School said no budget for ed psyc ass?

[flowwithit]

Ds at secondary school age 11 v anxious. We recently have private diagnosis from recognised psychiatrist for AS also on meds now for panic attacks. Phoned senco teacher and was told no budget for ed psyc ass. And could be ages to get app anyway! Senco didn't even ask to meet us just spoke on phone. Found out private ass is over £1000! Does anyone have advice about what i should do next? Or what I should expect to happen? Thanks

ask GP to refer you to developmental paed/CAMHS
Apply for statutory assessment yourself - standard letter on IPSEA

Hi flowwithit?

This might be a stupid question but why do you need an appointment with an ed psyc if you already have a diagnosis? I thought a child usually sees an ed psyc as part of being referred to cahms and on the road to getting a diagnosis.

School should be able to put steps in place to support your child if they have as dx unless they feel that your child needs a statement which you can start the process yourself.

Apply for a statement if they agree to assess an ed psych assessment will be carried out as part of the assessment process.

Also - lack of budget is not a reason to for a school to refuse to request an assessment. If they believe there is a need then the referal must be made - their budget is not your problem.
I would make an appnt with the SENCO, & insist she makes the referal if she says lack of budget then i would ask to see where in the school SEN policy or in the SEN code of practice does it say that referals will only be made if budget allows!
Also one of the governors will have responsibility for SEN, that should be your next port of call & dont forget to include a copy of all correspondnce to the head, sometimes dept heads & sencos cna be so worried about not blowing the budget they forget their is a child at the end of the request. The head may have no idea that there is a need.

Sorry I forgot to say we are nearly at diagnosis but need ed psyc ass to complete this formally

ed psych can't dx asd.

private psych (if a child psych not just an ed psych) can. if you have paid out for private psych assessment there is no need for ed psych to even look (i assume the private psych did all the developmetal tests as well?) ours did about 6 including wechsler, wiat, (which is usually all the ed psych will do) conners, dsm iv int sched etc.

what does the psych want the ep to do?

you need to speak to your child's paediatrician. sometimes they will write to schools requesting statutory assessment on your behalf. and they are more likely to be able to dx than a random lea employee with no specialist knowledge.

did you give senco and ct a copy of the psych report? did it contain recommendations to support ds at school? they usually do. call school and ask for a meeting with senco and form tutor to discuss the support contained in the report. you can discuss whether he needs a statement at that point. some children with as do, some don't.

EP can only make recommendations re educational needs; they cannot diagnose AS. EP report can be useful to the LEA with regards to the statementing process.

Supposed no budget for an EP is not your problem.

Would apply personally to the LEA for a statement; as you are seeing from school you are your child's best - and only - advocate here.

Confused now? Ds anxiety so bad couldnt wait so GP advised us to see child psychiatrist privately who is also NHS and ASD specialist. We were told there is diagnosis of AS but waiting for ed psyc ass and speech lang therapist to write the concluding report. Ds doesn't seem to have speech probs though?

Education Psychology is a statutory service. School have so much time devolved to them each year. It may be that the school is saying they dont consider that your child is sufficently severe.

You could try ringing the Principle EP for the LA and tell them what the situation is.

Tell them that unless the EP service sees the child and conducts a detailed assessment of the child to include a full WISC IV or BAS II IQ test and the attainment scorees for literacy and numercy you will be instructing a private EP.

They will not normally want to see this as the private report will be far more specxific detailed an quantified than a LA EP report and so is more likely to cost the LA money in making the provison recommended in the report.

This whole process is about cost and not needs.

if his main issue is anxiety, have you been referred to camhs? or was it the waitlist for camhs that was too long? are you on it now?

is he accessing cbt or anything? if he's on meds for panic attacks and gp hasn't referred on for counselling services i'd be pissed off.

what tests did the private psych do? they are usually pretty thorough.

You're being given the runaround I'm afraid.

The private consultant psychiatrist could and should have sufficient confidence in his own dx to be capable of presenting his diagnsotic findings without Ed Pysch or SALT input.

We also went private and our private cons psych did so. We also got a later NHS cons psych dx and that too was issued without Ed Pysch and SALT input.

As your private Cons psych also works in the NHS he's probably following a protocol that his NHS Trust has set down for NHS consultations - which can effectively prevent NHS cons from issuing NHS dx without Ed Pysch and SALT input.Different Trusts have different rules on his. But you are private so he's not bound by this.

Remember - you are paying him.

It goes against our nature but you need to be insistant and get him to issue formal written dx NOW!. Even it he has to write that the dx has been issued without the benefit of Ed Pysch / SALT.

If he continues to stall then contact your Local Councillor and complain that your LA will not permit your DS's diagnostic process to complete because they will not provide access to an Ed Pysch.

But it still shouldn't be necessary as my own DS's NHS cons psych also issued dx witho SALT input.

