So, what cuts would you make to SEN provision?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

In light of the Wirral report and the suggestion that the parents they interviewed were 'pioneers', innovative, open to change, outcome-focussed etc. and of these parents a total of 4% listened to the SEN team for advice etc... I was wondering if it would be possible and indeed desirable, to make whole SEN departments 'Big Community' run.

By that I mean, take said innovative open-minded outcome-focussed parents and get them to run the departments in their entirety. Ask them to get better outcomes for the same money. Ask them to get better outcomes for less money in fact.

I am utterly utterly convinced that it could and WOULD be done.

Yes the SLT really just comes along occasionally as a critical friend, does some assessments and highlights the gaps for ABA to work on. DS is at 3 keywords now, to be honest SLT is bit bonus, we were going to ditch it but then LA agreed to give us direct payments so we could get ABA friendly SLT. We have just started working on his speech sounds too. He's 7.5 now. Taken 4 years to go from non verbal to 3 kW and we could be on 3 kW for a while yet! So feel we are just getting to point when SLT can add value to what ABA already doing.

Yes we did toileting in 4 days and eating in a few months. Never did use the laminated book about toilets autism outreach provided.

Polter I am certainly not ASD focussed. I think what I say replies equally to kids with or without asd. Most kids I work with don't have asd and I don't feel it is my strongest area clinically.

I think the problem is that everyone knows that the service for their child's needs is usually rubbish either in whole or in part. When they query it they are told that there are other more deserving cases. So naturally parents assume children with other needs are getting a better service. It is only if you have a child with different needs or use something like this board that you realise that everyone is getting a rubbish service albeit with different excuses.
e.g. I remember an irate mother complaining how hopeless the service for her son with LDs was (and I'm sure it was). She said all the money was being spent on children with dyslexia. As I was at that time 7 years and counting to even get a dyslexia assessment for my ds, I knew that wasn't true but the system had effectively managed to deflect criticism by pitting parents against one another.
Sorry a bit off topic.

I am only talking about my experience and about asd, I wouldn't pretend to know if SLT and OT can help other sen, just know it didn't help us. If SLT and OT wasn't wasted on children it is never going to help there would be more left for those it can help. We've had a lot of money spent on DS that was wasted, I would rather that time had been given elsewhere and we had been give only autism specific services. Having a SLT who has no idea how to speak to a child with autism or engage them is a waste of everyone's time.

Which all brings us full circle to the point I made up thread about meetings needing to make explicit the expected benefit for the child imho.

Outcome based services as opposed to getting parents to "accept" their child's limitations which are more often about the abysmal aspirations professionals have for children would make a difference. Temple Grandin's post about building on strengths so that children can have a happy independent life really struck a chord with me. I felt it applied to a far wider range of disabilities than just ASD.

The bulk of s/lt time is didn't in hugely expensive 1:1 clinics seeing kids with mild language delays.this is primarily because these are easier to process and turn into the sort of data that the NHS can crunch. Thus of prime importance is how many of these kids Re seen, no one cares if it is effective or not. I think this is the case everywhere . Process is far more important thN outcome in 18 years if work I have never been asked about measurable outcomes and neither has anyone I know. Unbelievable. Even the teaching profession has inspections. Boone has ever observed or markedif you like any of my work ever apart from when a student. I could be spending all day blowing bubbles and leading interpretive dance sessions for all managers care. As long as I can record contacts, everyone is happy.

I am measured on everything but my work. Unbelievably I am even expected to complete a weekly hand washing audit although I work nowhere near a hospital.

It is utter madness and I loathe it for its pointlessness.

SLT and OT has been great help to me too (also not ASD). SLT has moved my ds on so much BUT it is all private. The amount of NHS therapy offered can't be producing any measurable improvements so could be seen as 'ineffective' and withdrawn when the truth is children need much more therapy to have an impact. To use the broken leg analogy again it is a bit like offering a bandage and when finding that doesn't work concluding that all medical intervention is ineffective. My private SLT also thinks NHS therapists become deskilled by the need to stop after 6 weeks so they can never see a problem through.

I'd sack any therapist who doesn't follow up an initial assessment or recommendation with actual therapy.

My son gets nothing from 6 monthly assessments except stress.

family support workers attached to the local children centre. Yes I'm sure they are very nice but they are just parents that have done a 6 week course and know nothing about SN, So don't keep paying them to attend my childs meetings... the silly woman has never uttered a word!

