Worst LA place to live for SEN

[wasuup3000]

I vote Lancashire!!!

SENCoP is a national guide but as is everything it is allowed to be up local interpretation. For example an LA I know of has loads of ss provision because that rather that 'to go to special school you need a statement' they say 'if you have a statement you have to go to special school' luckily the provision they have is good and very varied because of it.

My experience was mainly of early years, but I found Merseyside underfunded and unhelpful, apart from Surestart/Children's Centre. Experience of NHS side more positive, although long waiting lists.

SallyBear, we are under Central Beds and have no problems at all school and statement wise, infact I have nothing at all to moan about :)

Actually that guide thing is a very good idea but it would need to be private e.g. facebook private access. My dd has a physical disability and our LA is pretty awful. Interested in possibility of relocation but don't want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

I suspect the picture is complex though. Somewhere shite for ASD might be good for deaf support.

Agincourt, nothing to worry about here either, but that may change as I am about to request a Stat Assessment for DS1's AS SEN at Secondary School....... Yikes! 12 yrs in MK and the LA have been brilliant. DD was the first child ever in our LA to be joint funded by both health and education. It could have been disastrous, but after 10 years it's still working well.

Starlight - agree, it would have to have chapters

ime, only by finding out on here about groups, direct payments, respite, family fund, etc. not that we necessarily got anyhting, or even applied, but it has all been filed for when we might need it, or it becomes relevant etc.

I have never been 'offered' anything for dd1 - whether SALT, OT, POrtage, any disabled/SN groups or holiday schemes, etc. all found out, by me, by word of mouth, by reading endless leaflets on noticeboards in waiting rooms, by stalking people () on here to see what they might be getting.

all exhausting, tbh.

we're in Northants, and yes, while i think it's far from perfect, from the terrible stories i've read on here (and on other forums), we're staying put until we know what's going with DD

our GP has been amazing - he's fully behind us, and our local CAMHS staff are brilliant, supportive - happy to answer any questions they can, or find someone who will and get back to you.

thelight there are several boroughs in Merseyside and they do vary a lot but not all are bad.

justaboutisnowakiwi- sorry ikwm, im in Kirklees which covers quite a large area in west yorkshire, i have found out that my DD has been placed in a catagory that doesnt exsist ( not ms but also not sn)there is only 1 school in the whole of Kirklees that has a language unit and there isnt any at all in the neighbouring areas like wakefield, leeds or bradford.

'Surely someone should be mangling his care?'

zzzzz, yes - someone should be mangling his care!

But since mangled care isn't really what you would want then it is probably better you just do what you can on your own.

A lot of this is moot now due to both Labour and the Tory's obsession with Academies. The Academy agenda is effectively the Tory death strike against LAs. They have made it clear that it is convert or be converted out there. LAs with a mixed bag of conversion will have LAs crippled by having a large chunk of their funding being diverted to Academy schools in the borough/county so matters that were bad will get worse.

Academies will have to take on or bunch together to pay for a lot of the provision that previously was supplied by LAs but I doubt this will be top priority AND a massive chunk of income was recently diverted away from struggling schools by the government.

Put on top of this the fact that the Tories don't actually believe SEN exist and feel that levels for diagnosis, SA, SA+ and Statements are all too high and it isn't looking good.

The only glimmer of hope is something that absolutely galls me to mention: Ofsted and League tables. Both of these are utterly driven by bottom line results regardless of contextualisation. To stay high and avoid special measures it is vital that schools are differentiating and giving all possible provision to every student especially those with AEN. Now it should not take pressure from above to do this. Good teaching should always be as inclusive as possible but there is only so much provision that teachers can provide on their own. The additional pressure should force schools to do more.

I think the reason it is so hard to find out what is available is that LA's and PCTs cross boundaries.

Add to that nearly every 'provision' is some kind of pilot scheme with regularly changing criteria and funding sources, I don't think many LA's know themselves what is available or at leat how to access it.

But each pilot/provision etc. is written down for LA inspections and sometimes submitted to various government documents for publication as exemplars for good practice. The LA staff then believe that this is some kind of standard provision and look at you in doubt when you say you have no support - however they assume it is/was someone elses responsibility to arrange for you and cannot be bothered to keep in the loop about latest referral pathways.

Indeed, the referral pathways tend to really be to complain loudly and then some inappropriate provision is found from somewhere so you can't say you aren't getting any.

Keeping yes, I take your point re:Merseyside, I tend to use the term Merseyside to allow a little vagueness about location to avoid being ID'd in RL. The particular borough I was moaning about is the biggest, most urban one.

zzzzzz - yep,like Silverfrog, practically any useful information I found out from here, not from GPs/HVs etc. I only found out about a local ASD support group as I had a friend in public health who remembered there was one locally!

thelight I know the one I am next to it, I know many families who have moved literately to the next street, just to be in ours because of the difference. I think your pps has just been cut to a phone line only too!

I agree, Suffolk are abysmal!! We have a group of parents to autistic children who are campaigning for better provision in Suffolk, or trying, autism action group Suffolk it's called, on Facebook. X
www.facebook.com/groups/autismactiongroupsuffolk/

Autismmumsuffolk, Im another one from Suffolk & have had really fantastic support from the LEA (northern area) statement issued no problem, when school were peeing about spoke to SEN officer who tightened the wording. Cant fault them.
The thing that is lacking in Suffolk is ASD specific schools if a child cannot thrive in MS, but that is set to change.
I know there is the FB group but while I understand that those parents feel aggrieved & have not had good support I do know that it does not represent all.
Its the same as all LEA's I guess, it depends largely on finding a suitable school & finding a school that wants to do the right thing.
Seems to be very lacking at secondary level in Suffolk but again the autism families that I know have ahd great support at primary level.