Confidence in the SEN system

[Eva77]

Hi, I work in the field of SEN and with parents whose children are going through the statementing process. I have seen first hand how stressful it can be being the parent of a child with an SEN and am seeking to make improvements locally in the service that is offered. I have some ideas of my own about what might help eg: clear simple language and explanations of the process and what's on offer, a proper time frame with frequent updates on progress, an empathetic, non-judgemental attitude towards parents, practical support with form filling, understanding letters etc and ideally a single named person who would be the family contact to guide and support parents throughthout their child's education. I would welcome the views/comments of any Mumsnetters on what might help increase their confidence in SEN and the statementing process in general. Obviously I can't promise any national changes, but perhaps I could make things better for the parents I deal with!

It would help if the SEN team would actually do their job properly and not expect the parents to do it for them! Obviously, your locality seems to be a little better than ours(which is atrocious).
Our SEN team do as little as possible. They don't seem to be able to write a statement that includes specific detail as to what the child needs. The statements issued are full of generic language, and there is a distinct lack of 'nitty gritty' regarding the child. This is what I found most stressful, as the SEN team and the school(if it so wishes) can pass off the child as not requiring specific help in certain areas, as it has failed to be specified in the statement. This then means that the parent is left worrying whether their child will have the appropriate support within the classroom. Sorry if this was long winded!

IME the language is simple enough what needs to be improved is how the LEA's can apply the support.
They should have clear directive that statements must clearly define HOW much supprt & what type of support.
The SEN code does hint at this & say that statements "should" but it should read that statements "must" & LEA's & schools MUST be more accountable.
LEA's quibbling about support & services, when specialists give their recommendations the LEA's should ahve a greater responsibility to impliment them fully rather than the parents having to battle for everything.
There is so much false economy in the statementing & SEN process, the beaurocracy needs to be stripped out & the money spent on the children.

If those changes were made us parents wouldn't need to spend bedtimes reading the SEN code!

I don't mean it to sound like a rant as I realise that you are asking in attempt to offer better support, but if there is less money spent on flipping leaflets & more on actual support we would all be happier.

The Lamb report Improving Parental Confidence in the SEN system promised all of your suggestions Eva, but so far, has not delivered any improvements in the system.

I am going to Tribunal because of a totally indadequate Statment of SEN; the LEA have totally ignored the advice of the professionals that they consulted during the statutory assessment process.

The one, fundamental improvement in the SEN system would be the separation of the assessors of SEN from the providers. This was recommended to the Government by a select committee in 2006, but the recommendation was ignored and the Lamb Inquiry have not made it on of the recommendations.

The LEA are both judge and jury and this just does not work.

Eva Thank you for taking the time to post, but IMO the system would be okay if the LA was transparent, honest and actually listened more to parents.

The system would be okay if the LA did not regulate the recommendations of their experts, or encourage them to write to provision rather than to the child's needs.

Currently I would never trust the LA to take me through the process. I have too much experience of their lies. There is no need anyway because there are an increasing number of charities that do this. The process is straightforward enough, but knowing what to do when the LA's frequently act unreasonably or illegally is another matter and a parent will often get caught out by refusing to believe that Children's Services are acting in anything other than the child's best interest, which in my very limited experience of my own and friends children seems to be NEVER.

anon In law 'should' does indeed mean 'must' so don't worry about that.

Yes BUT there is no accountability & the LEA's get away with loose interpretation without challenge from anyone with any clout.

Agree with the general drift.

The issue is not that the process needs more explaining and support for poor, feeble-minded parents. The issue is that the LEA cynically provides policies which force its officers to act illegally, and turns the process into a direct conflict between the parents fighting for their child's rights and the LEA fighting to deny them by any means possible. Recent talk about the problem of parental confidence in the SEN system misses the point in spades. And it makes me very angry to see LEAs pretending to "fix" this problem and cynically using it as an excuse to push more misinformation and incorrect guidance which carefully steers parents away from their legal rights and along the cheaper more convenient path of lip service and failed provision.

The solution would be for the authorities to levy swingeing fines on LEAs with illegal policies or who lose a large % of cases at tribunal. Once the fines become larger than the saving made by illegally refusing provision, the process will suddenly get much easier for both sides.

