Race I'm really sorry, I've realised my pm didn't go through. I've resent it.
Re cost of provision, if they name a school purely on any school must be better than an individualised package, rather than why this one can meet needs better, don't forget it's not only them that can argue it's an unnaceptable use of funds.
Claw I don’t think it’s becoming, it has been standard response in some places for many years. It generally works too. Only a few come through thoroughly battle scared but no case to answer.
I’m cautious of the repercussions of speaking out too much because I had years of what you went through, but because I'm visibly disabled and come from a disastrous childhood, I’m an easy target for having those things used to turn the spotlight away from my dc’s needs, onto the parent and paint a different picture of why a parent says their dc can't get an education in the school provided, or why the child’s needs are the way they are, rather than as a result of the condition they have. It's an old game.
It is very painful to be subjected to, but judges generally see through it if you can keep your head and your dignity and your child’s needs to the fore regardless and doesn't leave people looking like they genuinely had the child's needs at heart if they use this without honest grounds.
Why do SS allow themselves to be abused? Because they operate on ‘no smoke without fire’ theories, a desperate need to back cover should something later happen to any child ‘now known to them’, and rarely acknowledge to parents even when they want to*, that ‘professional colleagues’ at all sorts of levels, routinely abuse their positions to cover up situations, and that they are on the receiving end.
*I’m always reminded of the unspoken conspiracy of silence between adulterous men and the male population as a whole even when they don’t approve.
It's very difficult. I've seen both sides of this but the worse thing for genuine child protection is when an emergency SS/CP inquiry is called for as a silencing tactic, minuted, and then not followed up (or poorly investigated and swiftly closed) because SS know or suspect they're just being used as a stick to beat a parent with. I was of course grateful that they didn’t bother pursuing that one, but, how did they know that my accusers weren't finally right? I hadn’t finally snapped under the years of accusations and strain, or become too disabled to cope, when they didn’t respond?
That’s the dangerous situation ‘professionals’ abusing the CP system to cover up situations, mis management, and malpractise, or discredit parents for other reasons, helped create, and that’s the bigger disgrace IMO.