Access to Direct Payments in the South.....

[StarlightMcKenzie]

'Following the single assessment
process, a decision will be made about
how to meet the identifi ed learning,
health and/or care outcomes together
with the child or young person and
their family. This decision will include
whether it is necessary for there to
be a personal budget allocation from
one or more of the available budgets:
education, health or social care (or
in some case from a single pooled
?support? budget).'

Necessary? How about desired, preferred, requested.

Grrrrrrrr...

decisions made about
the identifi ed outcomes and how
best to meet them are agreed and
?allocate? means that if the child or
young person requires support over
and above that available through
universal and targeted support, due to
the level or complexity of their special
educational needs, an
indicative personal budget
is allocated prior to the
drawing up of the Education,
Health and Care Plan.

Wrong way round surely. how can you allocate DPs before drawing up the EHCP. Surely you have to do all the assessment and plan for need first and then allow the parent the choice of how they are going to access the provision.

'A personal SEN budget does not
include funding for the school place,
and it does not include targeted
support managed by the school
or other learning provider to offer
additional learning support to
individuals, classes or groups of pupils
and students.'

Why not? This is where it is needed the most.

'A personal SEN budget could:

− fund time to bring all key parties
together to bridge the gap
between home and school /other
learning provision and to build a
team of dedicated support people
(including family)'

ha ha........

More meetings and tea anyone?

'RAS or Resource
Allocation System
a set of rules which explain what
budget is available, which children
or young people will be supported by
this budget and what outcomes are
set against the use of the budget.
A RAS may include a simple set of
questions which will be completed by
the family and linked professional;
this set of questions will result in an
indicative allocation of a personal
budget.'

These 'rules' no doubt will be a guarded secret and/or non-existent but down to the 'professional opinion' of a gnat.

www.se7pathfinder.co.uk/se7-documents

More here if you fancy it.....

'This may include the use
of a personal budget (or budgets) if
it is agreed that the child or young
person has support requirements
which cannot be met through
mainstream services or targeted
support'

So, SALT won't be included as that is 'targeted support'.

Basically overall what they are saying is that parents can have a personalised budget IF and only if the LA don't want to provide it themselves.

Star do you know what they are doing about piloting EHCPs? Are they asking parents to trial them?

Sorry. My LA aren't involved, though many at DS' school are from LAs that are.

I'm working my way through their documents. They are very helpful and informative actually, though not inspiring. The LAs are working together to ensure that they find ways of legitimately retaining as much of the money as possible. I suspect they are trying to be legal about it (as they are being monitored by each other) but it does expose some real loop holes in the proposals, and not to the benefit of the child.

Absolutely. I think one of the key issues, as you have highlighted, is that parents/carers won't get a sniff at these things unless those services are not already provided. For example: 'This may include the use of a personal budget (or budgets) if it is agreed that the child or young person has support requirements which cannot be met through
mainstream services or targeted support'

They can offer that this covers almost everything.

I've only got as far as the Windscreen Of Need (TM), and I'm already losing the will to live. How can something so time-consuming to produce say so little?

That Windscreen Of Need also looks exactly like a cutaway design of a nuclear weapon implosion system. What are they trying to tell us?

OMG, I've found the windscreen of need.

Bloody Hell!!!!!!!

Going from yellow to red is quite telling. If you're a Freudian you'd think that the more it swings to the right and goes into deeper red the more into battle you go and hostile it gets.

That high level support colour should have been pastel or green. It should say 'Warmth, love, care, support', - not 'go to hell!'.

se7.kentpeps.co.uk/downloads/SE7%20SEND%20Pathfinder%20Workstream%20Map_(HF000003054130).pdf