Moondog and SALT advice

[AgnesDiPesto]

So just before tribunal SEN officer holds meetings with SALT (DS has ASD). These are not notified to parents and parents are not told about them afterwards but find out via tribunal application for SALT witness

Obviously there is an absence of collaborative working with parents here - and a good deal of tribunal prep / witness priming

But what are the rules for NHS SALTS???
In DS notes it says the SALT has agreed to share information about DS after each visit - but I have never given consent for this.
Nor have I given consent to secret meetings about my DS.
I probably have given consent for a report for statutory assessment / annual review (which was last Oct and probably due this Oct) as I did list SALT as one of professionals from whom to seek advice - but does this entitle them to share information on a continuous basis and to hold meetings without me present? There should be regular (termly) meetings between parents, nursery, SALT and autism outreach but in fact none have ever taken place hence all "liaison" goes on behind closed doors.

We have put all the SALT notes and targets in the tribunal bundle so the LA did not need a meeting to find out what provision had been made.

To put it in context - we are asking for ABA and poor SALT provision is one aspect (although not the main one) behind our request. Previous SALT was initially supportive but then bullied to change her view and since then SALT Managers have involved themselves in DS case and been very heavy handed with us and are clearly putting the LA line ahead of DS / their relationship with us.

We have to carry on with some SALT input win or lose so I don't want to fall out with them but also feel I cannot trust SALTs who are just looking for information that might help the LA at tribunal eg there seems to be some suggestion they are going to query his language progress with ABA - but surely if they had a view on his language progress then SALT should have shared that with parents first?

We have just received a letter for SALT appointment at CDC - no explanation - all other appointments have been at nursery so this is odd.

Not sure if I am overreacting???

They did the SA report last Oct.

I can understand that they might be asked to do an update - but then that would be a formal request and the report shared with us and have to follow COP etc
Its the informal behind closed doors nature of it that annoys me
Do you think you are allowed to ask for your SALT to be transferred to another hospital?

I just feel that all professionals have been given the we are unreasonable greedy parents line I don't feel they have DS interests in mind at all
Given the statement puts all the onus on the nursery to do his language programme and none on parents it is odd that his sessions have been transferred to CDC without nursery present.

We expect a line of SALT managers training their guns on us
We have been critical in reps to tribunal about SALT provision - mainly in that its not enough / wrong model for DS. I assume this has all been shared with SALT but again if i write something for tribunal which is a hearing held in private should those docs be shared with everyone? Should they be confidential to us, SEN officer and tribunal?

It does seem unfair LA can go round interviewing the witnesses - when we do this again next time I will be writing and asking to interview them all myself on the basis I now understand this to be a normal part of the process

I would happily ditch all SALT input if we won ABA they are behaving like spies at the moment and have yet to teach DS a single word