Just to make you weep, here's how they do it in the U S of A....

[drowninginlaundry]

DH comes home and gets on with boring me about some new client that he met today. An english bloke living in Boston. Somehow conversation moved on to children and schools and DH as always mentions DS1 and autism. The client having a similar aged son tells how he and wife attended an open day in a bog standard local state primary. Head Teacher, chair of PTA and every man and his dog gave presentations, and waxed lyrical on how they teach. Followed by a presentation on finances. Powerpoint and all that. (stay with me there's a point to this...)

It came up in somewhere that 26% of the school's budget last year was allocated to special educational needs.

That's great, probably might be the same here. Then, it came up that last year the school spent less than their SEN budget but only because one family moved out of the school district in the beginning of the year. This difference was, for one child, in one year:

(okay guess. Just to give you an idea, DS1 was on the highest level of Early Years Action+ which in funding terms amounted to a whopping £5,000 per year)

$235,000.

oh well.

Don't worry. I know plenty of kids in the US, specially of pre-school age, who aren't getting any useful services, too. There's quite often a conflict between what's supposed to be provided from school budget and from healthcare - and if it's healthcare, most people's insurance won't cover it. It's certainly not all rosy.

I agree, don't be fooled into thinking its all great elsewhere. I have an American friend who has lived here for some years, went back to Calif for a year as her husband was on a year's contract with UCLA. Here they had funded part-time home ABA with shadow at m/s school who parcipated in home prog. They were always working on maintaining this provision and managing everything, keeping LEA happy, trying to prevent change until they were ready etc. This was all in place with a genuine plan to fully integrate their DS into m/s so that is why the LEA agreed. In Calif they got access to a lot of input at school but NOTHING outside school, afa the school system was concerned, outside schooltime was not their problem. She also had no say in what happened at all. On the whole she said it was OK but very different and that, as parents, they were not given any input at all, just a package. Of course that package was good as far as it went but no further. Also, forget free nappies, Motability, Carer's Allowance, Family Fund, DFG DLA etc