Refused SA? What now?

[overthebar]

Have just had letter saying that our request for a statutory assessment has been refused. Am raging to put it politely. It has taken 3 months for this. A load of rubbish. We did turn down a place at mainstream nursery for DS (3.4 ASD) as felt he was in no way ready and doing ok at his nursery. He has a 1:1 support there all the time from 9-12. The LA's attitude is let us see how he is when he starts fulltime school and see if the school can meet his needs. He is getting a lot worse behaviour wise and is more or less non-verbal. Even his nursery have commented on this and will back me up. Every professional report we have had done recommended 1:1 support and this includes the LA's EP, private consultant, SALT, outreach worker.

What plane are these people who make the decision on? I would love them to spend an hour at my house just to see what it is really like.

I guess first step is to cool down and demand a face to face meeting as to what to do next (perhaps take DS with me as 1 mins observation would be enough to convince any panel of his needs!. All I am trying to do is to make it easier for him and the school when he starts. I really dont need this. Apols for long rant.

overthebar,

The usual course of LEA action in such cases is to refuse initial assessment request.
Appeal their crass decision as a matter of course. You can also meet face to face with the LEA in question but they won't let you near the panel board.

Seek advice too from IPSEA and or SOS:SEN as they are fully independent (unlike many Parent Partnership) and have seen this sort of scenario many times before now.

www.ipsea.org.uk

Hi,
Can I suggest you look at the Talk about autism forum: www.treehouse.org.uk
They have some excellent advice regarding appeals to the LA.

Download the appeal form from the SENDIST website and fill in it and post it asap. LEAs will usually change their minds on SA before the case gets to tribunal.

make sure you lodge your appeal with SENDIST before the time to do so runs out.

By all means keep talking to the LEA in the mean time, but the appeal is important as the LEA has effectively made its decision and the only way of getting that decision overturned is via SENDIST - unless the LEA changes its own mind which it will be unlikely to do without the SENDIST appeal having been lodged by you.

Best wishes

we had this a few months back. we were able to pick up several errors from their reasons (it was clearly a standard letter they had tried and failed to amend to fit DS) and submitted an appeal. we wnt to a meeting where they clearly had no intention of backing down, but after we submitted our appeal which went in all guns blazing they agreed to assess (but saved themselves several months in the process). In our case I think they will still turn down the actual statement and give us a note in lieu and we will have to appeal again. IPSEA have good info on their refusal to assess appeal pack. Make sure you ask for a copy of their file under FOI and an minutes of the panel (there probably won't be any). We found a few gems when we got the file and also asked them to identify which docs went to panel and turned out most got left out!

Very helpful replies. Nice to liaise with people who know what they are talking about. Let the battle commence!

The LEA have see the light! After bombarding them with phone calls, emails (well I had to as they never reply!)and a timely intervention from the EP who didn't even know we had been refused yet he shares a desk with the clerk to the panel. Makes you wonder how joined up or not these services actually are. Am wondering now if it will still take 10 weeks to gather further information seeing as it was their fault in the first place we were refused.