just had meeting with SENCO at school.

[angeLstillchasingDXpeacock]

following on from my last thread "help writing a letter to school", I noticed there was a "drop in" with the SENCO at school to discuss IEP's etc...so i booked an appointment for tonight.

We went in, and sat down, and the first thing she said was "I received your letter saying you have applied for SA".... ok, well thankyou for clarifing that...lol Then she said we needed to fill in a CAF.... EH? thought this was an appointment I booked...not you!!??

anyway, We went through some of the CAF, and she said that she would fill in the bits she needed to and could do without me there, and send me a copy to add bits, add them in, send me another copy to check over, then send it in.

then proceeded to show us (me and DH, the kids were accupied with lego and colouring..) a chart from a test she "is doing with all the children on IEP's"
It has two tests on it that the child completes. one is two pictures on either side of a list of words. the child has to then pick the word which best connects the two pictures E.G. a table on one side and a tree on the other....best word..."Wood" IYGWIM
The second part is a test which is like a jigsaw and has peices across the bottom of the screen, the child has to pick the right peice to fit the section of the jigsaw....IYGWIM

in the first test he scored highly, and was just about his age....the second test he scored VERY low and was 2 1/2 years behind.... but this lead to an overall score which was "88" apparently between 84 and 120 is "normal IQ"....even though it gave him an age 1 year behind.....

surely this is an indicator again of something being not right....

then at this point she asked if i had any questions etc.!
I asked her about getting the EdPsych in, which she said would happen if the SA was granted. I KNOW THAT!! DURRR!!! lol..... So i asked if the SA was refused could we still get them in. She said she would "look into it" GRRRR!! but that wasnt a NO! hahahaha

she then tried to recover the old ground of "he will catch up" "all children are different" and "he is making progress" (yes but not enough!) to which i had calm, reasoned and concise retorts!

anyway.... chase up SaLT and the Outreach report, Wait for this CAF form to add my pence-worth, and wait for the SA decision.

hate this waiting malarky!!

no need to reply, just wanted to update... :D xxx

You really don't have to. Whatever they say. Ask them where in the code of practice it says it has to happen. Which appendix it goes under.

And even if you do do it, you can refuse to answer many of the questions. Some of them are lifestyle type ones which IMO are frankly no-one else's business.

Hi Agnes and Star, thought i would just pop in for a while, things are quiet this end, no battles to fight for now! How are you guys?

Sorry Angel for the slight hijack! Caf's appear to be everyone getting together to discuss what a good job they already doing and that needs are being met, will the school and LA will then try to use as evidence that a SA isnt needed. I wonder if the school were applying for SA, instead of you whether they would still feel the need for CAF! Im guessing not.

In my experience without the backing of the school ie when parents apply and school dont think you should, to the LA this is the perfect excuse to point the finger at 'over anxious' mother.

My gut feel about the CAF is that they are being pushed more and more, & will become compulsory, because it's a lite version of what is going to come in when the SEN Green Paper finally becomes law, ie the EHCP. The whole thing is geared around multi-agency assessment. Plus of course there's this constant push towards "joint working" because they are all under huge budget pressure and Education is sure they are paying for stuff that is actually down to Social Care, and Social Care is sure they are paying for stuff that should be funded by Health. Etc. So there's this constant hope that by dragging someone else into a meeting they might suddenly volunteer to pay for something.

For the moment I'm sure you can fight the CAF off if there's only one agency involved. And I'm really unclear what will happen during the transition when the new process comes in, ie what happens to kids who already have statements but never went through the CAF process. If they are going to retrospectively impose EHCPs on those kids, and if so maybe it's better to do a CAF now while it's still fairly fluid and you can (eg) choose to be in charge, and so decide what info the EHCP will inherit.

claw I'm so pleased to see you. Truly. You're one hellova woman and had more to deal with than anyone I've ever 'known'. I hope things are a bit better.

Well thank you Star

Slightly better, in as much as ds is not scratching himself as badly as before, although still scratching and he is not refusing school. So some positives!

He is still receiving little help in school, for example they have taken SALT away totally now. Previously a year ago he was on 0.4 centile for semantics and 3 years behind vocab. SALT assessed him recently and apparently he is now on something like 50th centile for both, so either brilliant progress or she doesnt know what the hell she is doing! Im saving for private SALT who assessed a year ago too, to reassess him, hence my hands are tied for now.

