Can anyone tell me if we need a Private Ed Psychologist report?

[mycarscallednev]

I Home Ed, due to massive failure of mainstream, but after 2 years have found a school who are willing and able to take our son - in 2013. We have our AR next month and will have to fight for change of school, type of school, transport and the fact that the school we need is an ISS.

We have reports back from senior Consultant Clinical Psycologists, SALT, OT, and Consultant Paediatricians at GOSH Neruodisabilities - [8 hours worth, poor boy!]
These include;
Full Cognitive Assessment - Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning,Working Memory and Processing Speed.
Welchsler Individual Achievement Test ll [uk] - including word reading,comprehension,pseudoword decoding, and spelling
Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Forth Edition [CELF-lV]
Childrens Communication Checklist 2
Renfrew Language Scales, Bus Story

..........plus reports from Cardio, Physio and Neuropathic Bowel/Bladder and genetics.

Our LA are saying a private EP is what is needed - I know that these tests cannot be repeated - so why - or are they, as usual, just being difficult?
Any advice would be wonderful, thank you x

I would say you probably would as the ed psych would give evidence of the type of educational setting needed for your son.
Ds is in ISS and the EP would have been the professional we would have taken with us to Tribunal had the LA not backed down beforehand.
Happy to pm you contact details of who we used, found her really good.

That would be great, thank you - I'm hoping that no more tests will need to be done though, not just for the cost, but for the emotional cost to my son - it was really tough watching him being tested.

We have a diagnosis of EDS, Autonomic Nervous System Dysfunction, Bowel/Bladder Dysfunction, Dyspraxia, Dyslexia the list goes on.
We have done our research on 9 local SS and mainstream and none are happy/able/willing to take him, but the ISS is CReSteD approved, Dyspraxia specialist and also has on site OT, Physio and medical staff who can do his Catheters and give pain meds. They have also sent us written confirmation of an offer on a place with them. Our Consultants at GOSH and St Thomas' have all expressed their wish for him to attend, although I know that we are not 'allowed' to name a school just make a 'representation'.

Interestingly the ISS has 84% of its students paid for on a Statement, but our LA make you endure the trauma of Tribunal, just because they can.............

It sounds like you should be hopeful though as you have refusals from maintained schools. Ds is where he is because there isn't any equivalent maintained provision in our County.I think Tribunal is becoming routine and it delays the inevitable which coincidentally saves them money.
Will pm you now.

ds' EP covered many of the above tests. iiwy I'd ask a couple of potential EPs what they feel they would add or which tests may corroborate the previous findings, preferably one who has knowledge of the specific LA requirements.

Thank you, our county are dreadful, his AR is overdue, they make no help available, basically you are on your own. The SEN Code of Practice has become my book of choice!
I am going through the Statement word by word. They have suggested a re-write of the Statement, not just an ammendment, but I'm not so sure this would be a good thing.
His current Statement is Band D [although I'm also told that Banding is worth nothing in real terms - they did send me the total allowances for A and B Bands, but nothing more], I've looked at the SEN Matrix for our LA as its very open to interpretation.
My sons needs are so much more now than when the Statement was written two years ago - on reports made 3 years ago, that I cannot see how they could reduce his band, but as they are soon to find out that we are looking at a ISS I'm sure they'll use this against us.

I think it's darn cheeky of the LA to expect YOU to pay for a service they are supposed to provide - don't they have their own EP on payroll?

As your child is not in school AND there isn't a maintained school that can take him they are failing in THEIR duty to provide hiim with an education & trying to impoverish you to boot! Is the LA paying for home tuition while they mess you about?Trip to your MP is in order methinks.

There's a principle here!

Once youve done that - our indy EP for Tribunal didn't do any further testing as DS was an emotional wreck. Lots of the standardised tests can't be repeated within a certain time frame. What her report did instead was connect the dots and explain what the tests all meant in real terms for a child like my DS in the school environment. Noone had bothered to do that before & looking at all these things in specialised isolation doesn't work for the teacher with a whole child in front of them.

She also bullet pointed a few job descriptions, which had me in stitches when I read the report - but then again like her dot to dot, twas obviously needed in some quarters.

I wouldn't pay for a report before you need to for the Tribunal timescale though. You don't want to have to pay twice for the same info & generally Tribunals expect EP reports to be no more than 12 months old.

Thanks again - yes they do have an EP - but TBH he is crap - even the local teachers 'off the record' say so.

He told me he wouldn't, and couldn't test for Dyslexia before age 14!!!, he wouldn't recognise our son if he was stuck in a lift with him and the tests he did for the last Statement were non existant - no exact results, just his 'findings' whatever that meant?
At the time I wasn't as savvy with the process, and was just glad we had a Statement - for all the good it did. We had [and I suppose still do] grounds for DDA and Human Rights Access to Education due to the dreadful way the school treated our then 6 year old.
Time to move on, but we need him to be at the right school, with the right support and I'll fight [like so many of us here], till my dying breath to get it for him.
Information is power, someone once told me, but its just getting the right info - its a job in itself isn't it?!

We used an independent EP for advice mainly. I talked things over with her and she decided that she didn't need to do another full report with all the the testing after reading all the reports we already had.
Again, as bochead says she joined the dots for us and helped to highlight exactly the sort of provision needed and why. An LEA EP probably won't do this in as much detail as the independent EP told me that she does do some stuff for LEA's and that they are instructed not to specify frequency and quantity of any help required in the reports to give the LEA wriggle room.

Sounds right for our LA - too. It seems an independent EP is the way forward then. Do I just google - apart from the reccomendation from insanity I'll have to looks at the prof. profile somewhere?

I often think a great thread would be a 'name and shame' of helpful and useless LEA's just so as we know in advance what to expect!!

Cheers everyone, as ever I would be lost without all of you here xx

What Bochead said. The EP will join the dots for all the assessments/reports that have already been done.

Do you think the assessments we have are enough?

Roughly where in the country are you and perhaps someone can give you a recommendation.

Alternatively when I phoned SOS SEN for advice they gave me some names from a list they had of recommended people. The OT we used was from them but none of the Ed-psycs were available so it was suggested that I contacted the body who registers the Ed Phycs here [email protected] and they will send out a request to their members if you specify the timescales and the specialisms that they need they will try to match you up to several people.
One of their responses was great for us as she also worked for IPSEA as a volunteer so knew in great detail all about tribunals and how LEA's worked.

Hi,
You can search the British Psychological Society register of chartered psychologists to find an independent EP locally to you and with certain specialisms. Their contact details will be on the website if they are happy to accept direct referrals.
I'm an independent EP. It sounds like you have a pretty thorough assessment there and some of the assessments could not be repeated within 6 months/1 year. However, what an EP would do that a CP might not is provide information on how the assessment results would impact on a child's learning and their educational placement and explain the kinds of support and interventions needed in placement.