Saturday Guardian Family Section - Grrr

[donkeyderby]

First, some nob who thinks he's really special because he's a New Dad and who refers to non-New Dads are 'Normals'.

Secondly, that twat Oliver James referring to children with learning disabilities as 'mentally retarded'

Thirdly, a guide on 'difficult' children - Although I quite enjoyed this article and agreed with certain points, maybe I just find it hard to stomache advice from a parent whose child is impossible, challenging, statemented and diagnosed with ASC/ADHD, who then turn out more-or-less NT.

sorry, also I just wanted to let Wet know I've had my response!

Starlight, sorry they're being such twats. It can't help feeling personal, because everything that we are is wrapped up in our boys' futures and, when someone challenges that, it challenges us too. It isn't possible to remain objective.

I wish your case would get dropped but suspect that the financial stakes are too high for them to give in. However, your evidence for ABA will be strong now and I will keep all fingers and toes crossed for you. Tribunal will have been there and done that with their bullshit and do seem to remember that these cases are about the child, not just finance. Then Ombudsman all the way!

I know Star, I understand how hurtful it is and I don't want to be dismissive but it is bullying and you are not alone against the bully. And you are in the right. BASTARDS

Star our response is due this week and I have been feeling apprehensive for days about what it will say and know it will be the same stuff you are having to deal with. But you have a good case, and an honest case, everything you have said about your DS is true. We just have to hope truth shines through on the day. There are some voices of reason out there and here is a quote from Brian Lamb's report

"some also described a settled professional culture where it is expected that they will not make specific
recommendations, or will not recommend provision that they know the local authority cannot immediately provide.
6.7 This more subtle form of fettering nonetheless frustrates the process of decision-making and the proper development of provision in response to needs. Professionals providing advice to the local authority must be able to say that for a particular child a particular approach is needed. If one child needs it, there may be others who will also need it. Professionals should be advising their local authority, or their primary care trust, of shortfalls in provision, not short-changing children."

I know like me that losing is just not an option. Our children are being shortchanged. In our case there is no alternative to ABA, we have no ASD provision at all within 60 miles.

Its really hard not to take it personally, but it is just tactics. I once did a personal injury case where the woman's legs were amputated due to medical error and the NHS lawyer deducted the cost of what she would have spent on tights over a lifetime from our claim. Thats the kind of petty stuff we are up against. The idiot on the other side was so busy thinking about the money and where he could trim a bit off our case he didn't think about how that kind of petty offensive nonsense would play out in court. Your LA will look petty and unreasonable and hopefully desperate.

Of course they don't want to pay for ABA but if they had made decent alternative provision available they wouldn't have to. They still have to prove their approach is effective and appropriate. Tribunals I am told won't like to interrupt progress unless they are sure an alternative approach will work just as well. So keep taking the data of what your DS achieves each day. You will have bounced back by Friday and can calm me down!

Star that is terrible and i know the feeling all too well, the school are trying to do the same thing to me.

Its hard not to take it personally when it becomes more about you, than it does your ds.

When is your tribunal date?

Thanks Agnes and Claw for your support.

School have submitted a 'learning journal' with photos of ds and they have written what they think he is doing and learning. To the initiated, he is simply 'stimming' in about half of the pictures. Also, why in the world did I not know they were making a learning journal?

Also, the SLT has claimed that she has not observed that he has generalised concepts that we have taught him, - er, that will because you haven't observed him per se.

The whole argument is based on the idea that he can't generalise from an ABA programme to life, but they offer no explanation of how they proposed to do it.

Their argument seems to be, 'ABA doesn't work and is expensive, so he should have our alternative provision, that doesn't work, but is cheap!'

I'm very sorry to hear about this Star - I know you will fight to the end, but then again why should parents be made to go through all this just to get what's their children's RIGHT, i.e. proper education and support?
It is all about the money; unfortunately that goes for your side too, doesn't it? Can you produce an expert witness for the effectiveness of ABA programmes?
I seem to remember that there are some old-timer mums out there who managed to get ABA on their statement (their children are older now). Perhaps worth starting a thread on that?
Sorry not much help, but thinking of you

So this is the wierd thing:

I say to the LA at the beginning of it all:

DS needs 15 hour ABA, monthly SLT and OT.

They say 'in your dreams'. He isn't anywhere near as needy as you say he is.

So I go out and get some independent experts, and they say:

DS needs 30 hours ABA, weekly SLT and OT!

and that is what we are taking to tribunal!

The end.

FoI today.

With a hangover I really didn't need to read that someone had called SS annonamously to tell them they are very cross at the idea that I might apply for respite as I use a childminder and nursery and am very capale, and that they are worried that I always get what I want through making a pest of myself!

Absolutely. Even if I was a pest (and I prefer to call it 'questioning'), that doesn't mean I don't have a disabled son or suffer stress.

I don't think this information will be available for the tribunal though as I have also seen the SEN Team request access to the records and it refused on the grounds that under CP they need to get my consent.

I think it is more a record to justify their own decision not to offer any support or respite themselves.

I am always suspicious now but it is comforting to hear my DH, who is very straight and trusting say 'they just made up that record themselves'!

Social Services are truly up their own arses if they think they are important enough for ANYONE to call them with worries that someone who they don't know very well might apply for something and in their opinion it wouldn't be fair.

