Amazing S&LT - they always let us down!

[appropriatelytrained]

Wow what a day for crappy services. I heard from the LGO and S&LT today. It's interesting that they all know I am about to depart to London for two weeks with DS who is at Gt Ormond St. Great timing!

Anyway, crappy S&LT! I asked them in July to provide details of a meeting they had had without our knowledge with school in which they'd all clearly stitched up DS's fake S&LT programme in preparation for Tribunal.

S&LT ignore me. PALS ignore me.

I complain to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman about S&LT and PALS. Trust agrees in Oct to relase documents and hold a meeting.

One month later, I've heard nothing so chase Ombudsman. I'm offered a meeting but no notes.

A further month goes by. I'm offered a date for a meeting but no notes. I chase the notes. What was it you wanted says PALS? Yes PALS who are being complained about are handling the complaint

23rd December late in the afternoon, I get an email with a letter from Head of Children's services saying - there are no records. Meeting was just to discuss Tribunal process. No therapeutic outcome. No records. Oh and why do you want a meeting?

I write back and say - this meeting clearly produced evidence about my son's programme. Evidence which you knew we disputed. Evidence which was so important that a principal therapist (who wasn't dealing with DS but who attended the meeting) and reported back to her head of dept.

Today - my son's records for the last part of June/July appear. They refer to the meeting and who was there and what it was about. A partial recollection given what I already know about it. But there is indeed a record of the meeting.

Bloody liars.

Interestingly. There are pages of scribbled notes, all in the same hand which looks like they've suddenly been dashed off.

Oh and, DS's last pragmatics test - just before Tribunal - with altered scores. Yes, altered scores. So that they are all increased!

I kid you not. I have written to the Chief Exec and demanded an investigation into these practices.

I won't hold my breath.

That reads badly. The HT didn't tip me off, someone else did. The HT hasn't been helpful at all.

Maybe we should approach a publisher to produce a 'real life' handbook for parents on dealing with this unlawful, corrupt system!

I am just surprised that no one wants to deal with this in press/media, NGOs.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently did a report on the treatment of the elderly. Maybe they should be approached about the treatment of children?

Or maybe there should be a whistleblowers' hotline for those who work in schools/LAs? There must be people doing this, knee deep in lies, who know what they do is wrong.

The problem always is how to make an individual fight more significant so that it results in change. Without resources etc.

Small victories are the way. Small steps on small issues with publicity where ever we can.

To be honest though, AT, I think what happens when people who have money have been through this system is that they ask themselves that question that moondog often asks you: would you want these people working with your child anyway? And they invariably find the answer is no, so they put their money into provisions that are what they want, with people who will give a service that has value to them. Money buys you that option, I suppose?

The system is heinous, there are so many problems with it that your handbook would need to be like a telephone book. Even where there are isolated, minor good practices they are very quickly eroded, so that you find yourself in a situation like Star has found herself in, where because something is working it is deemed unnecessary - "oh but he's doing so well, he doesn't need all our money!^.

I am really at the end of my own tether with it, and I am not a parent. I don't have to go home and deal with the fall-out of it in my own home, I just find myself angered and sickened by the sheer inadequacy and inefficiency of it, how it clunks along and everything conspires to get in the way. For the first time this year I have encountered the situation where I am working with people who want endless meetings and avoid actual contact with children apparently at all costs but call themselves specialist and I already want out. I can't imagine what it's like for you as parents...

Well I think that says it all about our defunct system when caring, committed professionals are so desperately disillusioned with it.

NHS S&LT have consistently let DS down and this area seems to be the main battleground between ourselves and the LA. Last year, we got so sick of the endless battles for what would be, at the end of the day, a half-hearted and rubbish service, that we offered to pay for it ourselves. This was rejected.

But if we reject this service out of hand, I am worried that the LA will remove S&LT from his statement and then the try and reduce his hours as a result.

When a child is statementing, rejecting help is not easy unless anyone can correct me on that.

I am sure there would be a consequence to allowing them to reduce intervention from their rubbish service.

I'd keep the crap SALT unless it's damaging and pay for extra and better if you can do.

I would love to be part of any publishing/ publicising stories of how crap the system is (you do all know me ), from the perspective of a parent who has been shat on by the system and also from someone who works within it and knows how crap the system is.

I just don't think anyone in the public or political world cares much about us right now, so perhaps a book or project aimed at getting parents more able to deal with the system would be more useful. It would be more of an updated version of 'How to be a Velvet Bulldozer' as it's now 8 years old.

I don't know the answer to that, AT, wish I did. I think if what they are offering is so watered down, you can accept their offer (which will be, let's face it, review/advice/"targets" on a half-termly to termly basis) and then just, erm, blithely ignore it. The statement stays intact, but yes, you let them get away with it. Which I know, when you've seen the injustices you have perpetrated against you, might be a pill too far to swallow. If there's any room for negotiation then, you can use them to do certain things - I had a child who had a private therapist a few years ago and she used to ask me to do the standardised assessments as she didn't have access to the full range, I didn't mess with her targets etc but we would liaise and then I would give general advice on her targets to school as she found they wouldn't accept it from her . Though I doubt you have much leeway with this particular group from the sounds of things.. it is all so hard.

