OMG - Professionals meeting next week.......

[StarkAndWitchesWillFindYou]

There are 9 people coming, including Autism Outreach Worker, Autism Advisory Teacher AND Head of Autism Advisory Service.

Is that really necessary? It's only lil ole me!

A bit heavy handed don't you think? Unless it is that they've taken my concerns VERY seriously and want the people there empowered to sort it out. On the other hand it could be an attempt to bully.

What do you think?

Also attending, Class teacher, TA, SLT, OT, SENCo and HEADTEACHER!

A little bit mad.

(the cynic in me says it is just a meeting so they can say they had a meeting)

A rock solid point of attack is citing legislation (as you have-thry won't know about it because 96% of professionals don't-they are too busy keeping their heads above water to allow themselves the hours needed to comb throguh this stuff so if you can be arsed to do it ,you have a clear advantage)

Also, asking for measurable outcomes and data on even laughable targets like the fruit one.

That is crackers.

It's not the worst. One of the others is that he will be able to turn-take for 10 mins at 8:55am each morning.

WTF?

Well done stark.
Bloody hell ds2 can just about manage to take his coat off at 8;55 let alone engage in a turn taking activity. What bollocks.

From reading your posts and the attitude of the Autism advisory service it seems that they have lost sight of their role - supporting your son. It sounds like they are more engaged with arguing and disagreeing with you than actively seeking a way formward. The Head sounds similar.

I made the decision a few years ago to say a polite "no thank you" to any support or service that wasn't willing to liase & work with us. Thats not to say i've always agreed with everyone & I've been proved wrong on many occassions.
I certainly admire your energy, I bet your name is well known in the sen office

Well done star, you are an inspiration! We would not even think about attending multidisciplinary meetings without our advocate as we can feel very emotonal even though fully prepared. Our EP refused to let anyone but her take minutes, we now issue a parental report/response to her minute and circulate to the 'care' team. we also requested numbers of those attending be kept to a minimum, but as soon as things started going pear-shaped the numbers started to increase again.

Anon I don't think I can say 'no thank you' to the Autism Service that is written into his statement.

Even if I could, then everyone else would just give up and blame his lack of progress on the fact that he has no autism support.

Alternatively I could seek to move his dx to a SLT one, which might be possible, but he's only 3 and I feel this is a bit premature. I'll only be asking for it back again in a few years, and I'll look bonkers.

ds2's statement says "school to seek & be provided with support from the autism advisory service" TBH though they are crap & the school are far more clued up so they have very little involvement.
But if you are reliant on their service its a complete nightmare for you.
You'll beat them in to submission eventually!

I just got the minutes

is about all I can say about that.

I'm very happy with everything apparently and ds is making excellent progress.

So we just had an IEP review meeting. I gave them MY IEP that I would like to see................

Yay, they agreed it in full (although what the document actually looks like when it is 'finalised' is yet to be seen)

THEN, I got my 'ammended minutes' sent to everyone - yay!

At LAST!

Fab. Some good news eh?

Yes Moondog. I went into that IEP meeting being able to quote no less than 9 breaches of the SENCo's and Teacher's professional Code of Conduct, a request for the complaints procedure on the tip of my tongue, Ds' VB-Mapp, ESDM, EYFS plus a few other assessment/curriculum documents that we had been working from to demonstrate that my knowledge of ds' next steps is in advance of theirs.

I handed them the IEP in THEIR format, in THEIR language, following THEIR policy, using and illustrating directly WHERE in the statement objectives they linked and actually that was all I had to do.

I think I must have had such an air of 'don't mess because if you do there is more', - that they didn't dare find out about my learned-by-heart quotes or next steps and just went through a couple of things to clarify and agreed it in about 5 minutes.

Actually, they were pretty nice about it as well and apologised for not doing it right to begin with. Verbally of course.

They even took on board my suggestion that ds needs to learn at a fast pace and put him in the top set for literacy (from the bottom ) as this was faster with less confusion and they conceded that in fact he was one of the highest achievers in the class after all (I didn't know this, although I knew his academic skills were strong).

So yes, I would be happy if this all hadn't come at such a price and strained relations and stress, but I suppose it is as good as it gets - for now.

