Just received LA file on ds, your thoughts on this please??

[claw4]

Email from LA Case Officer to another LA officer and LA EP it states

"I have been passed the papers for ds in order to draft a statement following his SA" she then goes on to say that she needs EP assessment to complete the draft statement.

Then a month later they refused to issue a statement and issued a NIL instead.

It is common for the case officer to draft a statement, BEFORE they have decided to issue one?

Im thinking they were planning on issuing a statement, then changed their minds?

It certainly looks like this. I would not expect them to draft a statement before they had decided to issue one. My guess would be that either the EP disagreed with the need for a statement or that a higher up bod vetoed the statement due to cost cutting concerns.

LA EP didnt agree or disagree with a statement. She just made recommendations such as a 'level of one to one support'

My Inp EP on the other hand, was more specific and stated he needed a statement and was specific with how many hours etc, etc.

Also found another email stating that SA panel had discussed concerns over mum and decided to report me to social services!

It would seem they decided to blame me, rather than to issue the statement they had drafted!!

So where is the 'incomplete' draft statement?

According to this email 'she was passed the papers in order to draft a statement following his SA'

She then goes on to say 'in order for me to complete a draft statement, i am now left in the position that i need an EP assessment to be undertaken'

Then asks EP whether we have begun any such assessment and states 'before i can continue with the drafting of a statement i would need to have EP assessment'

I am assuming they will say, the drafting never happened, as they did not have EP assessment?

All good evidence - of piss poor behaviour, should you ever need to use it.

It confirms what we've always said - the decision to draft a Statement lies with the Case Officer and not with the Panel they like to hide behind.

She's right though - the EP's evidence must be sought before the Statement can be drafted.

I'd get heavy with them and tell them that even without the EP you have evidence that the case worker felt a Statement was required, to the extent that she began to draft it - so where is it? Or is that a question that you'd need to pose to SENDIST.

Wankers the lot of them.

What i dont understand is if the decision hinged on the EP assessment, the EP assessment didnt reveal anything they didnt already know and wasnt damning in any way. It just confirmed what had already been said (the EP who did the assessment was present at ds's ASD diagnosis, she was part of the 'team' who gave him his dx and made recommendations for SA)

So it seems it went to 'panel' and 'concerns around his mother and her level of anxiety' were discussed and rather than a statement, the 'panel' decided to report me to Social Services.

Well you know me - I'd raise a formal complaint against the Ed Dept.

I'm a firm believer in complaing, I am

I think you should ring IPSEA or SOS SEN to ask if this is grounds for judicial review as a proven unfair arbitrary and irrational decision.

[or ideally get advice from a lawyer but $$$]

Or pass to your councillor and/or head of children's services as this is so very odd that I think 'they seem to have got my case notes confused with someone else's half way through the panel meeting, I'm able to appeal via tribunal myself but I'm worried about the child who actually does have the safeguarding issues they mixed up with our case'

Afaik, tribunal look at the material facts relative to the technical merits of the case and dont really care about dirty tricks unless it's obviously and deliberately done in order to scupper evidence they'd have found useful.

Actually, its not impossible that this was the real explanation. Our case officer told me they typically discuss 12-15 cases in a 2-4 hour meeting (usually the shorter end if the time range). The ones submitted by schools often have near-enough the whole file appended which is a lot of bits of paper.

So what information did the panel have - it should only have been the official info collected for SA from school, professionals etc?
And why did any of it refer to you?
Did any of the reports for SA mention you and your 'anxieties'?
If not then it must have been oral evidence from the SEN officer about you.
And what did the letter refusing SA give as the reason for refusal?

I hate that these panels are allowed not to keep any minutes, nowhere else in the public sector are you allowed to make decisions and not record the decision process.

Sorry guys, i should have made it clearer, this was relating to the FIRST time i applied for a statement and they issued a NIL, about year ago.

I have now applied again for SA and they have refused to assess and the minute i applied this time, reported me to social services again!

I have lodged my appeal against their refusal to assess and requested a copy of the files they have on Ds etc, i received the copy of his file today and looking through the file, i found the email about drafting a statement which is relating to the 1st time i applied, a year ago, when they issued a NIL.

Hope that makes sense.

So i was just wondering if it was normal or common for the case officer to decide to draft a statement, BEFORE it went to panel to decide whether to issue a statement or not?

I thought a statement was drafted ONCE it had been decided to issue a statement?

Hi Agnes, the panel had reports which i had sent in, private EP, Bibic, LA SALT, CAMHS and a report from the ASD team who dxed ds which included specialist SALT, CAMHS and the same LA EP who later provided the assessment they refer to in the email.

None of it referred to me, other than ASD team stating in dx report that 'i was very skilled in dealing with ds's difficulties' and 'when i joined him at the end of the observation the anxiety he displayed throughout the assessment was clearly reduced'

CAMHS also referred to 'ds having a loving and caring relationship with his mother and family' and stating something along the lines of ds needing a great deal of support from me to help him to relax.

At this point i had not even meet anyone from the LA or even spoken to them. All i had done was applied for a statement.

Mum being 'anxious' had come from the school.

I would also add in SENCO notes from the dx meeting (she was present also) she wrote 'mum is quiet and calm with ds'

Reason for refusal was school can met needs from within own budget.