Sorry. I got a bit hysterical there, but I truly am pleased to see you!

Sounds a bit more positive about your DS. I'll hope with you that the SALT is right but......... private assessment is sensible.

Also, I have no idea if you logistics or finance would allow, but have you seen Moondogs training day?

Hahaha! @hysterical that truly made me LOL

The SALT 'programme' was nothing more than 'do sheet number x' with a TA! He hadnt met any of the targets a few months previously, then all of a sudden next assessment, he has gone from 0.4 to 75th. So he was either never on 0.4 to start with or those sheets are bloody good! Still ds is a bright boy, maybe its something that he has literally worked out for himself.

No, i havent seen the training day?

Had to laugh at SALT report she says that ds was 'able to talk about a range of different topics and would often lead the conversation. He was able to tell me that he was a storyteller, blu-tak designer and collector, stone collector and rubber collector'

None of which is true and she cant see anything wrong with that conversation, lets remove the ASD dx as well as SALT!

Yeah for claw! Not sure you've been on here since I name changed several times - I was debs40. Good to hear from you!

OP - forget CAF unless you truly see a benefit. Our LA introduced them as a precursor to SA saying that parents HAD to have one before they could even access a statutory service like an EP which is totally unlawful.

They say they are not doing that anymore, but, who knows?

Hi Debs, i tried namechanging, so as not to give too much info away, but got it all tits up! I havent been on for a while though at all. Glad to see all the 'oldies' are still here

Sorry for slight thread hijack, but what exactly is a CAF? I want to apply for a SA for my DS soon, but his school don't think he needs one, or thats what they are saying anyway, I am trying to arm myself with all the relevant info at the moment but haven't heard of the CAF before .

Common Assessment Framework - "It aims to help the early identification of children's additional needs and promote co-ordinated service provision to meet them

The CAF is a standardised approach to conducting an assessment of a child's additional needs and deciding how those needs should be met"

In my experience used to try and show that a SA or Statement is not needed.

Ok, thanks, i won't agree to that if they suggest it then. I am busy compiling a list of all the reasons he does need a SA before I go in and see them again.

So far the realtionship has been very good, they have done everything suugested by his OT and SALT but I think he needs more, plus the security of it being a statement rather than an IEP. So hopefully I can talk them round to supporting us.

Thankyou to everyone who has posted about this (and dont worry about the hijacks lol)

I spoke to the one person who is on our side today, from a local ASD charity, and she told me to go for it. They fill them in, they work with them, they know that if you dont have one you cant access certain services that may be offered in the future.

she also said you can have a CAF with purley the name and address completed and nothing else.

After reading what everyones put and talking to her. i have decided to continue with the CAF, ensure the details on it are only what i consider necessary, and i will put myself down as the lead person. (with the help and guidence i will get from the ASD charity lady)

SS (social services) will NOT get involved if that box is not ticked.
and if anyone tried to use the "plenty of provision in place" argument, they will feel just how sharp my tongue is! lol.

I have already requested SA and will drag my feet regarding this being completed untill the decision has been made, and if they refuse, they cant use the CAF as a reason.

i think i have covered all bases with this, where i can possibly work it to our advantage....and im sure i can learn along the way, from my lady...from researching, and from you AMAZING ladies here!!

thankyou so much for you help, time and time again!! xxxx

Good luck!

Yes, good luck, knowledge is power in these matters!

Social services are not involved in a CAF unless they are an agency that needs to be invilved with the family anyway. They are involved in quite a lot of CAFS, because a lot of families that need a CAF, are also the same families that need Soc Services support, but if a family doesn't need that support, then having a CAF won't bring them in.
I totally agree with r3dh3d though, that more and more services want people to complete them.
WhoKnows You certainly don't need a CAF to apply for Statutory Assessment. CAFs are all about bringing different agencies together, they are not to do with educational provision per se.

angel In my LA many Childrens Centres have people that can advise you about CAFs, and if they haven't got someone themselves, they will know the phone number / e-mail of the Local CAF co-ordinators, so that might be a route to more knowledge for you, if you decide to go down that route.

Thankyou BackforGood

and thankyou for the "good luck"....im sure i will need it!! lol xxxxx

I didn't start out doing it. I took over when they all started ganging up on me and meeting without me.

The first thing I did was cull the no Of people involved and eventually write to the CAF manager and cancel it.