ABA help...15 days to make representations on draft statement and its Christmas

[grumpyoldeeyore]

We were expecting DS draft statement today - we rang earlier in the week as I could not wait any longer and were told he was getting a 12.5 hour "mainstream statement". ie they have agreed he needs all his nursery hours covered with 1:1 but do not agree he needs specialist teachers (ie a special nursery place) or intensive (or any!) intervention (we are doing ABA).

Is there such a thing as a "mainstream statement" I thought they were not allowed to dictate the setting and it was only if what we asked for was an unreasonable use of resources they could refuse.

Also what do you ask for if you want ABA in Part 4? Do you ask for "education otherwise" (we want ABA at home and at mainstream nursery either ABA staff going with him or nursery staff receiving training and supervision in ABA).

Don't even get me started on how utterly * it is that we are going to get the draft in the post tomorrow or later, after the deadline and when I pleaded with them not to do this to us again (we got his refusal to assess the last day of term before the summer holidays). Our chances of getting any advice from IPSEA etc is no doubt nigh impossible and I can't imagine the parent partners*t officer is going to be waiting by her phone. Be off munching mince pies somewhere.

We have a fab draft statement for ABA which Fuckingninkynonk sent us but I just wondered how to deal with the Part 4 issue in the correspondence given we want some ABA at home and some at nursery.

[silverfrog]

sorry, i can't help with your part 4 as such, as we want an ABA school for dd1.

I would be happy to send you our part 3 though, if you like, which details ABA within school, and SALT/OT stuff, staffing levels etc.

and i managed ot speak to Ipsea on Tues no problem at all - easiest I've ever got through to them, tbh (we are waiting with bated breath to see whether LA are going to accept our amendements or whether we will have to go to tribunal...)

[silverfrog]

oh, and do you have an emial address for you rcase officer?

you should get in writing (and email is sufficient, and you kow it will get there) that they have broken the timeline.

nicely and politely, of course, but a quick note pointing out you are unhappy not to have received the proposed statement by the deadline laid out in their COP should help a bit.

[grumpyoldeeyore]

Love to have your Part 3, any money we spend on legal advice is money we can't use for therapy. Can email me on
[email protected]

Hopefully IPSEA etc still be around next week assuming the stuff has arrived by then - we have not seen many of the reports yet so can't move forward until it arrives

Will email SEN officer as well

Thanks

[silverfrog]

feel the need to point out (although i am sure you will know this anyway!) that the email pointing out they are breaking the timeline won't produce miraculous results...

but our ABA cons reckons useful in case of tribunal to show it wasn't you holding up proceedings.

I have had to email twice this week to point out they are about to breach their own COP - all I get back is "thank you, we note your concerns" and then they carry on as before

still, not long now (beginning of next year) until we know what the next step is and whether we are going to tribunal or not.

will email you our part 3 in a mo.

[FuckingNinkyNonk]

Sure, I just put needs will be met by x hours home ABA, and x hours in nursery. Full cost of both to be met by LA.

Make sure it is in pt 3 too though. Tis essential.

To get your head around it think about children who are in 'bases' in mainstream schools, where they are out of mainstream for specialist support, but included in mainstream for other parts. It is the same, except the 'base' is home with ABA iygwim, - so it needs to be in part 3.

[FuckingNinkyNonk]

by the way. I'm right where you both are. Expecting final statement 4th Jan, but given that they know I am on holiday I am slightly expecting it to now be on my doorstep now so that I have 2-3 weeks cut off the appeal time.

At least I know I'm going to tribunal.....

[silverfrog]

ours is due 7th Jan.

and the LA, in their wisdom, ahve decided that dd1 needs to be referred to SN placement panel again. she has been discussed once, with no outcome as the LA have no state funded place for her.

following that, we have had approval for out of county/independent funding. (dd1 is already at the school we want ehr to stay at - self funded)

now that they are close to having to agree to pay for it, they are syaing she needs to be referred back to panel.

BUT the panel meets n 7th Jan. their tough shit, tbh. so i am havig great fun pointing out to them that we expect our documents by first post 7th Jan (or sooner). the email notifying us of the new panel meet was pretty much seeking tacit consent form us to do so, so we have refused to accept it needs to happen.

we are now waiting for the response to that...

[grumpyoldeeyore]

well we know we're going to tribunal too - they told us that first time we mentioned ABA. TBH now I know I can call the LEA ed psych as a witness against his own LEA it might even be a fun day out...if it didn't mean wasting another 6 months.

we've caught them out on COP so many times too - and caught them out bare faced lying - and bullying....