Here the SEN officer chairs the Panel meeting (!!!), the Panel is advisory only so she does not have to follow the advice of the Panel. Parents don't know if the Panel agreed or not with the SEN officer as no minutes are kept. They hide behind the panels but in reality they go in having made a decision already. Thats whats intriguing what changed her mind? Her boss? A report? It doesn't fit.
We found out via FOI the SEN officer had held back most of the info we submitted the first time so the Panel had to refuse SA on basis of insufficient evidence (they 'lost' a lever arch file from nursery). The second time the Panel 'unanimously' agreed to issue a mainstream statement even tho' none of the reports supported it and the EP had advised SS or ABA. To this day we have never got an explanation as how they made a unanimous decision which went against all the evidence. We did get a concession via complaint process the first SA refusal had been prejudged - but only because we caught them out with phone calls and emails via FOI which showed they reached this decision before looking at any of the evidence. The whole Panel system stinks in my experience.
So it sounds as though someone changed her mind - her boss? An outreach teacher?
The only explanation we ever got for them putting DS in mainstream against advice (which they have never repeated even in a formal complaint) was that an autism outreach teacher who had seen DS once (and never spoken to him) told the SEN officer in a corridor that 'DS would be fine in mainstream'. Thats why he lost 2 years of his life.

Sorry cross posted. So have you got the school submission for SA in the FOI stuff?

Like I say it will be some dodgy off the record conversation that never went to Panel, at least not officially.

No ASD advisory teacher had been in prior to this.

She went in AFTER they issued a NIL and reported that ds was having great difficulty with a number of things (nothing on LA file about this) but i got her to confirm at the time via email.

A visual impairment worker from LA also went in AFTER NIL and reported difficulties with ds vision too. She wrote a report

CAMHS also wrote another letter AFTER NIL supporting my statement request.

My ind EP, OT and SALT also went in AFTER NIL and reported great difficulties etc.

They still refused to issue a statement, went tribunal and lost (my own fault)

Also school who were previously supporting my request for a statement, changed their minds around the same time NIL was issued (but forgot to inform me of this)

I applied for a copy of the school file after i lost Tribunal, as school told a pack of lies at Tribunal, so i asked for copy of ds's school file.

Blaming Mum is cheaper than issuing a statement. SS are then used to bully Mum out of tribunal as Mums are terrified of a CP investigation. Got the T-shirt for this one It's usually a very effective technique, that sends pesky Mums scurrying away to hide in shame as an emotional grenade is detonated in the middle of family life.

It should never be taken personally, unless you still want to believe in Santa & think that the LA actually SHOULD give two hoots about your child's education. Any mother whose kid is being failed as badly as some of ours have been is gonna be "anxious" at times ffs (or just vacillitating between hopping mad and totally despondant).

Whatever you do, don't abandon your planned day trip to see the 3 nice musketeers (TB) at Tribunal. If you do, you give the professionals to nod wisely at one another, and wave the threat of SS over your head till kingdom come, rather than actually doing their job.

One day someone will wake up, smell the coffee, and free up the SW's used for these silly games to get on with job of investigating real neglect and abuse instead of being the ed dept's stooges. It'll be the same day they introduce an element of personal accountability to children's outcomes to the whole SEN scam.

Please don't fret over it. Photocopy it in triplicate and hand it in as Tribunal evidence. If you win, send a copy to M.Gove & the LGO.

Could i also double check, once LA receive my appeal, they have 30 days in which to respond? Is that 30 working days?

6 months then put in SA request again. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Do remember SW won't wanna go against all the evidence you now have. Not worth their own career.

Thanks Boc, my fretting days are long gone Ive learnt from my mistakes, i have it well and truly covered this time around!

Last time i was too trusting, when school said they were supporting my application for a statement and in writing too, i believed them. Giving ds 20 hours of one to one and lots of other lovely help. Just a dirty trick, so i didnt ask for a copy of ds's school file and they could sit in Tribunal and lie through their teeth about meeting targets and making progress. Then remove all the help just before Tribunal and say he is coping fine without it.

I know the lengths these people are prepared to go to, nothing shocks me, nothing surprises me and im ready for them this time!

Bochead, NIL was about a year ago. The draft statement email i refer to was from about a year ago, i have only just seen it.

I have since reapplied for SA, been refused, lodged my appeal, so got a copy of the info LA have and found the draft statement email.

It gets confusing, so much has gone on!

Are you any good with power point?

Do a one page visual time line showing key events for your submission. Cos a lot hs gone it'd be good to show when key items of evidence were available (like the crazy SS referrals, the visual report, cahms advice received by school etc). It'll stop any confusion as to just how long school have been aware of your child's difficulties and done sod all. A picture speaks a thousand words and all that.

I'm thinking of a format like the numberlines they use in KS1 iyswim.

Im not Bochead, im a bit of a dinosaur with things like that! I have done a chrononolgy.

I have a solicitor who is dealing with appeal this time, so im sure as long as i provide the info, she will put it across in a hopefully understandable format of some sort.

Thanks for all your advice, much appreciated.

Claw, I wish you so much luck and sending lots of positive vibes for your DM also :)