I definitely wouldn't want to cut portage, it has been by far the best input we have had - but I would get the other therapists to work through our portage worker, so physio, ot and salt to attend a portage session in our home - then portage an I can work on programme together. This has happened eventually with us, but not without a big battle and lots of useless in clinic sessions, with ds refusing to prise himself from me or even look at the therapist.

All my suggestions involve spending money to save money but here's another one.

Commission proper controlled studies to show which interventions actually work and then scrap all the ineffectual ones.

SALT did actually provide some useful intervention when the ds's were little and had very unclear speech so I wouldn't cut completely.

I love Moondog's suggestion about centralised information - I have lost count of how many two hour interviews we have had to repeat the ds's difficulties over and over again to different people and it is the same questions every time.

Centralised information is only any good if anyone ever looks at it. IME using half the session to 'interview' parents is considered a justified waste of time.

There was the 'Early Support' programme that was supposed to do this, but though I was made to complete the documents, no-one ever asked to see it but yet it was argued that DS had had this 'intervention'

The lazy nebulous concept of 'support' is the most sinister of then all. An ill defined totally unmeasurable concept but by dint of uttering or writing said word, the professional involved truly believes they are Doing Good.

Someone once asked me, complete with head tilt and fluttering eye lids if I wanted to 'speak to someone'.
I responded that no I didn't but I did want her to do her job.

The while sorry business makes be feel tainted.
Urgggh.

I would suggest you prepare a one sheet summary of all personal details and issues arising and then a timeline of ' interventio'. Then when someone asks you the same old questions, hand over and say ' here is the information. I am not prepared to waste time repeating it.'

One if my most noxious experience was with an ed psych who wanted me to take part in some drivel called ' solution focus'.

I told her all the things that needed to be done, she tilted and fluttered and wrote and sucked her pen and looked intense and then left.
Trite report ensued.
Nothing was done.
I took over totally and did it all myself.

I am ashamed to be part of such a pathetic time energy and money wasting system. It's not even a system. That suggests a measure of order. It's quite simply a total shambles. In 90% of cases, the 'multiple disciplinary professionals' achieve far less tha. Could a moderately intelligent, literate and organised person from any background.

Organisation, consistency and s plan of action with clear benchmarks suffice.

Portage is one if the few things that is good. It is essentially ABA lute. Task breakdown and collection of data.

Our portage file is the most comprehensive of all the -random piles of paper- files. Every week, she writes down tasks ds has done, and how he gets on, makes a note of any other stuff from the week (medical, preschool, anything relevant) then we come up with a sheet of stuff to do at home, that I write notes on during the week, so this weeks was getting ds to try different temperatures (he can't differentiate between hot and cold, and freaks out thinking everything is too hot) and signing hot and cold. It is so clearly laid out, and looking back it is a really good record of progress and events going right back to a year old. But it is also task based so it gives us stuff to work at at home and preschool. I will be really sad when it finishes and it stuns me that our local portage service has been slashed.

Moondog - that's the common experience of parenting I share with my mother, even though my sibling and my son have VERY different disabilities. In my case I saw my parents totally ignore all the "support & advice" on accepting my sibling would never achieve anything academically and watched as she got first her GCSE's and eventually her degree. That's what's inspired me to take the same attitude to those who thought I should be content that my son couldn't read aged 9.

"Do I want to speak to someone" - in both cases it was an attempt to fob us off when we'd asked about expected outcomes. In my parents case my Dad had enough dyspraxia type traits to say "I'm talking to you, and what I want is for you to do the job you are paid for which is helping my child!"

My poor parents were forced make us all attend a weekly family therapy meeting every week for five years while my sister was in hospital. The ONLY thing these sessions ever achieved was to totally unite my adolescent rebellious sulky self and my Dad in complete agreement as to our resentment of our time being wasted like this. (I went thru a phase of disagreeing with the poor man for the hell of it).

"lets talk about why we are here" was answered by one of us (we ended up rotating who responded out of sheer boredom every week with the answer "because it's compulsory if we want X to get the treatment she needs, other than that we don't don't know". If we'd had any problems the LAST place we would have discussed them was in these sessions yet what was the cost of 2 professionals for 2 hours per week for FIVE years?

The worst ever session was when the silly woman asked my Mum if she "felt guilty about her child's condition". The answer was NO, as noone could have predicted it and we were all doing all we could to help her but the silly cow couldn't get off her standard script, even after she'd seen the rest of us get visibly pee'd off (as opposed to staring out the window) with her for upsetting Mum.

The stupid thing was that as soon as my dad died these sessions were stopped - and this was the ONLY point where actually we as a family could have done with some tea and sympathy type "support" of the nebulous fluffy kind.