fighting lea for aba residential school rather than special school

[tearhairout]

hello, i am hoping for some great advice!

I have a 9 year old non verval autistic son with severe communication problems.
We seem to be constantly fighting the LEA.

Statred school in a generic unit with statement but no 1:1, no progress, never saw speech and language. Because of no progress went to tribunal for a home ABA programme, LEA won as they said that he could have a place in an autistic centre - 2 years on and they want to put him in a special school, even through the school (where he is at present) say that he needs 1:1 to concentrate stay on task they want to put him in a unit (Generic) where he will have low levels of adult to child ratio and speech and language obce a month if lucky.
We have found an ABA school but it woulkd be residential as it is in another county monday _fri.
We have a meeting on the 20th August to discuss his school placement and the social worker is coming on the 11th. Any help would be gratefully received

Hi

It's basically a case of YOU having to prove that what the LA is proposing cannot meet your child's needs and that the ABA school can meet your child's needs.

To do that you need to prove that the LA's proposed school does not have the facilities / provision etc to meet those needs identified in Part 3 of the Statement.

It may be that you need to have a review of the Statement if you don't think that all your child's needs have been identified in Part 2 and therefore the support stated in part 3 is inadequate.

The danger is that in conducting a review the LA will attempt to water down your child's needs so the support required is less than he actually needs, but could be delivered in a mainstream setting.

You of course can point out to the LEA that a generic base has been tried before and has failed your child. Ultimately, if you cannot agree with the LA's proposed placment you will have to appeal to SENDIST.

The LA will not want to send your child out of county as it costs them, and also will fight to deny any independant placment as that is extremely expensive.

To get a residential placment you must have both educational and social needs. We got one based on the fcat that he is socially isolated and needed to learn independence and social skills in a 24 hour setting. Social services will be asked to endorse any need for a residential placement. They are often reuctant to do so as their Dept may be asked to partialy fund the placment if it's granted on social as well as eductaional grounds.

So teh LA will attempt to place your child at minimum cost in anything that is remotely suitable within it's own mainstream provision.

Sorry to sound glomy about this but I spend over a year fighting my own LA's obviously unsuitable (but very cheap!!) proposed placement.

As your child is now 9 the school should be drawing up a Transition Plan to state what his secondary education placment wil be. There should be a multi-disciplinary meeting held (school, you, Ed Pysch, social services) to determine that placement. The Statatement should be amended by the 15th February of the year in which he is due to start in secondary education - at the latest.

So it's best to start looking at a secondary placement in plenty of time to lodge a SENDIST appeal if the LA will not provide a suitable secondary placment.

Best wishes.