CAF

[2Siobhan]

I recently had a difficult meeting with ds school which ended up with me requesting a SA myself. I told the school and they responded by asking to meet again. They offered to do a CAF this time (wouldn't do it before), and said they would really like us to work together so after some thought I withdrew my request for SA and TRY to work with the school.

How can I know for sure they are doing the CAF? Do I have involvement early on or later? I will reapply for SA in the autumn if nothing has happened.

Thanks.

You have to sign the CAF. So you will know if it's been done or not.

(Although I guess you won't know if it's been sent)

You should be involved in at least some of the meetings, also.

They should definately complete the CAF form with you. If you think your DS needs more help you can apply for statutory assessment at the same time as the CAF process is happening too. Honestly if the school have done nothing about the CAF they are not going to be doing anything else more helpful I don't expect. Push for the SA now.

Thanks. I will be contacting the senco on Monday. I think I will regret withdrawing my request for SA :-(. I have zero evidence so felt caf was important.

Your issue with CAF is it is S.L.O.W. In fact, a local contact in Social Services told me to advise parents never to ask for a CAF, or any cross-service referral which would trigger a CAF, because the info in it isn't detailed enough for them to use, & they have to start their own assessments after CAF is completed - CAF typically adds 6m delay to getting support round our way. Hopefully it is quicker for you and there will be less inputs needed (Health is often a logjam, the doctors are OK, it's the admin...). But I'd definitely be asking them how long CAF will take, and what help he would be getting before CAF was completed. If CAF is going to take more than a few weeks, I can't see any defensible argument against putting him on temporary SA pending outcome.

You don't really need evidence from the school for SA. What you really need is to be aware of the concerns you have for your DS and the reasons why you think the school is unable to help him from their own resources. The school will be contacted for their response if you apply for SA, so they can show evidence of progress and the systems in place (or not!) for helping him. Do you think the school have the ability to do more without a statement - if so you need to push them on that, but if not then reapply for SA now alongside the CAF process - there is no need for anyone to have to wait for the CAF process to be finished before they are able to assess your son. There is also no fixed time for a CAF process to run either. We started our CAF this time last year and have another meeting about it again next week. Meanwhile we have now put in for SA whilst continuing to have these meetings. It can certainly help to do the CAF though based on my experience as it has helped to consolidate ideas on what is happening with DD for us, and given me fresh ideas as to how to move forwards too. I don't think it delayed us getting any help for DD in school. I don't know what the situation is like about out of social services type of help though based on r3dh3d's post

Thanks. The school think they can help atm without him a statement. They want to wait till the end of the autumn term (year one) before considering applying for SA as at the moment he is just about coping. We both know next year will be hard but they want to wait for him to really fail. The only reason I withdrew my request was that I either got the schools support making things easier or that if the school didn't do as they said (caf ect) I would have more stronger case and evidence that I tried to work with the school. This is like a battle x

2S, you are right to keep working with school as much as possible (while keeping notes and documenting everything :) )

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Your child is tiny, you need to keep him in school for many years yet. So keep working with school as much as you can.

They might be right. You can't get a statement unless school have already done everything they can. If they haven't done a CAF yet, they haven't done everything the can. So chances are your statement would be refused, and you'd be told to do a CAF and then come back if that doesn't work.....

Thanks I needed someone to say that. Help me stop feeling guilty. x