A question on statementing

[Thomcat]

Hiya, soorry to bother you girls with a dull thing like this!
Had a call from the LEA today and she asked if I had any reports that she include in her reports for Lottie. She has a report from Portage but asked if I had anything else.
I don't, well not yet, I'll ring her physio, the OT and SALT tomorrow and ask them if they can get something together by next week for me.
What, if anything, did you girls submit when you went through this?

I didn't have to submit anything, apart from my own pov, for which they gave me a form to put it all down on. The reports from ot, paed, etc were all sent straight to the case officer who was statementing ds2. His statementing was taken on advice from the ed psych, ot, pt, paed, nursery, and portage, if that's any help.

Agree with Lou, usually the CDC would have provided reports from Paed, SLT, Physio, OT direct to the LEA alhough I think you would have had copies of these. So either they haven't been done and should be, or you haven't been sent copies and should be. Have you written your own Parental Input form thingy?

Call them tomorrow and ask which reports they have received. Ask why you haven't got copies of those reports, and create fuss so they don't forget to do so. Then call those who should have put reports in and create a holy stink so they get done in time, also telling them to sen you copies on pain of death.

Sorry for being really ignorant here TC, why is dd's statementing process starting already? Is this something that you have asked to happen now?I've been told that dd won't necessarily get one and that she won't need one anyway until we are looking at schooling at 5. I am hopefully going to find out more after attending that course next week!

Portage did a quick summary atlhough couldn't do much for dd as apart from her speech and language everything else is appropriate and above, paed, SALT, nursery teacher and I did my own report stating my views on it all.
Dingle - My advice to anyone with a special needs child is to try and get a statement as soon as possible. Dd evetually had hers through when she was 3 and 1/2 and could have done with it before. A statement is a legal document and therefore should ensure that your childs needs are suitably met.

Also if you get statementing before schooling the funds can be used in playgroups and nurseries to support your child.

Thanks BH, why is everything so difficult? Why should this info be so hard to come by?

Dingle - definitely never too early to start statementing process. dd is not even 2 and we have already had our first appnt with EdPsych. The hope is they will have everything in place before she starts nursery next year.

Dingle, a lot of professionals tell parents that statements aren't required until age 5 and this is WRONG as everyone has said (I think they genuinely believe it). We applied for ours (ourselves) when DS was 2.5yrs and got it finalised when he was 3.5yrs for fully funded home-based ABA. I also hate hearing things like "the school says X is this or that, doesn;t need this or that" etc. IMO the people who shoudl be deciding that are Paediatricians, EPs, SLTs etc.

Sorry, I don't want to butt in on TC's thread- I have so many unanswered questions. I can see that my only "free" morning this week (tomorrow) is going to be spent on the phone again!!
Thanks for all your advice.

Dingle - email me your address, through mumsnet if ou don't still have my email address, and I can send you the Statmenting form which the DSA give out, telling you how to start, who to write to and give you a sample letter.

Girls, the woman submitting my 'case' (do I call it that?) rang me at work and said she was preparing my case and did I have any reports. I said what reports and she said she had a report from Portage but did I have anything else she could have? I said no but I could ring all her therapists and get something to her what was it she needed and she said that anything outlining Lotties requiremnets and Sn would be good.

This is the first contact, other than my initial letter requesting statementing be set up for her.

Am i making sense to you? I don't understand myself!

If you don't know what I'm talking about I'll just take lou's advice and ring all her therapists tomorrow and demand reports from them... ohhh scary!

Why doesn't SHE ring them?

Thanks TC. I'm not an official member of the DSA yet. I didn't bother renewing after my 1st year as I didn't really have any local contacts. Now that's changed I am in the process of rejoining. ( I believe we are in one of the magazines this quarter?) I think it has got to be worth it to get as much info as possible.

Do you know what Davros, i don't blloody know, why doesn't she? You're so right. I'm just so tired at the moment, it's the busiest time of year at work, staff away, Mum on holiday and I'm juggling so many things. She caught me off guard at work and I just nodded and thought, 'bollocks, another thing to do'. Stupid of me. I don't even think I thought to take her number! Ohhhhh, LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll try and track her down tomoorow and have a word with her.

