Temporarily home educating (ABA) and LEA funding if your child has a statement

[henryhsmum]

Hi,

My DS (age 6) is currently at special shcool, he has ASD high functioning but behaviour problematic (lack of co-operation/own agenda mainly).

I am very keen to transition him to mainstream but I feel he needs intensive behavioural support and in the process of looking into this I have decided ABA is the approach for him. I have spoken to an organisation who provides this and they said the best thing could be to take him out of the special school, initially put him on a home based ABA programme with a view to transitioning him to mainstream from home (rather than from the special school).

I am very open to this idea but I was wondering if the child has a statement of SEN, do the LEA have any obligation to fund the SEN provision at home temporarily (ie ABA tutor as an alternative to him being at school as part of a planned transition to mainstream). Also, what would happen to his statement while he was in a transition period - what would be his named provision and would his place be held open at the special school (ie can you temporaily take a child out of school to put them on a trial ABA - a sort of sabbatical from school)

I do know that the LEA in our area has funded an ABA programme for at least one child in mainstream, albeit on appeal and further to the child having been on ABA from age 3.

Many thanks

Rebecca

In order to get the LEA to fund anything other than their own provision you have to prove that their provision is inadequate. I think you may have more chance if you self fund initially and then go for funding later as an interim to getting him into a mainstream school. If you do this, get a very good baseline assessment of where he is now from an ed psych so that you can show later that the progress he has made is down to his ABA programme. I would also get video of him not complying in school and at the beginning of ABA so you can show the difference the home programme has made. I would also keep careful records of the progress he made whilst at his special school so you can argue that he has made much better progress at home compared to the progress he made in special school. I did ABA with my dd from 3 years to 5 years and then integrated her into a mainstream school. It worked very well for her. She was also very non compliant initially but is doing well with good 1:1 at school.

Hope you don't mind me asking but how do you fund it for 2 years? I guess I am worried as I know I could fund DS for 6 months max myself but after that not. So I'm worried as to what would happen if at end of that period LEA refused to fund ABA and he had lost his place at special school etc

to start with I did 6 hours per week myself as I was working part time. I employed two tutors who did 9 hours between them. We increased this by another three hours with another tutor after about six months. After about 12 months when we won funding at tribunal, I gave my hours to one of the tutors. The maximum was 21 hours with three hours per fortnight with the supervisor. We had help from family to fund tbh and I used my dd's DLA to help. She also had nursery part time. It wasn't easy as we are not wealthy. I couldn't have done it without my family's help tbh.

I should also say that I didn't use professional tutors. I recruited two inexperienced mums and we all did the training workshop with the consultant. They were both fab.

feel free to Pm me if you want any more info. I'd be happy to help in any way I can.

we funded it for 12 months until tribunal but that was for a 3 year old and parttime parent led prog. 3-6 months of a FT proper prog would be fine to start transition into mainstream I would think eg for say 3 sessions a week

Do you have a co-operative m/s school in mind? That can be a battle if the LA are against it

Your best chance is if you can negotiate with the LA
Do you know what the special school place+transport costs?
is your ABA plan going to come in at similar level? Or much higher.
If the latter then chances of getting LA on board are minimal without tribunal

Alternatively you can choose to home ed - you keep the statement as LA still responsible for ensuring it is met but you pay for the ABA (and just Part 4 amended)

there is some hope that LAs may pay for some home ed - was govt guidance last year or so which discussed this (look on Dept of Ed website under home ed) and said LAs should think about funding support which was over what a typical home ed child should need - but I don't know if this has been tested out.

In terms of the statement you might be best calling for a review / reassessment or a quicker option may be to formally request a change of Part 4 to name ABA programme (education otherwise) - the LA will most probably refuse - but then you get a right to appeal - which will take 6-8 months to get to tribunal, by which time you will have the evidence of ABA working. You would be wise to get some legal advice. Fiona Slomovic is an advocate who does alot of ABA cases and is cheaper than a Solicitor.

I doubt the SS place would be held open unless you self funded as the LA would be paying twice

Why are you unhappy with SS? Is he too HF? Behaviour? No suitable peer group? You need to base you request for a change on this and have evidence to support it.

My son (5) has ABA in mainstream after appeal. It is working well and I would def recommend it for a HF child. Without ABA m/s would be a disaster, in fact I think DS would end up in specialist or residential SS - but because ABA are so on top of his behaviour he is no trouble in m/s. His time is split between 1:1 learning of new skills (out of school) and then use m/s to generalise / work in groups / social skills - he goes 50% and aim to increase that over time. I think its a fantastic model as the children are great with him and he is learning in the environment where we want him to be longer term, and alot more like the real world than SS.

Hi Agnes, my reasons for wanting mainstream for my DS are exactly the same as yours pretty much. My DS is high functioning in many ways, ie above average in areas like reading, spelling, numeracy. Expressive language is reasonable. His difficulty comes when he is tested on following instructions as he refuses to when tested by ed psych hence technically his understanding is poor but I feel it is more to do with DS having his own agenda than lack of understanding.

So I want him to be in mainstream as SS is almost too sheltered, also there is little support in following school skills through to home from the SS hence appeal of ABA as it's home-school programme. Also ideally I would like him to have mainstream with special unit attached but no such thing in our LEA which is another part of my argument for why his current provision is inappropriate. The mainstream he would go to is our village school and is ideal as only 18 children in class! They are extremely supportive but want the appropriate help to be in place. They (mainstream not SS) have encouraged me to move him now as at his age he will integrate more easily socially. I also feel he misses out socially as we live in a village but the special school is 15 miles away.

As to costs of his special school place and transport I'm not sure. But his transport alone is a taxi and escort lady who he shares with 2 other kids, 15 miles each way to school. Do you know how to get data on cost of school places?

I am looking at PEACH for ABA. I know the basics such as cost of workshops but haven't got a tutor in mind yet so not got a full budget. Can you give me any idea of what your ABA programme costs-pm me if that's easier.

It's a very hard decision to make I am finding. DS is doing well at SS but I am concerned about the long term for him and feel that the longer I leave it to make the transition the more institutionalised (for want of a better word) he may become. His behaviour is his main problem really, he verges on ADHD as well as autism tbh. He refuses to use a pencil much so can't write and that is the other main problem with mainstream.

At the moment we have had an ed psych review and due to meet with statementing officer in December. What worries me about taking him our of SS to do a home based ABA programme whilst pursuing tribunal for funding is what happens if tribunal refuse ABA as then we are left with an ABA programme in his statement that we can't fund and no special school place.

Who do you use to manage your ABA programme (what organisation) and how did you go about finding tutors?

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me, it really helps. I wish I had known about ABA when my son was 3!