What has SEN funding got to do with the Parents?

[kafkesque]

Everytime we have a meeting funding is mentioned. What has it got to do with us except putting us on a massive guilt trip? Having a child with special educational needs (SEN) can be very isolating both with school and the other parents so in effect the whole community.

Some children have a higher level of need than others and require more help and support so that they can make progress like mine. As long as they have met their needs and that it is 'suitable' and 'adequate' and therefore they've met their obligation is all I am concerned about.

There is no legally valid excuse for failing a child with SEN. The good news is that SEN is actually an issue highly regulated by law. The rights of parents with a child with SEN are now largely set out in the Education Act 1996 and supporting regulations also with the force of law.

There is also a Code of Practice to which Local Authorities must have regard and a considerable body of case law filling in the remaining gaps. Local authority policy should be about how the authority fulfils its statutory duties and achieves consistency of practice, not how it limits them.

I don’t want money mentioned in meetings any more.

I completely agree. I had the LA tell me repeatedly when we needed a new school for our son it was not about the money but about the right placement. We then found a found a suitable placement and the LA would argue then that it was all about the money!

I don't know how you get around them keep mentioning unless you just publicly in the next meeting state that the financing side of things is nothing to do with you therefore it's inappropriate to be discussing at these meetings

Yes they are obsessed with the money. We have been told how inequitable and unfair it is our son has indep specialist provision. How we are taking money from other children. One councillor even said 'let's hope he makes progress soon so he doesn't need this anymore'. That's like saying let's hope you make a quick recovery from cancer because it's costing us a fortune'. Of course they never acknowledge how financially crippling sen is for parents or siblings in lost careers and income. The truth is doing nothing or giving useless provision is much more expensive in the long run. You only have to look at prison bill to see that.

Yes I also got the other "more important" children speech that's why I am incensed with grief now and can't get on with my day. The dog needs walking GRR. Poor doggy I will do it soon.

Agnes what will happen if he does not make progress sooner or later? I am wondering that because I fear they will try to push DS out of current MS school.

You just say 'I'm sorry, but I really don't have much understanding about money. If you're struggling to prioritise your legal duties you might consider hiring an accountant. Can we please focus the meeting back on ds.'

I don't think it even is about the money. I think 'money' is used to justify decisions to fulfil an agenda.

If it was about Money, they'd have given us our £23k ABA programme for 3 years instead of our £35k provision for whole educational career.

The problem is that decisions are financially based. These conversations take place anyway.

Ignorance of parents with regard to funding etc means that schools can, and ime, do lie. 'Little Johnny is already receiving as much support we can give without a statement'. I need to know when the school is lying. I have found that LA bods are also very interested is seeing how some schools respond to the change in funding. LAs are particularly concerned that they are suffering as a consequence of schools not doing their bit.

The Council for Disabled Children advises that whenever funding is mentioned (as in 'we can't afford x, y z') parents should directly ask, in writing, whether the school has applied for top-up funding.

Of course, little Johnny is receiving only around 5 hours direct intervention rather than the 13.5 hours to which he is entitled, and which schools must show they are providing before applying for top-funding either with or without a statement.

They are financially based, but not in the way they pretend i.e. protecting the public purse.

They financial decisions are made to protect the status quo, final salary pensions, egos of those who have established a career of caring carrotology with their TOIL accreditation built from meetings about meetings about meetings that go on into the evening meaning they have to take 4 weeks off in August without even touching their holiday allowance.

If they gave me half my child's SEN spend. Just half. I would piss off and never bother them again, AND my child will have a great stab at becoming an independent taxpaying adult. The current model is putting at great risk of not doing, costs a bloody bomb and hours in a taxi away from his family and supplementation of education.

Good points. I was not going to concern myself with it, thinking I could save myself a bit of time researching. Now I can see money is an integral part of the whole situation. I can see I need to know when it is important and when it is not, to speak up ect.

(Dog has been walked)

Good points gloria, if we had had had an agreement to meet just half of what we have have been shelling out for our ABA programme we would never have bothered with the stress and great expense to Tribunal and they would have saved lots of money.

Yes, these damn nuisance children requiring funding to be educated

Good point about the lying to parents who aren't in possession of the facts. Knowledge = power.

But despicable (and typical) that they use this as an excuse to parents for not providing due support.

I know funding has nothing to do with me, but you can't help feeling bad when school says they 'are going to have to take TAs off other children to provide for mine'! The whole thing is wrong...the way funding and assessment within ms school is set up just makes discrimination more established rather diminishing it, especially in a small school (approx 50) like where my ds goes...because then you also get the whole guilt trip about how your child brings the assessment levels down and makes the school look bad. Not enough is said about this ! Ahhhh

Yes we had that actually in the tribunal. The LEA rep said that if our DS got the provision we were fighting for then other children would lose out. The judge said "well those other children are not here" and that shut her up!

'I know funding has nothing to do with me, but you can't help feeling bad when school says they 'are going to have to take TAs off other children to provide for mine'!'

Of course you can help feeling bad. If they take a TA off other children that is their choice, based on their priorities. They could also make their gardener redundant and build a team of greenfingered parents, or if an academy, the SLT could take pay cuts.

