tribunal, LA and SALT

[oramum]

Hi im a newbie here and after some much needed advice.
I have a dd who is 8 and has mild learning difficulties, dcd and phonological issues. Dd has a statement that we are currently appealing parts 2 and 3 through sendist. Dd attends ms primary and is working at p8 - level 1 of the national curriculum.
the statement doesnt contain any SALT as the nhs has discharged dd. I have just had independent SALT assessments done and they have identified the same problems as the nhs SALT. The independent reports state dd needs continuous therapy yet the LA are dismissing this as the nhs have discharged her.
Now im really unsure of what to do. Is it worth me continuing with the appeal? Are the tribunal likely to go in favour with the independent salt recomendations or side in favour of the nhs?
Im confused as the LA have said that they dont have to provide the best education, only an adequate one so therefore dont have to implement the independent slts advice.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks

Have a look at Lancashire case law think it is on the ipsea website. You are not asking for the best education just one adequate to meet your child's needs.

Lancashire Judgement www.ipsea.org.uk/apps/content/HTML/?id=123

What did the NHS discharge report say? I've got a similar thing going on with OT (I'm still appealing refusal to assess, so not as far on as you). DS, who has AS and DCD was discharged by the NHS OT, but her discharge report said that he should follow an ongoing programme which was couched in a way that meant it really can only be delivered by an OT, not just left to the school to manage, I am going to be using that (as well as an independent assessment) as evidence that he does need ongoing OT. No idea what the likelihood of success is though.

Also, can your independent assessment give you a case that she may have a more significant diagnosis? My DS has an official diagnosis of phonological difficulties, but the indi SALT who has just assessd him (haven't had the report yet) says that he is likely to have higher level language disorder which has never been picked up on by the NHS (he still has NHS SALT). The assessments my DS has had by the NHS (OT and SALT) are a lot less thorough than my independent ones.

thankyou wassup.
I have just looked at the link and it is really helpful.
the LA have included dds speech needs in part 2 but part 3 has exercises that a ta can do with her. there is no mention of salt whatsoever.

The nhs discharge report basically says that dd can be supported by her ta and the slt service have provided resources for this (snap cards).

You can get your independent report comments written in to part 2 with the therapy sessions written in, in part 3 either ordered by a tribunal or agreed by the LEA if they want to avoid tribunal. Just use that judgement and quote it.

Whoknows look at the recent Buckinghamshire C.C v HW case law Oct 2013. 7.34 and 7.50 of the SEN code pf practice, also for refusal to assess tribunal.

Thank you, will do.

the problem is that they have admitted that dds phonological needs are educational but that they can be met by a ta not salt.
does the judgement still apply to this situation?

When you get to tribunal you hopefully will have a working document which you will have highlighted the changes in wording to which will relate to a professionals document that you have either independent or NHS. The Judge and Panel will then decide based on the evidence and hopefully encourage the LEA to agree to some changes whilst there with you. My son has many needs and amongst them are phonological ones which relate to one of his recent diagnosis's, dyslexia, he also has auditory processing disorder. is there a chance that simialr issues have been missed in earlier assessments?

yes sorry I should have added before dd has severe dyslexia and also dyspraxia, she also takes longer to process information.

I have the working document from the LA.
they have specified certain provision eg social skills group, weekly, with 10 children,for twenty minutes.
I have added my info from independent reports to the working document but the LA have opposed this in their case statement, as nhs slt have discharged dd. they then go on to list the nhs discharge criteria and say that therapy is not continuous.

If you call sos sen, contact a family or ipsea, they can go through it all with you. Basically if you have reports that say that this is the need and theis is what is needed to meet that need then that is the evidence that the tribunal will look at. Go through all the reports that you have highlight the need and then highlight in a different colour what is suggested to meet that need (obviously on copies of the reports not the orginals). Also go through the wording SOSSEN has a good list of weasel words and phrases to look out for on its website and highlight those again in a different colour. Then hopefully you will have what you need to ask for changes for your LEA to make or for a working document to put together which you can take to the tribunal.

I think we crossed post - have confidence in your independent reports the tribunal will give them equal weight.

