Tribunal hearing tomorrow, please send me good vibes & last minute tips

[drowninginlaundry]

Well the bastards are fighting it, to the surprise of everyone on our team.

We have a complex case, DS is 9 severe autism, was in special school, we took him out in Jan, started ABA, and we are now asking for ABA plus part time mainstream primary at starting at year below age group with gradual increase in attendance, 1-on-1 weekly SALT and OT sessions, and loads else. Panels do not normally think ABA is appropriate for older children so that's what we have to argue. We are using our right to mainstream, local authority is offering specialist unit which has already said they can't meet his needs and which didn't manage to teach him anything, where he already attended first two years before he was moved to a special school. Said special school, serious safeguarding failures, Head suspended, staff member on bail waiting for trial, local authority denies everything.

We have a good team, barrister is JF, solicitor MN, ed psych AW, kick ass BCBA and SALT coming tomorrow. I am nervous, although this is our second SEN hearing in four years. If you have any last minute tips send them my way along with any words of encouragement x

I will send you the best of vibes.

Try and win the hearts and minds, be firm in what you say but sweet in how you say it. That is my only tip, as you sound like you are well sorted.

You know there is the ABA TV programme on BBC 4 tomorrow night, plus ABA is featured on The Wright Stuff on TV tomorrow and possibly even Radio 4 Today prog. Not sure if that helps, but may give you fodder if they say ABA is little-known.

X

It sounds like you have a great team, and I have no advice apart from try to get a good night's sleep.

I'm unfortunate in that today was meant to have been my hearing date, but my LA settled last week.

Good luck and wishing you all the best. Go get them!

Sending you good vibes. JF was excellent at our Tribunal in July. Hope you get what you want.

And ABA is slowly but increasingly being used with older children - Lighthouse School in Leeds is ABA based free secondary school funded by the Department of Education. Obviously the Tribunal should have heard of Treehouse which covers secondary. ABA schools have good track record of managing children who would otherwise be in residential schools. The new NICE guidance on autism interventions for children and adults refers to ABA methods (reinforcement, functional analysis etc) without actually calling it ABA of course!

Good luck!

Sounds like you have a great team who can all provide clear, hard objective evidence of why/how this is the most appropriate and successful path for ds to take. Really wish you the best of luck, and hope you get an enlightened and non-blinkered panel. All the very best.

No advice as my LEA settled the day before tribunal, but hoping you get a good night's sleep and sending lots of good vibes

Good luck! Wishing you all the best and sympathy for being the victims in such a joke!

Who's representing the council?

Good luck

Wear layers: the heating will be either way too high, or far too low
Bring posh snacks/ water: being (far) better fed than the LA helps morale
Scribble pad: if you want to shout obscenities, jot them down instead
Practice your fake smile, and condescending head-tilt, use freely
And put a small carrot in your bag, to remind you why you're there

Bet they pull out at 09:57

Honk honk

Good Luck!

Good Luck!

Good luck- hope it goes well for you.

Good luck.

It is disgraceful though. They push these things to force you to spend thousands with a team of professionals, knowing that you'll feel like it was all worthwhile when you win - which I am sure you will.

So their conduct in not making a decision they could have made much earlier will doubtless go unpunished, you will win but be out of pocket substantially and everyone walks away with a fat pay cheque.

The system stinks.

I hope your tribunal went well today. As others have said, you have a great team. We had the same Ed Psych as you and found him a very good card to have in the tribunal. Fingers and everything else crossed for you!

I hope your hearing went well, and you don't gave too long to wait before hearing the outcome.

Thank you all, have just recovered and resurfaced...

It went well, our barrister JF thinks we've done it, mainly because the local authority rep was so incompetent - they didn't have any legal representation. We live in rural south west and they are probably not used to families hauling their asses to tribunal. We lucked out with the judge, who put the boot in to the LA on arrival. At one point there was talk of adjourning the whole tribunal because LA in their unique incompetence had not manage to do a consultation on our chosen school (panel members going 'well how much time do you need?! it's been six weeks!') but in the end we'll get a decision on Part 3, and have to sort out Part 4 later (in a separate hearing but if we knock out the LA's offer it probably won't come to that). In a nutshell the LA's offer is unlawful because they were offering, initially, part time school place (as we requested) with no teaching for the remaining hours in the week when DS was supposed to be at home. Their faces when this was pointed out were priceless

Why couldn't they do Part 4 this time round? Presumably you had something from the school confirming they could meet needs and offer a place, so why did the LA need to consult? And if LA's offer is unlawful, why does the tribunal need more time to consider that?

Because tribunal panels fall over themselves to appear 'fair' to LAs. They are after all, the ones with the funds to go to upper tier.

Really glad it went well. You don't live somewhere which rhymes with Shitshire do you?

Sounds like it went o.k - hope you get what you want .
I've also had a tribunal this week (discrimination). It was quite enjoyable watching the school being pulled apart by the panel . Even the LA staff couldn't help save them this time!

Well done

Well done and good luck with the next bit.