FNN in my experience they don't do anything until the last minute. Our LEA can't even send a letter with the right name, address and date on it.

[silverfrog]

I have little doubt we will end up at tribunal, but ti will be an interesting case.

the LEA have applied, themselves, to 2 ABA schools, asking whether they have space for dd1.

so, in principle they are not anti, and would be hard pressed to argue not suitable since they have voluntarily applied to 2...

byt the time we get to tribunal, dd1 will have been at the school for nearly 2 terms, probably, and so will be totaly settled (she already is, having done 3 weeks of mornings only) and so there will be the added bonus of not moving her away from where she is established and progressing...

it's going to be an interesting 6 months, tbh

[sickofsocalledexperts]

Grumpyoldeyore, My part 4 talks about "the most suitable education for DS's Special Educational needs at present is a mix of home-based ABA and mainstream inclusion (with support). At present, this is on a 50/50 basis but school inclusion will increase on a graduated basis in line with progress". This statement has served me well for a half and half approach right through from nursery. They particularly liked the fact that I was aiming to phase out ABA in favour of mainstream inclusion, as they hate "open-ended" ABA programs. We had, however, to prove that ABA was producing real results and that TEACCH was shit (which wasn't hard in my case, as he had been at a crap TEACCH pre-school and had made zero progress, as against stellar progress with ABA).

Also, on the legal side, I have used a FANTASTIC SEN advocate, reasonably priced (£250 for a lot of work, massive reading, crisp to the point advice) called Fiona Slomovic. For a further £150 she will attend meetings with you, though I'm not quite sure what her tribunal charge is. I trust her completely though to get you the best result at tribunal. You can google her number as she is on the web or I can give it to you later. Hope that helps

[abeemars]

i am new to this forum (and mumsnet) but am just going through the second draft of the proposed statement for my dd3 who is 3y3m and has GDD. She currently has no expressive language apart from being able to say mama but does vocalize a lot of babble, she uses signalong and communication boards, which is great as her understanding has been assessed as being at 2y6m.

we are trying to steer the statement towards a non-maintained specialist speech and language school that we have already been to see but know that this is going to be a battle as the number of people that have said 'we like to keep it in borough' is ridiculous, but as she is not due to start school until sept 2011 there is quite a lot of time prior to this.

Her nursery have all of the best intentions but they have never had a child with a statement before and i have to be honest i am not too happy about her being the guinea pig for their SENCO person. there is a specialist speech and language pre-school in London (out of our borough) which are assessing her in January and when i met with the LEA to get the first draft of the statement amended i mentioned that i wanted the placement specified to be both the nursery and this pre-school to which the case worker seemed very positive about. the second draft has come back with no placement named at all and no explanation! they are offering her 25 hrs, pro rata as she is in nursery, which in my mind shows that she desperately needs the right level of help.

how do you go about getting them to include two placements? what is home-based ABA?

[sickofsocalledexperts]

It will be a battle abeemars, as you have to prove that what you want is better than what they will give you - and the standard is just that they have to provide you with a "suitable" education. I would recommend some legal advice early on , and I have used Fiona Slomovic who is a very very impressive SEN advocate. She is not expensive either. I think legal advice taken now could be money well spent, as you may find a way of avoiding prolonged (and therefore expensive) legal action later on. The other thing you have to prove is that your child isn't thriving in the type of education they will offer, and is doing remarkably well in the type of education you want for her. ABA is a type of education for autistic kids, based on behavioural principles. May not be so relevant for GDD, though I think its common sense principles apply to most kids. Good luck!

[Choccyhol10]

I have used Fiona Slomovic and would not recommend

[sickofsocalledexperts]

I and about 20 pals have used her to very good effect, but of course no lawyer or advocate can win every case, given how hard the world of SEN is.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Blimey!

[silverfrog]

why the bump?

but blimey of my own - seems like years ago (well technically it is, I suppose , but seems much longer ago!)

I dug out our parental submission for statementing to send to another MNer yesterday - god now that really takes me back (and not in an entirely good way). I barely remember the child we were describing in it.

It's good to get perspective on these things sometimes though. Doesn't make the current hill that we are trying ot climb any less steep, but it does re-focus me on the fact that we hav already scaled several mountains...

[StarlightMcKenzie]

I was looking for something and google brought this up and I think the blimey was in relation to the OP and how far she (and all of us) has come.

And LOL at 12.5 hours without specialism!

[Agnesdipesto]

Ooohh. Yes such an expert now . Still shovelling through the same old shit though