Moving Areas with a SEN child

[Summerdaydreams]

We are looking into moving. Our dd is 2.5 with CP. we have been seen by an educational psycologist who is in the process of getting dd a statement. Our current LA is fab and there is lots of support for dd.

We are only starting out on this road so to say we are clueless is an understatement. Where do we begin with regards to moving areas?

Obviously we would like our new area to have support for kids with CP, is there anyway of finding this out?

Once we have the statement, can we move with it and is its content still to be followed? Or will a new one be written?

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hi summer, in theory you should be able to contact the new LA you're looking at, explain your DD's needs and ask them for a copy of their Local Offer. The Local Offer is supposed to set out what services your DD could receive from education, health and social services to meet her needs.

This is the theory - it's hard to tell how it's working in practice, because the Local Offer stuff is coming in as part of new legislation that'll be activated on 1st September. Not every LA will necessarily have their Local Offer good to go on the 1st, and not every LA will necessarily abide by their legal obligations - most some LAs will only list the services they want to fund, other LAs are trying to push the responsibility for setting out the Offer onto schools. If you can, your best bet is to try to find local CP parent forums to see what the real score is.

You should be able to move your finished statement from LA to LA - although I think that this is established convention rather than hard-coded law. We did this with our DSs last year - the new LA adopted their statements, and they then took a hard look at them once their annual reviews came up.

Our current LA is fab and there is lots of support for dd

That's great to hear - if you think that's still likely to be the case going forward, bear it in mind when making your moving choices. SEN provision is a huge postcode lottery....

I would not move if you have a fab LA! Ring up the SEN Helplines and ask them which LAs top their league table for generating the most complaints from parents!

Thanks for advice. We would love to stay where we are but our current home was when we were child-free and we are now bursting out and sadly, the next size homes are too expensive round here. Am going to start making some calls and see what they say.

If you have a statement by the time you move, the old LA is supposed to send the papers to the new LA who have the choice of adopting the statement or doing their own review and deciding whether to amend. However, if it's a new statement they're unlikely to bother.