Won the Tribunal

[theDudesmummy]

That's it really. Won every point we argued. Thanks so much to everyone on MNSN who has offered advice and support!

Excellent!

Yippee! Well done.

Great news

Well done!!! Honk honk

Thanks everyone for the good wishes! We got the home ABA programme alongside half-time school, lead tutor going in to school once a week to work with the LSA, and home programme also in school holidays (more hours a week in holidays). The full amount of consultant workshops that we requested.

Congratulations!

Wow! That's quite a victory. Well done again.

Do you think we'll reach a point where there are so many ABA tribunal wins that the LA will adopt ABA as a standard practice and set up ABA units?

Just a thought as winning ASD specialist indie placements seemed to be the catalyst for LAs setting up their own ASD units.

wetaugust I think the main problem is the cost to families, which puts it out of the reach of many. In order to win this victory we had to be able to run and fund a full ABA programme ourselves for over eighteen months, with absolutely all associated costs, to prove that it works. We also had to be able to get independent experts to assess and to give evidence at the tribunal. If more people could take this route I am sure the tide would slowly begin to turn. But the cost will exclude many.

Anyone without funds is in a total Catch-22: you can't have funding for ABA programme unless you can prove it works for your child, but you can't prove that without already having an ABA programme. This is poorly understood by many people (and in fact many of my friends, who have tried to understand what it is we have been going through in recent months, have expressed complete incredulity at the situation). It is a scandal.

(And everyone has expressed complete disbelief at the fact that we have already had a statement for nine months including one to one support and ABA, but no funding has been forthcoming for it. Even the tax man seemed disinclined to believe it when we had to explain why our tax payments are late. People say "oh but they can't do that!". They can and they do).

Anyway, still happy from yesterday (and yes, champagne was consumed).

Wet, the tide IS turning. Very slowly.

ABA units attached to mainstream are 'starting' to pop up in an LA response to parent-run free schools who are setting up schools to offer ABA.

The programme on ABA has meant a run on places on ABA Masters degrees by educational professionals.

It will take a while and who knows where it can go in the current funding climate, but I am hopeful on the basis that with the welfare estate totally destroyed they simply HAVE to teach these kids efficiently and well.

congratulations dudesmummy Very pleased for you.

Fantastic news! Well done!

Its true Dudes, we were lucky I think in managing to win with a very PT parent run ABA programme for 12 months but still spent £10k to show that. And exhausted ourselves in the process. My other children barely saw me that year between juggling being an unpaid ABA tutor, paid work to fund the ABA and having to be a tribunal 'lawyer' at night.

We also had to keep DS in mainstream nursery PT to prove he wasn't learning there with the LA approach. So for us it wasn't just proving ABA worked but also having to prove the LA approach didn't work. We were very lucky the LA didn't offer us SS place just before / at tribunal as we would then poss have been sent away for 12 months to prove that didn't work either. At which point they could have offered us a different SS…..

Thats happened before - the LA dragged a family who won ABA back to tribunal a year later and the tribunal ruled the child had to stop ABA and try the SS which was cheaper.

The way the new Bill and COP is worded you still potentially have to prove every cheaper alternative / school won't work before winning ABA / Ed O'wise. ABA is still harder to get on that basis than indep school as there is no automatic right to ask for ABA. If anyone plans to respond to the SEN COP consultation which closes 9th Dec I think should push for ABA to be put on same footing as indep SS so you don't have to prove your child cannot be educated in any school before winning it. It should be on an equal footing to an indep SS.

I do think the free school route is one way but you still have to get Councils to say they will fund places at ABA school to get them open / get through the application process. So you can't do it without Council support. If I had the time and energy I would try and open a free school ABA unit in a primary school which was undersubscribed and had spare classrooms by renting the spare space. I am sure that would be a very cheap way of expanding ABA quickly.

Congratulations.

Well done.

Am wondering if some successful ABA-ers might invite their local councillors in to see the massive potential savings they could make by improving the quality of existing services.

If they understood quite how effective a fairly basic ABA approach can be, they might try to convert current provision. If I were a LA, I'd train up ALL special school staff, and most mainstream LSAs, then sit back and count the £££ saved from tribunals avoided/easily won. In the first year alone.

The following year, I'd be busy calculating the projected gains from reduced need for residential schooling, lower adult support costs, dc staying in mainstream & losing their statements....

Failing dc with SEN, like now, costs a fortune. Much of which hits the council budget directly, and quite quickly. If a dc ends up on remand, the council now has to pay the full bill, so the fact that most young offenders have SEN may focus minds eg Brighton

But it needs to be done centrally by govt and rolled out everywhere. Individual LAs can't do it because if they did everyone would move there!

As soon as a LA gets known for being ABA-friendly they will become the national provider which due to the current inefficiencies and lack of widespread training means it is currently pretty expensive to get the specialists in for individuals.

It's game theory. Everyone has to change together or it won't happen.

It's being worked on Maria.
Believe me...

Times change so there's hope, but we invited councillors who told the LA we'd asked. They then declined, just as did all the LA staff.

One member of staff said non-one would come because ABA is a brainwashing technique that makes people who go and see it change their minds and support it.

I kid you not!!!!

Barking.
That is as mad as the university professor in Russia who told me not to look in the gypsy beggars' eyes (they hung around the uni) or they would hypnotise me into parting with my money.

Yep. Obviously the only explanation for changed minds can be brain washing and not, you know, education.

I don't think they all need to change together. If an LA sets up a unit that LA fills it with their children and sells the extra spcae to other LAs. That's what happens with ASD units. I don't see why ABA unit would be different.

And having set up a successful unit the other LAs will be encouraged to follow suite - especially when they see the financial savings in doing so.