GP should have referred your DS to CAMHS - he should be on their waiting list.

But most importantly apply for a Statement yourself. Don't wait. You'll see an Ed Pysch etc as part of the assessment process.

What do you need the diagnosis for? You know whats wrong, what do you think a formal dx will bring? Focus on what support you need - there may be other ways of getting that eg statutory assessment. If you are being denied something because no formal dx it may be cheaper and quicker to challenge the criteria.

We felt we needed diagnosis so that we have a better idea of what is root cause of Ds anxiety and for confirmation of what we thought. As he is HFA or AS sometimes his difficulties are ignored or not spotted and he is given the 'just get on with it'or 'what's the matter with you' ' dont be rude' why dont you understand what i just said' attitude from teachers. This is what he finds most upsetting and confusing. He also has probs with busy loud areas and germs and toilets that add to this anxiety. Hoping that psychiatrist confirmation will help school to take it seriously.

ed psych will not confirm an asd dx. they are in no way qualified to do so. nor do they have the funding.

fwiw, ds1 sounds a little similar. he had a private full psycho-ed assessment with a child psychologist, which diagnosed adhd, some social difficulties, and anxiety, and formalised his academic status. the child psych notes that although he has some of the traits associated with asd, he did not fit the diagnostic criteria sufficiently to warrant a full diagnosis. she has written about 30 suggestions that she believes could be used to support ds1 both at school and at home. he has also been referred to the camhs

Equivalent service for anxieties and phobias. The paed did the referral for the mental health aspects.

School were happy for ds to go on the waiting list for Ed psych assessment using the school budget, but he wasn't a priority and it could be at least a year, maybe more, before he got to the point of assessment. The paed suggested we go for the private route to speed things up if it was a possibility. She prescribed some mess but we are awaiting asessment for the mental health side.

School are drawing up ipps based on the psychs suggestions for both his sn and his educational needs. He won't get a statement, so I'm not bothering to follow through with that. School have recognized his needs and are looking at how best to manage them.

Apols for randomness of split post. Laptop totally pissing me off today.

Meds! Meds! Meds! Not mess. There's enough of that around here already.

The new NICE guidance states that the gold standard is to have SALT/OT/EP and Ped imput. The Ped may just be following the Nice guidance. Incidently that does not mean a Ped only assessment is not valid.

The new NICE guidelines are pure bollox and will only lead to the dx process being unnecessarily prolnged as this gaggle of 'professionals' find time to provide their input and blur the process when one specialist disagrees with another or clings vexatiously to their stereotypes of what absolutely must / not be present before they'll consider an ASD dx.

Keep the 'hangers on' out of the dx process.

It's interesting that Tony Atwood says a dx can take as little as a couple of hours by a trained psych.

Ed Pysch and SALT both saw my DS at 7 - both failed to spot he had ASD. ASD. Fat lot of use those jokers would have been playing their part under the NICE guidelines.

He's never even seen an OT.

It was an experienced Consultant Psychiatrist who dx'd DS (privately and subsequently confirmed by the NHS) - alone.

I've already got one medical negligence case ongoing for failure to stick to nice guidelines. three years in so far.

Ya gotta love it.

wet august would you be able to pass on details of the private psych?

Thanks to all that have posted all v helpful and you have confirmed my feelings that I have been fobbed off! Need to make some phone calls today then.
We also had CAMHS ass at age 8 and were seen 2 short app. Ds seen for 15 mins. Despite school expressing their concerns too and ds ticked almost all boxes for AS. We were given parenting advice and told he's just a difficult child!!

Wet August - The new NICE guidance may well be pure bollocks but that is the guidance. I have already had LAs say that private Clinical Psy who diagnosied ASD on her own, and this is someone with 30 years experience, her diagnosi was not valid and quoted NICE as being the justification. We countered that, within 6 weeks we had an indi SALT/OT to back her up and confirmed the diagnosis - LA grudgingly accepted it.

Thanks Nigel looks like that's why psyc is asking for the other ed p and SALT ass to complete process. I did not know about new guidelines. This just prolongs process even more as cant get private ed psyc app before march. Not heard from school re their LA ed psyc but was advised wait for that would be a year! Be lucky if we can keep him in school that long! So stressful having your child in turmoil not right to add to that this kind of battle. Need help not brick walls.

Nigel

Well done for getting LA to accept private dx. There is absolutely no valid reason for them not to. I'd love to see the LA get taken to court over a failure to recognise a competent but private clinician's dx.

I had no problem at all getting LA to accept DS's private dx of Aspergers from a Professor of Developmental Delay Disorders.

It's probably not just about diagnosis, but to do with advice/strategies to support the child in the school context. Ed Psychs are often the only professionals who observe the child in 'natural' situations such as the classroom, playground etc.