Statement/EHC review

[streakybacon]

I'll be having ds's first statement review sometime in September. He's home educated but I applied for the statement to document his history of need ahead of making college applications (he's nearly 16). The statement was finalised in July 13.

My LA is a pathfinder for the EHC plan and ours is a pilot family, so his plan should be completed in time for September's changes. I've asked for a statement review because the information gathered for the EHC was taken at the Person Centred Planning meeting last October, so it would be almost a year out of date if it was used to finalise the plan. IT makes sense (IMO) to base the final plan on current information.

So ... I'm new to statement annual reviews to begin with and could do with some advice on how to prepare a parental submission. I'm also not sure whether I should be referring to the existing statement or the proposals in the EHC.

My initial thought is to respond to the objectives and outcomes laid out in the statement and show where ds has made progress and where not. That said, there are different outcomes listed in the draft EHC and I'm not sure if I should refer to those as well. Or instead of.

Any thoughts/tips? What do other people do when they have statement reviews?

Ta muchly .

I'm confused (sorry). Does he have a statement?

Yes, statement finalised July 13, then we started the process for EHC (as a pathfinder family). The EHC hasn't been finalised yet. Just asking for tips on how other people have submitted parental views for statement annual reviews. It's all new to me .

Hi Streakybacon
I'd suggest going through both the statement objectives and the outcomes in the EHC plan, agreeing on what should go in the plan. Also suggest any new outcomes you think are appropriate. Might be worth thinking about the following headings;

1. Learning and Development
2. Language & Communication (including social communication)
3. Physical/Sensory/Health
4. Social & Emotional Development
5. Family/Environment

What's gone well and areas he continues to need support with.
The EHC plan should include a section on your views in terms of what you'd like for his future and a section for your son's view, so it'd be good to prepare this ahead of the meeting.
I'm presuming someone form the LA will be chairing the meeting? You can ask for any professionals involved to attend if you think it will help or submit reports they've written if they give advice about the sort of provision he needs.
Hope it goes well, good luck

Thanks Marie.

I'm going through the statement objectives and doing what you suggested as those were the headings that were used for the PCP meeting, so it makes sense to use them as a guideline.

Trouble is, the EHC hasn't been finalised and I've already given my comments on inaccuracies from the draft, and haven't had any further response since I gave them. There doesn't seem much point in duplicating so I may just re-submit them.

I suppose I need to check with the LA what the format will be (statement review or EHC review) - I suspect this will be one of the first to take place after new guidelines become legal in September so they'll be as new to it as I am, in some respects. As it stands, the meeting will be arranged by a member of the EHE team and I expect she might be chairing too.

I've already given a list of people I want to be invited, but again I need to check that the right person has it (have emailed but no response so far). The new system is such a pain as nobody seems sure who has responsibility for what at this stage .

Sorry you're having this experience, the new processes are supposed to be better for parents, as you say you're probably one of the first but that's not an excuse for the LA, they should be keeping you informed!
Sounds like you've prepared really well for this meeting. I suppose what ever format the review takes you can insist that all the objectives/outcomes you want to discuss are addressed, whether it's in the statement or draft EHCP because that's a proper review of his last year. If it hasn't been confirmed already maybe insist on someone from the SEN department attending so they can answer any queries about the new legislation?
Agree with you about contacting the professionals to check they've received an invitation - and if there's someone who you really want to attend who can't make it that day you can ask for the meeting to be re-arranged so they can.
Another thing, thinking about college places, has the LA sent you the Local Offer?
Maybe contact the SEN caseworker and ask when your comments about the inaccuracies in the draft will be addressed? The timescale is 15 days. Ideally it would be better to wrap this up before the meeting. The timescales for the new assessment process is on pg 143 of the new CoP.
Let us know how it goes

Why are the new processes supposed to be better for parents? I haven't seen any evidence that this can be so. Seems to simy be just more meetings which is what professionals seem to think parents want, or their carefully selected consulted parents want.

EHC Plans aren meaningless bits of paper unless produced after 1st September and after a full EHC Needs Assessment. This review should have happened before July anyway, and technically it's a statement review.

If your LA has done a proper EHC Needs Assessment, including an assessment of health and care needs, then it can produce an EHC Plan quickly, but you need to be careful - a lot of LAs claim to have done full assessments but haven't.

To be fair the review was only suggested (by me) a couple of weeks ago and we're in the middle of school holidays, so relevant personnel haven't had much opportunity to discuss arrangements yet due to staff absences. It doesn't help that it's linked in with a specific piece of work I want done for ds (which was identified as part of the EHC process, though I've been nagging about it for years), so they need to talk with relevant people who haven't been available.

Marie, you're right about the timescale but that applies (I believe) to new assessments once the EHC process becomes legal in September. As a pilot family under a pathfinder LA, things are a bit different for us.

That probably explains your comment too Icimoi - we have had a full EHC assessment (the Person Centred Planning meeting I mentioned in the OP), received a draft and given amendments. They would have been incorporated into a final document in time for September, but I've pointed out to the SEN team that this would mean the final plan being based on year-old information so I've requested the review to bring everything up to date. I agree that if that weren't the case it would be a statement review (and overdue at that), but since it's part of the pathfinder it's more about final tweaks to the EHC.

My LA has been very thorough with the pathfinder. I've been going to regular meetings for the last three years and they do seem to be doing things as they should. That includes Local Offer and I've been involved in preparing ours.

Star I do think that the EHC process is more family-friendly, from my experience. People make a lot of assumptions about autism and related conditions (as I'm sure you'll have experienced too ), but the PCP meeting enabled us to dispel some of them and put everyone straight on where ds is, his strengths and weaknesses, and what he responds to. We didn't get that chance with the statement. It's also brought about opportunities for him that he wouldn't otherwise have had. Obviously only time will tell how well the system will function once it's up and running, but so far I've been impressed with it in my LA.