ABA in school / funding / autism - advice on how to approach review and future funding

[hope888]

Background

DS is autistic, almost 5.. Has had ABA since about 2.5 years old. We managed to get a 39 week ABA programme written into the Statement when he was 3.8. He transitioned to mainstream primary, with ABA 1-1. Has SLT and OT. School was open, little cautious but constructive. Part time home, part time school about 50/50. Idea was for full transition when ready and for school LSA to learn the ABA. BUT…. School LSA struggled with learning ABA (doesn’t seem to really get it), progress at school but still difficult. School and us want to switch back to home 1-1 tutors, and keep part time until DS ready. School now reasonably positive on ABA. BUT… unclear if LA want to fund ABA any more, ideally LA probably don’t and were expecting school to be doing it from now. No view yet expressed by LA.

Annual Review in Jan. LA not providing any EP or evidence, all our evidence points to ABA still being necessary.

Much is also in the air, as school SEN funding will be cut under new rules coming in as part of new families bill. So better for school, if ABA funding can still come direct from LA to us to pay for a 1-1 person.

We are in the fortunate position of having saved and could fund much of the ABA programme. We would very much like to keep ABA on the statement.

It seems it often comes down to a funding issue, but is there much scope for either agreeing with the LA to part fund a programme or agreeing with school to keep ABA if it doesn’t come out of the school’s funding?

We also have an eye towards personal budgets which will come into force when EHCPs come into force. If we can keep ABA on statement, then we can later argue as to what personal budget should be allowed to fund ABA, say if the programme cost around 25,000 pa we could agree, say, 15,000 (so a saving to the LA) and we agree to make up the shortfall. Is this even viable or possible? We do appreciate that LA is under legal obligation to fund the education part of EHC or part 3 in statement; but acknowledge the reality that govt has cut SEN budgets by about 10% maybe more in real terms, and so LAs are having to cope with that.

Any thoughts from the SEN experts?

Thanks.

Hi, not really answering your question but is there any chance your ABA tutors could go into school as the 1-to-1?
Our tutors do this and they are just on a self-employed basis with the school who they invoice monthly.
It may be that you have to 'unofficially' top-up their wages as schools don't tend to pay much for a TA (prob around a max of £10ph) but better to have your people in.

Thanks. Good notion that will explore with school.

Yes I second boobybum's idea. Schools sometimes can be funny about employing 'outsiders' (ie not their own staff) but they could still be the official employers. I think there's at least one other poster on this board who does it this way (and on the Yahoo ABA group too).

Bodes very well that school are so in favour of keeping ABA, the LA can't really argue that much against them. Worst case would be that LA want to remove ABA but if school still happy to continue, and you have a good number of hours support on the statement, you may have to top-up fees from the baseline LSA costs, but sounds like you're prepared for that. Also, if ds is still only in Reception (?) the LA can't really argue effectively for removing ABA as virtually impossible to prove it hasn't worked after such a short time.

Your school sounds really supportive btw! can I ask where you are, might consider moving there

Yes DS still in reception, and we had ABA since nursery so can show it is working. Will think about discussing with school a top up funding scenario. There defintely are still logistical and other issues about having outsiders, but I think school can see it works and consultant has gone in to give general talks about how ABA techniques can work.

You can PM me for details, but we went in very open with LA but with a reasonable amount of evidence, though other families in LA not so fortunate, so I can't tell you quite why we succeeded with relatively little stress compared to some others.