CAF/ SA or both? Advice needed please

[Mallenstreak]

Ds waiting to be assessed for ASD/AS and not having a good time at school - almost excluded today. EP saw him 2 weeks ago and we have not received report yet. Want to put in for statutory assessment but would rather see what EP has to say first. Senco today called to state that we need to complete CAF so he can be referred to other agencies. I thought if SA occurs then he does get referred in any case so should I complete CAF? Senco also mentioned getting behaviour support involved again but would it be best to await any diagnosis? Any advice/suggestions gratefully received.

CAF shouldnt be used to gain access to other services but is a great way to pull in services to reach the same goal. CAF should never replace SA and cannot as a CAF is a way of getting an overview of a families strengths and difficulties and ensuring people stick to a plan and dont end up doing the same work over and over.

Does that all make sense?

The way it works here is referals are either from school nurse, GP or EP, so any of those could do a referal if you dont get joy with SENCO

HTH

Here, a CAF form is the way you get other services, so I think every place is different. But certainly not instead of a SA - as well as.

Im sure they shouldnt be doing that as what do they do if you refuse one (which you can do), refuse you services??

Treat both the CAF and the Statutory assessment as two totally separate things.

I would put in your request for the Statutory Assessment to the LEA before you get the EP report (that will be sent to the LEA anyway, whether you will actually see a copy is open to debate). As statements can take six months to set up too, time is of the essence.

You may want to look at IPSEA's website as they have a sheet re exclusions:-

www.ipsea.org.uk