What kind of stuff can go in an EHCP?

[12freefor]

Parents at school have been talking about this brave need world of EHCPs, which are meant to be fab, child-centred, blah, blah. The idea sounds great, but what kind of stuff can actually go in them that will get funded? ABA? Money for PA for kids to access leisure things? Actually money that we can spend on (for example) going to a workshop related to DS's disability that we can't afford by ourselves?

Does anyone know if these are just pie in the sky ideas, or whether these plans will be able to deliver this kind of thing? Or is it just more carrotty nonsense?

I initially thought you could use the direct payments/personal budgets part for respite and short breaks etc but you can't. I'm doing the IPSEA training at the moment and you can only apply for funding to pay for a service that is in the EHC plan. So if your child is statement/EHCp'd for ABA then you could request a direct payment to pay for the ABA yourself. It's up the LA's if they want to fund any personal budgets and you can't appeal to tribunal if they say no, you can only ask the LA themselves to reconsider.
Basically the stuff that will go in the ECHP is the same sort of stuff that would go in a statement.

This is an extract from the personal budget/direct payment law

^A local authority may only make direct payments in respect of the special educational provision specified in an EHC plan, and may not make direct payments for the purpose of funding a place at a school or post-16
institution^

Basically the purpose of the personal budget is only to fund the SEN provision.
And also the school can veto the use of the personal budget provision in their setting and the LA cannot force them to allow a service in which is paid for by personal budgets.
^A local authority may not make direct payments in respect of any goods
or services which are to be used or provided in a school or post-16
institution without the written consent of the head teacher, principal or the person occupying an equivalent position.^

Not all they are cracked up to be really.

OP, Statements are supposed to be fab, child-centred, blah blah.

Basically if it is written in the EHCP then you can ask for it to be costed and then apply for direct payments to cover it. They LA can say no, with no good reason, and they cannot through any law be made to account for their decision. Additionally, even if the LA do say yes, the school can say no, with no good reason, and cannot be made to account for their decision.

The ABA battle remains completely unchanged, EXCEPT that where a parent wins it (most commonly through tribunal) they can request the money to pay the ABA tutors themselves.

Where direct payments on an EHCP have been given, they were nearly always already given before EHCPs i.e. money for petrol to relieve the LA from their duty to arrange a taxi, or to employ a carer through an already social care payment system.

Education, it would seem, do not part with any cash for any reason. They have LA pensions to pay and SEN Empires to build.

you can still get direct payments for short breaks / respite
you could do that under previous legislation
thats not dependent on having a plan e.g. a disabled child with no sen can still get DP for social care

whats new is you can now get direct payments for education provision (and health is in pipeline)
whether you get offered it depends on LA policy for education though - there are so many opt out clauses that its become basically voluntary

you can ask for social care assessment whether or not you have a plan - they should coordinate the two processes

Ok, more confused now!
Which, of any of the things in my wish list could i get put into an EHCP and therefore have a hope of getting provision or direct payments for?
If none of them, what sort of things CAN go into an EHCP plan other than the typical OT, SALT etc etc? Am I missing the point? Are they any different from Statements??

If social services have done an assessment, and decided that you are entitled to a PA for leisure stuff, it can be written in the EHCP (but you can still get it without it written there iirc). You won't get money to spend on a workshop unless there is an educational need for ds to have his parents attend a workshop iyswim. (this may be covered if you get an ABA package)

If ABA is named in the statement, you can ask for it to be given to you in direct payments for you to pay the tutors directly, however, the school still have the right to refuse the once you have hired UNLESS your hiring of them is included in the statement iyswim.

They're not different from statements really, except a lot longer and more waffly and not standardised.

OP, one way of looking at this is Ugger's well-worn, multipurpose car analogy.

What we've got with the EHCPs is a brand new gearbox. Nice & shiny, put together in a bit of a hurry, but a tasty-looking upgrade. But a gearbox by itself isn't going to get you anywhere.So let's look at the rest of the car.

It's fucked, basically- more fucked than it's ever been. It's not just benign neglect; people in charge have slashed the tyres, put big dents in the bodywork, the bumpers fell off a while back. You get the picture. No-one who's able to do the repairs wants to take this job on.

But the car can still go places, right? And the gearbox is shiny and new, right? Well, that's true - but the car needs fuel to go to places that are worth going to. And there's nowhere near enough fuel. There wasn't enough even when the car was in good nick, and now it's running on vapour. The best gearbox in the world makes fuck-all difference if there's not enough petrol in the tank.

And because there's no fuel, the designated driver doesn't want to share the driving. You know, like they promised us they would? It turns out the designated driver is still the same shrivelled old carroty sociopath she always was.

Because she's still mostly thinking about the fuel; not the destination, and not the massive repair bills further down the line. She's on for a bonus if she can keep the fuel gauge just off the bottom. So the new shiny gearbox doesn't matter. The other drivers in the car can just fuck off. They might want to go to interesting, worthwhile places. But it's the fuel consumption that matters, right?

Better still, if these other drivers don't know about these interesting places, or that they're allowed to share the driving at all, that just makes things easier. At least the shiny new gearbox will get us somewhere, right?

Right?

Ugger that was epic!!

And the truth!!

Brilliant, ugger

I'll keep your analogy in mind as I see a battle to secure DS2 a tight ECHP in the future.

I have been on some really good independent training/workshops about the changes to sen law and moving from statements to ehcp's!

Today I went on my LA one related to my job! There was a vast difference and I could hear bits of LA spin that had been fed to the course leaders eg. Loads of children who were identified as having SEN before really didnt have SEN they just need environmental changes and better teachers and then they wil be fine! These children will not need SEN support! Oh and , the children who used to get one to one support wont get it any more because when the environment is changed they wont need it!

There was me and one other person in the room questioning them, everyone else was sucking it up like gooduns!

I think the lack of response here Ineed is to do with the fact no-body expects any different from what you describe. Shocking though it may be to an 'outsider'!

How do you manage to balance all your emotions?

I mean I'd much rather someone like you remained in the system but facing all the bollox must take its toll.

Ineed how did you manage to get on that course?

I want to go on one. Actually I want an under cover reporter to go on one.

I suddenly feel ugger's car doesn't even have a new gearbox. At best a respray...

Ugger Your analogy is magnificent .

I think the gearbox is indeed new, but the instruction manual is ambiguous and no-one can agree how it works. Some talk of a couple of new gears and automatic technology that will enable the rest of the car to work smoothly as one, but no-one has actually seen that happen yet.

They have brought out an even more ambiguous manual for those in the back seat to raise their expectations without substance.