Absolutely agree r3dh3d. It is patronising to suggest that parents have lost confidence in the system. It makes it look like the solution is to boost their confidence with a bit of patting on the head and some nice token gestures whilst LA's carry on failing their children. We don't want more icing, we want accountability, transparency and above all legality.

What Angrywasp said

Absolutely AW.

But also I do see aprents who aren't as able to fight lose out to those who can, and it's incredibly wrong that any child fails to receive needed help just because tehya re not good at confrontation, have other problems piling up that detract from their available time or whatever.

I hate it that it works like that.

I ahte it that the system is a responsive one: it needs to be proactive. FInally I am getting school support for time needed for ds1's supervision after he has been in hospital care from an incident at school; no amount of me telling them that he injured X , Y, and Z children cut it though. My warnings were not enough.

I ahte it that a Head with alternative ideas for school fudning can completely derail an SEN support system as at our school by making most TA's redundant and then not being able to deliver support to anyone without a funded statement.

I ahte it that the only was I found out about an AS comp provision in my locality was through attending an SEN University course and happening to meet a acher from that base.

Don't get me wrong, SSD are even worse, but instead of being a helpful enabler of disdabled kid's chances, the current set up acts like a capital safeguard and only hands help tp those able to smash the safe.

What really bugs me though- and in fact this was a conclusion of my ASD essay yesterday- is the complete lack of working together on anything. The budgets are all held my different depts so when one is saving £500 on support another has to hand out £20000 down the line as independence support ahs not been maxmised. madness. I realsie you can't change that Eva but noetheless, it is amdness.

How much could be saved in lifelong deopendency if enough is spent on therpaies and provision from the start?

Eva it has been a real eye opener to me reading these message boards.
I was a SENCo for 15 years and am also the parent of a Statemented child. I had no idea when I was in the system just how angry and hurt many parents are at their perceived mis-treatment by the whole process.
When you are working within education you assume that everyone else is like you, wanting the best for the children and fighting for their entitlement.
However hard you try you cannot make up for the fact that many people feel let down by their children's schools, the Parent Partnerships and the LAs where they live. I hope you read lots of the other threads to give you a feel of the frustration people feel.
I consider myself very lucky that for us the Statementing process was really smooth. Our son was not Statemented until Year 8, but I know that it was the right time for him and that earlier attempts would have failed. The actual Statementing for us was far less traumatic than the process of going through diagnosis for ASD.
I would love to think that you can make a difference in your area and I am glad you are trying.

it's very simnple.
find out what the child needs.
get it written up in unequivocable terms.
pay for it.
put it into practice.

the sooner the better.

tbh the system should work. it doesn't because the local authority appear to do as little as they can, in line with whatever paltry funding is available, regardless of what a child actually needs, and eventually get it typed up in some sort of appalling 'localauthority-ese' which wouldn't hold water if you lined it with a plastic bag.

that said - our draft statement was woolly beyond belief. i rewrote it, quantifying support, sent it back to the case officer, and telephoned him to discuss what i wanted and why i wanted it. to my surprise, he got it all typed up and issued.

children whose parents (for whatever reason) are not capable of this level of advocacy for their child are pretty much abandoned by the system. it is a travesty.

eva, all of those things are fine, and should be in place anyway. just make sure they are, and make sure the children of the parents who you don't talk to, have their needs met.

good luck.

agree with madwoman. funding is the big problem. as parents, we will think the support/services our child needs to manage at school are a reasonable demand; an LEA employee will think whatever share of resources they would be permitted to allocate is a reasonable demand.....

I think they need to be honest.
Some of the people involved in my son's statement have been quite clear about the limitations of the system off the records only for me to hear a complete whitewash of reality from them in meetings and a complete failure to answer any probing questions. I can't stand all the half-truths I've heard and the bland looks on their faces when I voice my concerns (caused by off-the-record advice!).
Then there are those who really seem to believe the whole whitewash ....
Also this whole "working-in-partnership" c**p. They haven't paid the barest bit of lip-service to my views.
Makes me feel sick.

