aaarrrgggg - statementing - never ending battle.opinions please.

[Namechange200]

Firstly apologies for name changing but am wary of snooping LEAs and need not to give too much away at this stage.
So.... Long story but will try to be brief. Have finally got LEA to agree to assessment of SEN for dd. has taken 12 months. Was turned down originally this time round, but I appealed and LEA have backed down before we got to tribunal. During the process both the LEA and the school have behaved disgracefully and have sunk to such low tactics to try and make me give up, but I held out and have won the first small hurdle.
However I am well aware of that there are plenty more battles ahead.
Today however I returned home from work to find a letter from our local hospital with an appointment for DD with a paediatrician. I rang to check who had made the referral and as I suspected it had been requested by the LEA. I am firstly fuming that I wasnt consulted before they made the rewferral - surely they should tell me if they are going to make a referral????? Also I dont know what they hope to gain by it. DD has already had a 2 day multi-professional assessment which included a consultant paediatrician when she received her original diagnosis (asd) and has since seen the consultanat agin for a follow up appointment. This new app is in a diff district (due to complicated reasons )and so is with someone new, but also with a general paediatrician who will have littel experience with ASD, so not sure in the point in it. I could refuse to take her, but then LEA will use that against me. I am just so fuming right now. The LEA are just being so deliberately difficult and obstructive. I am so sick of this whole thing.
However I wont give up until I get what I want and every time the LEA sink to these tactics it just makes me more determined.
ANyway...sorry for long post, but really was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar. Is it reasonable that I am annoyed that LEA refferred her without my knowledge? Can I request she is referred to someone more suitable do you think? Or should it really be enough that they already have pages of medical reports????
Would greatly appreciate any responses , even to just cheer me up!

Hi!

The LA have agreed to do a SA so well done for sticking to your guns :)

When my LA agreed to do SA they automatically arrange a Pead appointment and also you will probably find a second Educational Psychologists appointment. They do this as a matter of course irrespective of whether your child has seen one or not. You can send in any reports/documents to add weight to the final decision in the mean time.
My Pead put down that my DS was currently under assessment at camhs at the time and I forwarded all the reports. The Pead was actually what they called the school doctor for our area.

thanks coff33. Maybe it is just a routine thing, I think the whole process has been so horrible and they have behaved so badly that I am now questioning their motives about everything! Yes, I do feel a small snese of victory at getting the SA - was a long hard battle, but will be worth it Will try to not stress too much over it - maybe just view it as slightly inconvenient and unlikely to be much use, but also unlikely to be problem.

:) When I got the letter the first thing I did was phone up and ask who made the appointment. I think there are so many closed doors or lies that you tend to be rightfully suspicious!

When I went to the appointment the Pead was lovely. She took down some history from us and did the usual weighing and height and listened to his chest and felt his tummy. He was then observed while we were talking to her and she also drew some shapes and asked him to copy them. Nothing much and it lasted 20 mins.

It is normal the La need to get advices of professionals and the paed usually sums up what your childs difficulties are for the LA in a report which they use when they decide whether to make a statement or not.

When the LEA agree to do a SA a number of professionals will be requested to give supporting evidence! This would include a paediatrician, Education Psychologist, Education etc!!

It is routine for a paed to be asked to see your child! x

Its in the SEN code of practice. get a copy if you don't have one. In requesting SA you have given consent for them to get reports from health, EP, social services, school - but they don't need to necessarily see your child again if they have done an assessment already
The paed didn't see DS again, but SALT and EP did extra visits for SA report
If you don't agree to assessment an adverse inference can be drawn at Tribunal (LA will argue you have been obstructive), but equally you don't need to agree to assessments which are duplication

thanks for the replies.
Obviously I do realise that the assessment process needs further information/assessments/reports etc. and I was already aware that there would be another Ed Pysch assessment, and possibly further assessment by learning support team which all seems perfectly necessary. I suppose I was just surprised that we needed another medical report given that I have supplied fairly comprehensive medical reports, and she has seen the developmental paed only a few weeks ago - seems a bit pointless really. Also, I would have thought it would be reasonable for the LEA to inform me who they are referring DD to before they do it - would seem to me to be a basic matter of "working with parents" that the LEA claim to do so well, as well as the proper professional approach. Then again I should have realised by now that the terms "LEA" and "professional approach" do not belong together!!
I will of course take DD to the appointment if needed, but also do not want to subject her to endless extra appointments that will not provide any further valuable information. This is all supposed to be for her benefit after all....

Oh and Agnes, yes I have a copy of SENCop - it has been my bedtime reading for the last 12 months, and I probably could quote most of it by heart now LOL

I dont think you have anything to worry about really. The Pead report I had was mostly a summarisation of what I had already got in motion for DS plus her observations health check wise. You will have your chance to tell the Pead all that you have done and the people your child has seen and she will note that down and you could politely ask that she puts in her report a request that the LA refer to those other reports (mine did for me) :)