FGS, who would make that call without a very serious vested interest? I can think of not one person who, given a bored afternoon and lots of free minutes wouldn't have more significant calls to make complaining about things that will directly impact THEMSELVES.

It's a load of tosh, but still gutting to read and I wanna scratch out the eyes of the person who wrote it!

Twas a Freedom of Information request. Just asked for all information they held on me.

It talks quite specifically about the no. of hours my dd is at the childminder. I cannot imagine for one second any of my friends even knowing that. Our tutors who practically live with us don't know that level of information. I reckon I must have explained to a professional at some point, just exactly how we are managing our programme perhaps.

Apart from anything else, if I'm honest I don't really have many friends. I occassionally get to go out with a couple but the topic of conversation is never how many hours my dd goes to the childminder ffs.

No-one else would know me well enough to say whether or not I am capable. I've had noone but LA professionals and tutors in my house since forever.......

No, it wasn't the childminder. She is fantastic with her kids, but never gets very good ofsted ratings because she can't understand the systems of her own paperwork, let alone understand how the bigger wheels work, and for that reason alone I would never have mentioned it anyway!

I am a bit horrified to have it written that I can make a pest of myself. I certainly hope that their lives are harder from going against me than with, but I have never made any noise for the sake of being a pest. The noise I make is for the sake of my ds and in attempt to get him 'adequate' provision. If they think I am being a pest, it is only because they don't like my questioning their less than transparent systems, which I wouldn't have to do if they were doing their jobs properly!

Star

Read about your response from LA and the nasty allegations they have fabricated.

Brought back quite a few unpleasant memories of my own. I actually vomited when i read one letter from my LA accusing me of insisting school ignored my son's SENs. Shocking! The calumny that they sent to me actually caused me to go off sick from work for 2 months with stress and rop 2 stone in weight. It was so bad that I became paralysed with inaction as I felt that anything i did or said would just be twisted.

It does knock the stuffing out of you - that's what the LA are trying to do as they have a lot riding on this. If they fail you'll open the flood gates for ABA in their authority.

However, you need to rise above it. Once I'd recovered from the initial shock at how devious and underhand they could be it just made me even more determined to follow this through to the bitter end. i.e. to SENDIST, to a Council complaint and finally LGO to extract that apology and compensation for the utter distress they unnecessarily caused me.

FOI requests, as far as I know, cannot be used to obtain information about a particular individual - so i think what you've been told is crap. Who is going to pay the £40 fee to initiate that request - noone. they are bull-shitting you.

I think it's part of the LA's deliberate campaign of harrassment in an attempt to undermine and weaken you pre-Tribunal.

I would certainly initiate a complaint to the Council about this supposed FOI request even if it's just to ascertain what info the Council responded with and also about the SEN dept's attempt to obtain confidential information about you.

I think you should initiate that complaint right now. You have nothing to lose now and if you word it in such a way that it's clear to them that you will raise the issue with the LG) if the Council complaint does not reach a satisfactory remedy, I think the Council will take this as a sign to back off.

That way you will be well placed to go to the LGO quite soon after the Tribunal.

I'm sorry you're going through this. But if you should look at it this way -

The stronger your case the more shit they are throwing

You must have a strong case.

Best wishes

Hi Wet,

Thank you for responding. It was MY FoI request that showed they had simply asked, not demanded under the FoI, so I prolly don't have a bit thing.

I can see too, that they are trying to say that I have instructed deliberatey to prevent them from meeting ds needs. The details are that his 1:1 kept using his name obsessively and he would repeatedly ignore it. For one week at home we wanted to work on this and so requested that they reduced using his name (I wanted to say only say it when you absolutely have his attention and follow through straight away physically prompting, but the LSA wasn't bright enough to understand), whilst we got him to practise responding every single time at home, to increase his response.

This has now gone down as some wierd cult thing that I told the staff that no-one was allowed to use his name.

Justa That might have happened. tbh, it is helpful to post here but I'm worried now that people will see all this and be put off, and the system needs people, lots of people to be 'pests'!

Star don't get too tied up with the personal stuff about you. The case is about whether your suggestion provision and their suggested provision are both appropriate to meet needs of your DS. Thats it. Don't spend hours rebutting stuff which the tribunal will refuse to look at. You can just ignore it as irrelevant. The tribunal are not really interested in you as a parent just your DS.

Concentrate your efforts on the 4-5 main points which you think are important and you want to get across at tribunal. You don't want to detract from this. Bet the tribunal will cut them off dead if they even try and go down the "how are we supposed to deal with such unreasonable parents" line. They hear it every week.

btw if you were truly Munchausens / cultish why haven't they called SS about that!

Thanks. It is getting more and more stupid, with the preschool that had agreed to have DS now saying that they have to take advice from the LA about whether our tutor can go in (they already agreed that she could) and that they haven't actually received the registration form, and that their compliment slip with the offer of a place wasn't actually an offer.

grrrrr.

The good news is that their opposing case is currently very weak, but not as weak as it would be if we had him already attending a preschool with our tutor though.......

Stupidness and more stupidness. I'm now certain that the annonymous record in the SS file is a made up one, or a real one put in by a LA official.

Thanks Agnes.