Are you also challenging part 4 for a different placement? Just out of curiosity on my part.

no we are not appealing part 4 as I feel / felt that the school could meet dds needs. although now ive had the independent assessments done I have a much clearer picture of her needs and they are more complex and severe than I initially thought .
(working memory 0.4 percentile, movement abc 0.5 percentile, visual perception 0.5 percentile, sequencing ability 1st percentile ) plus she has poor balance, severe motor planning impairment, sensory processing issues, expressive language disorder

Even if the TA can deliver a SLT programme there still needs to be a SLT to plan, oversee and review it and provide training to the TA. So yes I would stick with the appeal. This is more about the NHS being unable to provide for financial / resource reasons - but thats fine because a tribunal can order the LA to fund an indep SLT.

Personally I think with the Equality Act the adequate education argument is outdated, there is stacks of govt guidance saying children must get a good education and every school which is not good or outstanding now gets a needs to improve rating, so why its fair for our kids to only get adequate is beyond me. However the case law says appropriate not merely adequate and appropriate means appropriate education for every one of her special educational needs - i.e. there must be provision listed that meets every single one of her SEN.

DS is 7, ASD and level 1 and we are having to give teachers (via SLT and ABA) a lot of advice about how to differentiate the curriculum so DS can understand it / how to develop his comprehension / teach pronouns / develop speech sounds etc etc.

We have 15 hours per year indep SLT who acts as a consultant / adviser to ABA and school. She doesn't do much work with DS herself just advises and trains his 1:1 staff to do it and does the odd assessment to monitor progress.

You may not get continuous direct SLT but I would be surprised if you did not get some oversight etc and under new Act (or now if your LA is a pathfinder) you can ask to have SLT via direct payments and use an indep SLT. (LA doesn't have to agree but you will have right to ask). Thats what we have now and so much better to be rid of NHS SLT who were only interested in their budget and knew nothing about autism.

In fact at tribunal for ABA we said we didn't need SLT at that age as ABA had it all covered and the Tribunal Panel still ordered SLT half termly we hadn't even asked for! I think you have a very good chance of getting some.

thankyou agnes, thats really encouraging.
tbh I think the only reason the LA are digging their heels about providing it is because they will have to fund it independently, rather than nhs, as nhs have a 8 month waiting list once they rerefer.
im not concerned about the ta providing the therapy, as long as slt are involved to review, set targets and produce a clear programme. at the moment the ta is just reinforcing the speech sounds as dd produces them and tbh I think this could do more harm than good, as this is taking place within the classroom and dd is already very aware of being 'different' to her peers.

Are you calling your SALT as a witness? She needs to explain why TA support on its own is not adequate. You will also need to look at what evidence there is of progress. If dd has not made adequate progress in terms of her speech that is good evidence for her needing more input.

I wasnt intending on calling the slt as a witness due to financial reasons but maybe I might have to.
regarding the percentiles dd has not progressed since july last year. I also have evidence in terms of salt reports that dd has not progressed since reception as the targets are yhe same.

i also have evidence in terms of NC levels. dd has made incredible progress in maths and is now on par with her peers, the gap has closed. however in reading she has only progressed one sub level and is still dramatically behind her peers by 2 years.

does the same apply to ot aswell? as its also been recomended in the indie reports but again nhs have closed the case

We went to tribunal with indi OT and SALT reports both saying needs direct therapy. We took the SALT as a witness but couldn't take the OT as well. The LA had the NHS SALT and OT as their witnesses. The panel in our case were clearly not prepared to listen to silly arguments and questioned the NHS SALT and OT until they pretty much had to admit that DD had issues that would benefit from direct therapy but due to departmental pressures had made the recommendation to discharge her based on department policy due to funding/staffing rather than the needs of the child. Even if your panel at tribunal don't lead the way in this, you should get the chance to ask questions such as "how many staff work with children of this age with this problem? How often are these children seen? How many children are on waiting lists and how long are these" and then ask the indi specialists how often they would recommend therapy for these situations etc You should with questioning be able to push them to answers that will show the cracks in their policy that allow your child to miss out on therapy that is still very much needed. We were awarded everything at tribunal and moved DD to a specialist school with SALT and OT on site, so no NHS worries now.

bizarrely the LA are not taking salt or ot as witnesses, they are taking the EP and HT of school. which suggests to me that they intend to argue that dd is making progress so doesnt need salt or ot.
the LA have already made it clear that the nhs does not offer continuous direct therapy, so that could go in my favour as I have proof (indie report) that continuous therapy is what dd needs.