Atta girl!

I am so impressed with you Stark. I went to a meeting today and we talked about how well ds is doing at school and I had a breakdown and cried when I talked about how difficult he finds going to school.

Will try to be strong again tomorrow. Just feeling down today. Will remember how well you have done.

Keep I have had an incredible amount of practice in a short space of time. I was not like this at the start I can assure you. I didn't know I had to be, for one thing.

I suppose when you go into high adrenaline meetings week after week after week, you start to lose your sensitivity and become a bit more direct and focussed.

I remember by first multi-agency Team around the child meeting. I was there, humble, hopeful, scared, on the verge of tears, desperate. It sounded great. This person was going to 'advise', that person was going to 'refer', another person was going to 'monitor' and another going to send ds's case to a 'panel', and someone else was going to send his case to a 'board'. Yet another person was going to put together a 'programme' and someone else was going to 'assess'. We were going to get 'support' and ds was to get 'therapy'. Someone else was going to 'investigate' the 'opportunities' that our LA had for children such as ds, and someone else was going to 'liaise' with us.

A couple of months later and I realised that some if not ALL of the above was happening in terms of moving funds and delagating money to people's case-loads, but yet not one single OUTCOME had ds benefitted from.

In fact we hardly saw anyone, they were all busy referring, and investigating and writing programmes or whatever.

I hung around here a bit complaining and apologising as 'he's only little, we have lots of time'.

Then I came across our very own Moondog who said simply 'Stop whinging and do it yourself then, and get a bloody move on!'

The best advice I ever had!

'I have had an incredible amount of practice in a short space of time.'

OMG I PT'd myself!!!

That's a superb and damning expose of the SEN system.
i might steal it and use it in a presentation if I may?

Sure. It probably needs a bit of work but go ahead. Don't forget the booking of a multi-agency meeting too.

Our LA seem to think that meetings are outcomes in themselves and pat themselves on the back for giving them to their families and expect them to be grateful for this expensive 'provision'.

In fact when the judge in our tribunal asked the autism advisory teacher how, given no transition plan had been written, they would be able to meet ds' needs. Her response was 'well first we'd hold a multi-agency meeting' and shame on the panel for being convinced this was enough.

Stark - Just hanging around here have given me ideas on how to move on. I used to try to get school to work with me, sugget and encourage and ask if they would try this or that... well, we are now just doing it ourselves. Will hear if we get the move to a different school that we want soon.

At the meeting on Tuesday, school showed clip of ds, to prove how well he was doing. Ds was running around the other childrne playing, trying to play but no one was helping him and the other children continued with their own play. Another clip - he was trying to hug another child, kiss her etc. Surely someone must see that the behaviour is inappropriate but no, everyone went on about how well he is doing i.e. trying to get social interaction with other children.

Have to say moondog's PT and other advice etc has already been proved to be so useful. Now at least I know where we and I am starting to keep records.

And I got to write Ds's IEP too.

No, sorry, that was wrong. I did not get to write D's IEP. I will be trying to input suggetions into IEP rather than current one which states DS will learn 3 words - success when he learns 3 words etc.

I used to try to coax the school along. I lost a year of ds' life doing that. Now I just tell them what I expect.

I DO make sure I have a sound rationale though and often can support what I say with government policy documents. It is a headache for sure learning and getting to know them but once you do, everyone quakes in their boots and does what you say.

I've got through to the important people on the ground. The class teacher, TA and even to some extent the SLT and OT.

Quite alarmingly the Autism Advisory Team are still refusing to play ball and insisting that they continue to do what they have always done, in the way they have always done it, with arrogant ignorance. The most significant bit of 'their way' being to distance themselves as much as they can from parents and forcing the schools to treat them like Gods.

Their downfall will be magnicifant!

Keepyour

My child is safe in my hands but my word I'm cross with everyone and the never ending fight with superstitions and myths.

keep It must have been hard to watch that video. Just as it was hard me being allowed to watch a SLT lesson that they had obviously gone to some lengths to prepare their 'best practice' for me to see. I was just so gutted at how low their expectations were and how utterly delighted they were when ds did something new that he has been doing for the last 8 months with me.