It's awful, but I can tell you now that if any of my children ever needed SLT that I would pay for it myself to assure myself I had control over who was involved. There are only a handful of people I would trust to ask advice from in my own service and in every case, it's not because of SLT national policy, it's because they are the kind of people who I trust to do the job well. They read, they are critical, they can look at an individual holistically, no matter how far outside of what the departmental checklists tell them to observe/do that observation takes them, they view a broader context. The HI and two of the SLI specialists in my trust are very, very good.. but they could be replaced by people tomorrow who are rubbish (and being in an all-female service, where there are frequent maternity leaves, I have seen that even the best care pathways suffer if the people who carry them out don't have the knowledge, skills and experience to understand why they are there in the first place).

In the book, "The Man Who Lost His Language", Sheila Hale (whose husband John lost his language following a stroke) talks passionately about how what is needed in speech and langauge therapy are people who are terribly academically bright and driven, but that sadly, with salaries and the low profile of the profession, what you tend to get are "nice girls" who perhaps thought it was a nice way to meet a doctor husband . I understand her point, I am sure many who read these boards do. There is a lot of niceness and not a lot of rigour. You come from a professional background that expects and demands the type of rigour and critical ability needed to perform the job. SLT, I'm afraid, does not. No wonder it infuriates you.. it infuriates me. The viewpoint can be very narrow, myopic even.

The whole thing is too dilute, people are too far from the evidence and their perception of what our role is has been clouded by the massive emphasis on language deprivation (which I ranted about elsewhere on this board during the week). The politics of it are lost on many e.g. most people don't see that the role of the SEN Officer is that of an accountant managing the money pot, most people don't question the broader politics of why language deprivation has become the mainstay of the mainstream service or of how much of what is being targeted is about class politics as much as anything else (I like the middle paragraph of this, which I think says a lot that I wish my colleagues would believe....

Your anger is righteous, AT, there is no doubt. Just don't let it burn you out. I came dangerously close a few years back (for reasons I can't go into) and as I must reiterate and stress, I didn't have to live with the emotional impact as a mother so it was entirely different.

It's not my metaphor or book! Though, having read it 5 years ago when I was having trouble getting my son's needs met, I think it actually was a guide to being exactly what you describe.

Having said that, I agree that it's naive in this current climate to expect anything to be simple in trying to get our children's needs met. We can't be straightforward as councils are playing games themselves, as the OP points out, and as countless others like Star have experienced.

By updated, I sadly mean that anything up-to-date would have to advise parents much differently to that book, as the game-playing has upped by councils and so parents' would need to as well.

Working - an excellent and insightful post as always. It really helps to see the perspective from the inside and I am all for practical action to avoid conflict where possible.

Ideally, one S&LT visit a year with the statement as it is now would be ideal but then I can afford to pay for a private S&LT. That creates a two-tier system which also depends on being at a school which will allow the intervention of an outside therapist.

As for a book - a parents' practical guide to their rights to support their child who be a huge help to many. Cutting through basic myths like statementing criteria etc.

Yep, AY, exactly. Stuff like:

'Have you asked for a Statement and been told that your child is too clever? That Statements are only for children who are on the xth centile/ x years behind? That your child must spend 8 years on SA+ before being Statemented etc. etc.?

You have been lied to. Here is the actual criteria:'

Just a simple parents' guide to the SEN process

I dunno. Who would buy that book? Probably parents who can find out fir themselves contacts like IPSEA and the 'system' changes and the lies and stories to look out for change frequently.

I can't work out whether a series of short essays put together as a collection for either an academic or mainstream book or perhaps a regular column for a lazy journalist would be sufficiently interesting to be a)read and b)get people thinking. The lies would be exposed as would the mainstream ess of it all.

It is only parents and professionals on here that recognise it is a national problem. I think part of the reason change is so hard is because people are caught up in their own little bubble and feel that they have just been so incredibly unlucky that things gave not turned out the way they have supposed to and that is professionals as well as parents.

Would people here like to write their stories for others to edit/proof read into a cohesive collection? As a series of essays it may be possible to keep the LA or employer anonymous.

We could send MPs free copies!

We could start a choir and sing about it and get to no.1?

Star I think the big problem with journalists and stories is that our versions are so often unsupported by the outcome or the 'evidence'. For example, Tribunals rule against us. LGOs dismiss us.

You would basically be trying the get someone to see that despite all that, we really are telling the truth!

We need people who have been vindicated and won cases to show how bad the system is.

There was that Channel 4 journo whose son is autistic and whose LA persuaded his paediatrician to withdraw her autism dx - we could identify people 'on message' who might point us in the right direction.

I was thinking a guide might be good as lots of people have never even heard or would never access organisations - but then would they read a guide??

My experience of organisations like IPSEA has been that they can be helpful sometimes but that your own personal level of expertise very quickly surpasses what they can offer. SOS-SEN is much more bolshy.

Education law hasn't actually changed very much in a very long time. It is all about to - and very soon - so I completely see your point on that!

I spoke to that journo in the very early days. As depressing as it is I realise how lucky I was to have done so, though at the time I thought she must be one isolated unlucky victim.

Btw I didn't know who she was when I spoke to her. Just thought she was another parent, but still have her phone number if it is any use.

Agree about IPSEA though. They seem to be only able to deal with the basics and system as it should be rather than is and get themselves in a muddle when a complication arises.

I've been told things that whilst aren't untrue, fail to take into account the level of nastiness we're actually at nor that the tribunal system may well allow it.

My frustration with SOSSEN is that they haven't enough knowledge about ABA and have jumped on the 'anti' bandwagon which is strange because if they actually looked into it their whole ethos would actually support it.

Although perhaps they have simply seen some awful practice which has put them off which is very possible.