request, paid by DP. Does that make sense?

And do you know any good resources for finding an EOTAS co-ordinator?

As long as you are happy for everything to be funded via DPs, including everything in your PB request to be paid via DPs is the right way to go.

EOTAS/EOTIS co-ordinators vary in their role. Before suggesting where to find one, it would be helpful to know what type of EOTAS co-ordinator do you need, what their role will cover and if the role is limited to specific training/qualifications/job title. For example, some have a role that is more of an admin role, some have the person running training sessions and undertaking risk assessments, some have person doing the business side of things e.g. recruitment and on-boarding, some have it specified that it must be a teacher with QTS and experience of running EOTAS packages, some have an EP undertaking the role…

Another helpful thing to consider is whether you need any of it in-person or if all remote work would work for the package.