Why should a small vulnerable child have their life chances scuppered because of the behaviour and priorities of people for whom the current system worked, educated them, provided them with and education and salary, - things that they are trying to remove from my child.

Id be more surprised if the funding ( or lack of it)
issue didn't come up in meetings. It's just standard twaddle now, just like " your child will never get a statement nowadays"

Ridiculous..the lot of them.

Yes totally agree. The way we are then pitched against each other. They could take funding from all sorts of other areas if there's any shortfall, regardless of getting top-up funding. Grr.

Kaf he is making good progress - but only because he has what he has. Councillor was being an idiot. We were at a transport appeal at the time, she didn't even know anything about DS or his progress. LA made a big deal about cost of his provision - which wasn't relevant to transport at all - they put it in deliberately knowing the Tory bigots on the Council would react like that! I should have asked her how she planned to cure him.

We had a hard time with LA for year after tribunal. But the EP has always backed us and they can't drag us back to tribunal without evidence from someone saying there is an alternative that will meet need. The LA EP has told LA it has no alternative for DS. The only alternative is the crap provision DS has already failed on.

We have 4 years of good continuous progress now, if they moved DS or removed ABA he would regress. His behaviour would go downhill very fast without ABA support. I doubt they could even keep him in the classroom. They know they can't achieve for him what ABA does. Its got easier the longer we have ABA to show he does need autism specific provision. It was harder when he was younger as they were in effect claiming he would catch up or grow out of it and was mild - now its very obvious to everyone he is not mild and no miracle is going to happen. He's doing well but it takes a huge amount of hard work to achieve and his progress is slow and steady, not rapid.

What I say now money comes up is simply that the other children should have the same as DS if they need it too, and why does 'being equitable' (my LA favourite phrase) always mean levelling DS's provision down and not raising the provision for the other children up. They usually shut up then.

Excellent points. I can't really add to anything said. It is about money but also about orthodoxies and ways of working. So they will fight expensive provision (or more expensive than they want to offer) but they will also fight anything different that they can't fully dj control.

I was at a local sen fair recently where the LA were pushing the new Local Offer, stressing how parents and children were all equal participants in the new EHC plan and giving copies of what the new proposed plan would look like.

When queried about parental access to funding (very limited) the LA gave the talk about how the number of children with SEN is rising and how budgets are so tight and how people who want more than the LA proposed therapy was using more than their share of the funding etc and how they, the LA had to ensure the other children had access to funding too - not just greedy parents (like me).

I don't know how I managed to keep quiet and keep nodding, with my head tilted sympathetically.

However, at least one LA person was honest and admitted there was nothing for parents really.

I can see how it is about money. However, I don't agree with ther backward planning. We have £xK so let's define the needs such that they can be met in £xK. Well, first define the needs, then find the shortfall. And as a parent I am more than happy to discuss ££ with them. If they have to fire someone to find the money, I will volunteer to do some of their work - eg the gardener mentioned above.

I even offered this to my daughter's nursery. That I can come and assist with any admin work they need help with. They only want to use their own staff.

The central government funding of LAs has been massively slashed over the last few years but I completely agree, LAs have no idea what the cost of really meeting need is in their counties as they simply have never organised themselves in such a way that this is one of their purposes.

So they basically set themselves up ticking boxes: contract for SLT setting out who will get that (tick), service level agreement for OT (tick), directions to schools that 'we don't do statements', limit levels of EP direct working with children, X number of special schools etc etc.

There is no oversight of any of this and no measurement of whether the money spent is effectively applied. The box has been ticked - job done. I think part of the evidence that it isn't effective is the numbers who end up pursuing hugely expensive specialist provision because their children have been so badly failed.

You can see why with this model, it is so outrageous to staff when parents say 'none of this works, I want to do something completely different'. Their whole working paradigm is being attacked.

And then along comes the Children and Families Bill and it will probably make it all much worse. Anything which allows block contracted services and LAs to work together more closely and set county wide provision is a recipe for blanket policies and more 'joined up' working (in the most opaque of circumstances) against parents.

I was told for four years that "a statement does not come with a budget" and I believed them. What they didn't tell me that there is a budget but it is not "ringfenced". This is what I want anybody reading this to know. Don't be gullible like me.

This is what happened to us 'we don't do statements', limit levels of EP direct working with children, too.

So DS could have had the education he is entitled to for four years!

Knowledge does = power.

Statements don't come with funding. Nor should they. They come with legally protected provision to meet need and the provision outlined can be funded, or not. It doesn't matter.

All that matters is that it happens.

As a parent that is what you should focus on. It is not for you to say, or even be asked, how a school should provide a specified resource your child needs. That is management's problem. If they need to think outside of the box or be creative in order to reduce the impact of this on their vegetable garden maintenance costs, well that is what they are PAID for.

Agreed StarlightMcKingsThree. However, if the management dont think out of the box, then our children suffer. That is why it is our problem too..

Our children shouldn't suffer because their provision is legally protected in a statement. it is the vegetable garden that will suffer if the Management can't figure out how to fund both.

Nothing whatsoever. I refuse to enter in to any conversation regarding funding. I look at my childs needs, up to school/health however to decide how they sre going to fund it,