ok tips needed for telling the SW to not involve dd in transision discussions(non sn people please answer to)

[2shoes]

DD is nearly 14 so the talks have started.
now dd is a clever girl but has severe cp, so emotionly she is delayed.
if you say to her..oh try this new college, she will just think oh goodie, no more respite!
now I know the best place for her at 16plus is at her schools 16plus, everyone will know her, the nurses will be bang up to date with her needs, educationly it will be best as It is aimed at young people like her.
I know that she is supposed to be involved in the whol process, but why tell her about another college that I haven't looked at yet and don't want her to go to.

so how do I explain all this to her SW?

Why not the same way as here?

You know your child better than anyone and I can't see what there is to be gained by viewing/talking about a college you know you won't use.

We haven't got to this stage yet - I'm quite suprised that where your dd's school has 16plus provision there is any need to discuss too much anyway? Regards telling SW you summed it up quite well above IMO.

it seems that dd's sn school is an independent school!! so the local college is cheaper.
thing is ds goes to the college right next door to the college they want me to look at.. he tells me what some of the not nice kids say!

at the end of the day the local college would have to be briulliant for me to move her. I was told I had to look and only look at the education part!
thing is to be educated dd needs phisio/ot salt and so on,
litttle things like when her chair goes wrong, at her school they have engineers on site, if she is ill they have doctors and nurses on site.

ah - I see, it is about money as usual. I couldn't think why else they would want to move her unless like you say the local college was dream college. All the more reason to stick to your guns then.

Does the SW think she should go to the local college or will she be on your side?

2shoes, I thought your dd was much younger. I am usually a bit sad about the lack of parents of PD teenagers on here. We're at the same point in 'The System'. This part is the hardest since ds was about 6 months old.
As some may know, ds is 14 with quad cp. A clever kid but is about 3-5 years behind emotionally (probably due to always having been at small SN school).
I'm unhappy at the GCSE provision at his school, nobody wants to hear my alternatives and I know if I kick up too much about it they'll simply tell me to put him into a mainstream which ain't happening.
I'm worried about the pressure they are putting on me to look at local day colleges, which are just not in my game plan for ds.
After dodging SS for 14 years, I am going to phone them and ask for one of these transitional social workers to be appointed to us.
I think I began to see how the next few years would be when the Ed Psych at the transition review said she thought ds was going to be a journo. I asked her when he had told her that. She said she had never met him. Useful.

i'm not very good at tactics, but wonder if it would be worth you at least talking to the college head if not visiting it, then have a list of just why the college would be inappropriate, and why it wouldn't fulfil what was set out in DD's statement, and how her current school does.

I think this is difficult.I sit in on loads of meetings like this 9as a SALT) and a lot is placed on the importance of giving an informed choice and moving away from the situation of having people make choices for people with SN. The SW will probably feel she has an ethical duty to mention the other place but should of course be glad to help you list the disadvantages.

Do you use 'person centred planning' which is a really fnatastic way of doing this sort of stuff?

I think this is difficult.I sit in on loads of meetings like this 9as a SALT) and a lot is placed on the importance of giving an informed choice and moving away from the situation of having people make choices for people with SN. The SW will probably feel she has an ethical duty to mention the other place but should of course be glad to help you list the disadvantages.

Do you use 'person centred planning' which is a really fnatastic way of doing this sort of stuff?

ED Psychs are brilliant like that. I used to work in post 16 clas of SN school and I often sat in on their 'discussions' with students for post 19. They tended to write what I/the staff told them and we may as well have written their reports for them. The teacher would get annoyed at how much they were getting paid for basically what we said.

Oh Nymph, don't get me started on Ed Psychs, saying what everyone else knows/has already said.

I haven't seen an ed phys thingy since dd started school, and he had to apologise to me. he refered ds to a pead with out even meeting him!!(needless to say ds had no problems)

I will be looking at other college, and I realise at some time they will heva to talk to dd. but as she is only 13(14 in april) she won't be able to "see" that far ahead. I just can't see the poiint of her being involved so early.
they went so ott with my freinds son, they empowered him to the extent he is now helping interview staff at the school! and his mum is now saying what about me?

springlamb sorry what does PD mean?

I imagine PD will mean physical disabilities?

2shoes, agree though that the 'empwering' thing can get a bit much. As a salt am constantly having to remind SWs and so on that a lot of people can't make a meaningful choice so it is piintless and probably even patronising to try and offer one.

It's swung very far in the opposite direction (as things invariable do)

trouble is I now have a real sw, up to naow I have just had assistant SW(assume they are in training) so this one is not only new to the area, but ver by the book.

Yes 2shoes, PD = physically disabled.
I'm presuming your dd has always been at special school, as has ds, and that coupled with my total overprotection for his first 5 years, has meant that he is an odd mix of usual teenager and emotionally-young.
I want ds to go on to Treloar College. I think ds will be happier as an adult living in the 'disabled' world (and I don't kid myself that this country is anywhere near 'one' world). Therefore I feel that Treloar offers him the best chance of creating a network of like-minded (and like-bodied) friends to carry through his life (just as many of us have friends from college, uni etc). Opportunities for that are so limited where we live (although you would not think so). Ds also needs some massive input into his independence skills, and also into planning his social life for himself, asking for help if and when he needs it, instead of relying on Ma'n'Pa's telepathy.
If he goes to a day college nearby, I feel life will just trundle on as it is. For me, it's not about the education so much as the life itself.
I feel that if asked ds will agree to the course of least change because it's the equivalent of asking a 9-year-old if they want to leave home. And because he talks like bloody Magnus Magnusson or something, only his view will carry any weight. Having said that, dd(7) has a bag packed, she'd leave in a flash, but she is rather unique.
Oh blimey, I've gone off on a 'whimsey'. But these issues are taking up so much of my mind just now (along with the imminent hand surgery and the emerging hip prob).
Maybe I should join TTR after all!!

oh please do join, then I could name dd's school. you will most likely have heard of it if you know treloars.
we looked at teloars fro secondry, dd was really keen, she just liked the idea of it, when I explained that she would only come home at weekend she went off it. we didn't think it was for her as she would have been "lost" there. wonderful school though. I have seen the college on tv.
I am thinking of having it as one of the suggestions ss and lea won't be keen as it will mean she would have to board.

You've got me scared now 2shoes. Have I been blabbing away (esp on Relationships) to one of the school yummy mummies I wonder. And me a school governor! Tell me what are you doing after school tomorrow? Hope it's not something energetic for the disabled.
I better join I think.

I never do anything energetic