Oh my - that's me told!!
Thanks to all of you who answered me - I have been surprised and saddened by your comments and the obvious frustration you feel. Like imahappycamper I had no idea how unhappy so many of you are with the process. However I do wonder how representative you guys are of parents as a whole. You lot are obviously articulate, well informed and confident about your rights. However, believe it or not, there are parents who are in denial that their child even has SEN whilst others are just plain disinterested. Also of course there are those for whom English is a second language or (and this is not unusual) have SENs of their own and so simplified language, explanations of the process etc are relevant for those families.
I was expecting you all to complain about how difficult it is to get a statement so to hear complaints about the statement content has really surprised me. Complaints about statements not being specfic are particularly surprising since following a case in our adjoining county where the LA were taken to court over a lack of secificity, and lost, our statments now detail the number of hours of support per week, who gives it (TA or teacher) and if it is 1:1, small group etc. Since there is a legal precedent it may be worth pursuing this avenue if you feel the statements don't detail what is needed.
Nat1H - Regarding sufficient information about a child's needs I can see how it may need to be 'generalised' to keep the statement of a reasonable length. For some of the pupils I know, if all of their needs were identified individually it would take forever. You obviously had something specific in mind here - can you tell me more please? What sort of support do you think your child might be missing out on?
Militant - I fully agree with your comment about 'separation of the assessors of SEN from the providers'. As in all areas there is the conflict between needs and funding so the LA has to spread what little money there is as fairly as possible between the many SEN children who need it. I suppose separation may remove this conflict of interest from the statement writers.
AngryWasp - apt name you sound like you have had an awful time of it. Can you explain more about what you mean by 'encourage them to write to provision rather than to the child's needs.'?
r3dh3d - you sound as if you have been refused a statement? That is one of my concerns - if the application is made by someone who through inexperience or lack of information does not provide every little shred of evidence required the application is refused and the child misses out. That seems totally unfair to me.
The same old chestnut I hear from almost all of you about insufficient funding is central to SEN. There is just not as much money to go around as parents would like. Whilst having a statement will mean a child has some specific funding attached to them the school will also have a general SEN budget that all SEN pupils have a share of. Of course how much your child gets depends very much on how each school chooses to spend that budget. If a particular resource will serve ten children then it is a 'better buy' than one that will only be used by one child. The school has to spend the money to the get the best use from it. Also, sad to say, it is the pupils who are going to achieve 5 A* to C grades at GCSE who boost the school's profile so many schools focus on their progress. If you feel your child's school is not paying sufficient interest in the progress and needs of SEN pupils then perhaps you should vote with your feet - although I appreciate this is easier said than done, or become school governors (again I know you probably have enough on your plate already) and take a closer look at how that SEN budget is being spent.
Finally I love madwoman's advice:
^'it's very simple.
find out what the child needs.
get it written up in unequivocable terms.
pay for it.
put it into practice'^
SO right and it says it all!

Well sorry this is so lengthy but I wanted to respond to all of you who were kind enough to post. Thank you all for your comments - you have given me a lot to think about!

Speaking for myself I did not fail to provide information: the school and LEA have had tomes of it.

But the spokeswoman for the LEA told us that my children can not be statemented because the SN that is impeding their learning are physical disabilities and it is LEA policy not to statement children for physical disabilities.

And ds' school then told us that there will be no money to provide ds with the learning equipment the hospital say he needs; so if we want him to have it, we'll have to buy it and bring it in, and if we want him to be able to use it, we'll have to train him at home, because there won't be anyone else who can do it.

The medical and social services agree that this isn't right, but say they're not holding out much hope for us, since the LEA has a poor track record in this area.

And how can you vote with your feet if you have no transport?

Eva I have to thank you for being so gracious in your response and not abandoning the thread you started.

In answer to your question specifically to me:

Most of our county comes under a particular PCT, who deliver OT for children with asd. I live in a section of the area with a different PCT who don't have any OT's trained in asd. As a consequence, they don't accept referrals. Depsite provding ample expert evidence, as well as parental explanation of my ds' need in this area it did not appear in his provisional or final statement. This is because, where OT is specified in statements here, it has to be brought in privately.