Dingle, I went to a conference organised by the DSA and part of the talk was about statementing. They gave out a great A4 leaflet with info which I'd be more than happ to copy for you as I have lots of other mums whose children have SN. It's good if not vital to speak to other mums with SN's childrens so you find out stuff like this babes!

I don't really see anyone anymore, and the ones I do see all have babes. I have just met a family in Dartford who have a little girl who is just over 3. We are trying to set up a meet, I will have to start making notes of what to ask.
Are you still on media....email?

Yes that,s my email.
Don't feel bad, I get most of my support, advice etc from mumsnet. I have someone I speak to whose son has DS that I met at the hospital where we take the kids to therapy and 1 other mum who I was put in contact with by someone I met. Me and you talk, we can exchanfge ideas advice etc. It sounds like you might be beating yourself up a teeny but for not knowing about statementing or other mums with DS, if you are thinking like that, DON'T, okay! TC xx

TC, they should be calling them themselves. That is their job, to prepare a draft statement for Lottie, by means of gathering reports from all her therapists.

Dingle, it depends on what part of the country you live in, as to what age statementing begins. Here (w surrey) pre school children are routinely statemented. Ds2 is 3 1/2 and has had one in place for a couple of months now, and we had NO problems at all . Others have had a terrible time even getting the agreement to have one done. You can always request for statementing to begin, and it will be looked at, but if where you live don't generally statement preschoolers, you may have a battle on your hands.

Hi TC sorry it's such a headache, as usual with SN stuff it always the parents who have to push everything along. We used the most recent (ie sometimes a bit out of date) reports from consults with Paed, Ed Psych, and a very old physio report, plus wrote our own submission of course. The hardest thing we found was like DLA you are trying to stress the negative, rather than in real life when we spend all day celebrating every little achievement etc. But the advantage of having a 6 month old paed report was of course it painted a worse picture - but that works in your favour IYSWIM.

Everyone stressed for us that it was a formality, band 2 was virtually automatic of children with DS, (which is what we settled for) but one of my mates pressed on and got full time support (with a battle). But it depends on the boro - where are you? The whole thing takes ages, nothing happens in the school hols etc - it is up to you to keep chasing it down.

One last thing - you're not there yet but the best advice we got was to check the final statement carefully before signing - we found that new wording was 'unintentionally' suggesting support could be shared in the eventuality of two statemented children being in the same class for example, and we got that changed - and were v glad when a little chap with DS joined DS's nursery a year later, with his own dedicated support. HTH

And rememebr, they can't just put things in because it sounds good or its their usual wording. The views on the child and the child's needs HAVE to come from the provided reports. Our draft said something like "would benefit from access to mainstream peers..." which NO-ONE had said and, at the time, we wanted to home educate a 2.5 year old so it wasn't appropriate at that stage for a child who had no recognition of his parents, never mind some intangible, unknown peers!

Right - i rang her and basically the info she is looking for is a bit more info on Lottie's needs to put forward at this stage to see if we can get lottie assesed. It's not the actual assesment itself she needs this for. We're putting our case forward with as much info as possible just to see at this satge whether we get her assessed now or a bit later on! Blimey! If this is what it's like and we haven't even started yet then OMG!!!
Anyway I've rung her pedatrician, OT, pysio and SALT and I've got an appt witht he thersapists tomorrow so they said they would have a look at Lottie and have a look at her and writ something up for me.

PS - excuse spelling, typos, must be worse than ever - in such a rush today!

OK, understand, this is the bit where it goes to panel to decide if they'll assess. Some boro's DS is an automatic assessment, so no special paperwork required (other than the medical confirmation), others want the opportunity to wriggle out if they can. Sounds like you are covering all bases at the first hurdle tho, so hopefully you'll have everything you need once you get to the next stage. Good luck TC x

cheers sinclair. Surprised you worked out what i meant from my rambling post!