Any downside to getting the NHS S&LT off your statement altogther

[appropriatelytrained]

Would rather have our own S&LT carrying out direct work with DS and setting up a proper programme and measuring progress and training staff than throw money at crap provision from the NHS S&LT who we can never trust again.

Any downside to this? Can you have a statement with time set aside for S&LT delivered by an independent S&LT employed by parents???

I'm trying PALS now as this woman says I have to go to the Ombudsman as she has 'exhausted local resolution' - although I have not even made a complaint.

Well, that may be the best thing.

The Ombudsman? Or PALS?

In relation to the Ombudsman, strangely they say they won't deal with you until you have exhausted the complaint process!

"I do think the argument has become diverted between experts arguing what 'model' should be implemented - direct or indirect - without thinking of the actual work which will be done (or not done) with the child and how whether it will actually make a difference."

I think this is the key issue. I have been reading your threads for months and have to say I was not exactly clear what you were asking for and why . I think you have to believe in the intervention you are gong to tribunal for, even if that means you are not entirely in agreement with your witness! If the NHS SALT can't do it then there is little point arguing she should.

I think it makes much more sense from this perspective - what your DS needs and why / what difference that will make to him and then let the professionals / panel try and put that into some form of intervention. It does not actually matter if its delivered by a TA, a social worker, an ABA tutor or a SALT what matters is the person designing the programmes and next steps knows about HFA / language / social skills and how to teach them. If the person setting and monitoring the programme knows this, then it can be delivered day to day by others (as an ABA programme is). I agree with Star your top 5 points, make them relevant to outcomes and specific egs of things your DS struggles with and how high quality intervention / coaching with these skills now will save money later on.

The advice I was given by someone who sits on tribunals (hope you get him he is lovely) is to keep it relevant and practical to the child. You are in danger of making it too technical and about policy etc - I think you are spot on with keeping it relevant to your DS.

It may be your argument is not just private SALT -v NHS SALT or direct -v- indirect. But actually that so far you have no-one on DS 'team' NHS SALT / outreach / school etc who has the expertise to teach the skills your DS needs, or to set the systematic programmes necessary and to monitor and evaluate them. You have found a private SALT who can. It seems to me it could just as easily be an ABA tutor or another professional eg specialist teacher who is experienced with HFA. So really its not about whether NHS SALT can deliver the intervention but that between them SALT, outreach and school do not have this expertise and therefore they have to go into the private sector to get it or 'buy in' significant EP or specialist teacher time.

In my area SALT would argue anything which is social communication or behaviour rather than pure language need is not their remit anyway but autism outreach's.

I think there might be some merit in arguing that this is what you have identified as missing from your DS intervention (give list and egs). Your solution has been to find a SALT with ASD experience who is able to fill that gap (and egs of successes). But there may be other ways of filling the gap in expertise but they are unlikely to be any cheaper than your solution eg private SALT to train up, monitor and supervise TA (I know the current TA is an issue).

I really think you have to be fighting for an outcome you actually have confidence will work.

You are right with this Agnes, spot on. And I have said many times myself - why are we fighting for more of the same?

The problem is, that, it has taken me a long time to get here - through trying to make the NHS intervention work, through waiting for the appointment of a TA, through arguments about intervention etc.

The fact is that I have long realised that this intervention with this team will not work but I haven't been focused on what the alternative could be.

We have a S&LT who has not really been tested as she has been working on NHS crappy targets but seems to have the right idea.

We do not have a school at the moment as we took DS out.

However, I cannot say that I have the kind of evidence you talk about to present to the Tribunal. I know the NHS S&LT will say that they can do everything I suggest and that they have been doing because they will lie. This will be supported by school who will argue that everything was going swimmingly because they will lie

I want a run at this with a decent S&LT in a decent school who will be honest about what they are doing. I can then see what needs to be done

So I've messed up in staying put where we were for so long but I really didn't expect school to lie so intensely and to be so clearly in cahoots with S&LT to stitch it all up. I was promised by them that they would ask for help too so I worked with them.

I think you need to talk it through with the lawyer.
Either push on asking for the best provision available eg more hours, more frequent, more training for TA, better monitoring, outside expertise etc etc
Or maybe adjourn to see what else is out there using the fact you are now without a school as a reason?
I don't agree you don't have the evidence though. You have the evidence he has been failed through the specific egs you can give
Its hard to know what to ask for instead?
What does your EP say?

Thanks Agnes, I do appreciate your advice.

I think we want this S&LT off the statement as an absolute priority. I think the problem with the 'failure' of provision is that it is a retrospective argument and if we look at 'future' need, there is still an argument that a collaborative rather than direct model will suffice.

That is not my argument - that is the argument which has developed independent of my own thoughts through the evidence of the S&LTs.

These models are meaningless to the child 'on the ground' if the provision in place doesn't work - whatever it is.

What will work? I can't say for definite. What I know now, is that it is not this S&LT who do not have the skills or will to make a difference. I also know that the school is toxic and non-inclusive and will never change.

So both of these two things have changed the context in which I have been fighting for provision and I have to try and make the best of things as they stand.

I understand that Tribunals place a lot of weight on what schools say so I have made a MASSIVE mistake by staying at that place. But it is a lesson learnt.

EPs have had little to do with DS but both our EP and S&LT think he will need a special school at some point and that battle is one which will be worth fighting. The thing is that ASD is not DS's only difficulty so S&LT is only one part of a much bigger battle to keep a child like DS included.

Not read the thread, but in our case ds gets so much therapy prescribed that the NHS and LEA can't provide it so have bought the help in and we were able to argue for continuity and get his "current" therapists awarded the contract. (He gets weekly for an hour plus lots of other bits and bobs.)

Just something to be aware of if your child needs access to special equipment/compuer programs a a later date .Then you would struggle to get it funded by nhs

I don't think that would be a problem in DS's case. But we would have had an independent S&LT working with him in school and so there would be evidence of need should it arise.

I am not removing the S&LT provisions but this S&LT team.