EHCP draft meeting advice

[yippeekiyay2]

Hi all I am after your experienced advice. We have been accepted to get an ehcp for our dd (7) in y3, being assessed for autism/Aspergers. School support getting the ehcp as they want the additional funding to support her I think. I have a copy of the draft document and section f is very long as it has been written by an ex-colleague of mine who now works for la and she is very thorough so we are lucky in that. There are a few specifics and changes to wording I will be looking for though. My questions are firstly what happens with specifying number of hours support required. There is no mention of this in the document so far- is this something that is decided at the meeting? Also in the personal budget section I want to request finding for her to attend some gardening therapy that she has tried through some thing else, I am hopeful about this. I also want to request the funding for 1:1 support to attend the after school club that we used to use while I was working (on maternity leave at mo) as they have said they will only have her if we pay for this. It would support one of her outcomes for socialising after school - what do people think our chances are and what would strengthen our case? The senco has already warned me they have had info from la that Sen budget for county is off the scale into deficit so feel we will have a fight on our hands! Thanks in advance X

The number of hours support should certainly be specified, but it won't happen unless there is professional advice setting this out. If the EP hasn't advised how much support is needed, contact him/her direct and ask them to deal with it.

If you want gardening therapy funded, it will need to be in section F and, again, there will have to be evidence demontrating the need for it.

It's unlikely that the EHCP will provide funding for the after school club, as it's not educational provision. You could try getting it into section H (social care support) but that's not enforceable. You probably need a separate care plan under section 17 Children Act 1989 to deal with this.

Thanks lady, i have been in touch with the senco this week and they were concerned that no actual hours had been mentioned so they have put together a document with what provision she currently has and what they feel would be needed in order to implement everything that is in the ehcp. Because the la are so short of staff they have asked the asd specialist teacher for la to complete the ehcp at the meeting. I think we won't get the after school provision covered but it would be good to get the therapy as she has been getting a lot out of this and I don't think we can afford to pay for it ourselves especially as we've just had her sister so income will be less this year... I am nervous about the meeting as not sure how it will go- even tho I work in education we usually only see the plans when they've had them a while, not the writing of them!