I have also been told that the LA offer a holistic approach tailored to the specific need of each child. When I explained (and could back up) the effect of music on my ds' social and interaction skills I was informed that there is no music therapy service in the area. So I phoned the LA music therapy service and told them, to which they replied they had a grant that would cover half the funding required. However, the LA still insisted that they could not offer it.

Finally, my ds has asd, and every single piece or research or government funded research and initiatives say that children should have minimum 15-20 asd specific intervention. Despite this we were offered 1.5 hours and the reason give was that there weren't enough staff to deliver more. Consequently ds' statement says that 1.5 hours a week would meet his needs.

Now I would like to respond to your comment about the specificity law. After we had receieved our provisional statement we submitted a response and referred to that very piece of case law. Our now final statement says 'some' 1:1, and 'up to 6 sessions of approximately 50mins of SLT to include direct and indirect contact, to be reviewed at the annual review or before as appropriate'.

I have to say I do appreciate the opportunity to point out to you that whilst it might seem like there are these safe-guarding processes in place, when it comes down to it LA's flaunt them because quite frankly it is no skin off their nose but makes the parents jump through hoops meaning that they just might give up.

I have come across other professionals like you who I believe really do care about the children they are working for and upon hearing my stories think that there must have been some gross misunderstanding, that I got it wrong, that I have been very unlucky indeed etc. I get continually frustrated that it is not simply recognised that LA's as a body are capable and frequently enact deliberately and strategically bullying parents into either giving up or paying privately if they can afford it.

"However, believe it or not, there are parents who are in denial that their child even has SEN whilst others are just plain disinterested. Also of course there are those for whom English is a second language or (and this is not unusual) have SENs of their own and so simplified language, explanations of the process etc are relevant for those families."

I think we can guess which kind of parent the system likes to deal with though . I have not found that my views are really welcome unless they are the same views as the ones being explained to me - but probably these issues are endemic to any severely rationed, but paradoxically over administered, system. I'm with the Little Red Hen though - i will do it all by myself if no one else will

cyber I agree with your point. In our area there is a big push on working and communicating with parents, but only if you are 'hard to reach', not if you are banging on their door.

It would seem therefore that communcation is desirable only if it is on THEIR terms and not the parents.

Eva Forgot to say, AngryWasp isn't my usual name, it is one I use when I am a bit cross.

'there is just not as much money to go around as parents would like'...

...no. there is just not as much money to go around as children with disabilities need.

if nothing else, please, please, rethink that comment.

but thank you for taking the time to ask - it is always encouraging when professionals feel able to ask for honest comments to improve their understanding or service away from cases they are directly involved with.

madwoman, that is just what I was thinking, as with a statement, it's all in the wording

"If a particular resource will serve ten children then it is a 'better buy' than one that will only be used by one child." Another phrase to avoid using to a parent of "that one child". Whilst I appreciate the sentiment it generally means my child misses out again.

As for voting with my feet, not a chance, I don't hear anything different from any other parents with dcs at different schools, it just means starting from scratch for the same old crap in the end.

sorry but you did ask

Eva - the other area that needs work is training & education of teachers & SENCO's & I don't mean SN training but training of the SEN support processes, referal systems & statmenting process.
DS2 is at a ms school that thankfully ahs always provided excellent provision no matter how rubbish his statement has been.

But the SENCO freely admitted, that she was unfamiliar with the forms, did not know which dept to refer to for different & specific outreach & support services. Thankfully she is committed & puts in many hours of her own time & has muddled her way through.
If the LEA's provided good quality support & training to the SENCO's then they would be better equipped to guide ALL parents through the system no matter how capable the parent.

Surely trying to educate each parent with standard literature is much more diffiult & costly process than investing in & building upon the knowledge & experience of the SENCO's

& Obviously once the LEA's have invested in their SENCO' s they can also make them more accountable!

"Finally, my ds has asd, and every single piece or research or government funded research and initiatives say that children should have minimum 15-20 asd specific intervention"

AngryWasp - excuse me for hijacking the thread slightly, but presume you mean 15-20 hrs? I would be interested to know where I can find any of that information as it may become relevant for us

Thanks

Start with the national autistic plan and the Cambridge research site.