Our son has a severe physical disability and a longstanding diagnosis. He had a statutory Statement of Special Educational Needs issued by our local authority almost 18 months ago, in order for him to be able to attend a preschool. Securing the statement was a brutalising process, so brutalising, in fact, that our LA has used our example in training, to illustrate how it has got things wrong in the past in order to help them get them right in the future.
I wish we could say that allowing his case to be used in training had made any difference to the process of transferring his statement to a new Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).
Because he is due to start school in reception this September, our son was a priority for transfer at the point of his statement’s annual review. Given that his six-month review hadn’t actually happened by the time the annual transfer was due, we didn’t have high hopes that things would start smoothly. But we persisted in reminding the LA about the need to move to an EHCP. We are now well over 20 weeks into a process that started 8 weeks late. We still only have a draft EHCP. Our experience of receiving the first draft of the EHCP shows that, sadly, in our LA at least nothing has changed for the better since EHCPs came in.
Here are the six issues that most concern me most about the process.
Reluctance to review:
We fought for a statement for our son 2 years ago despite our LA telling us (untruthfully) that statements were not intended for children under 5. We did this, in part, because we anticipated that the implementation of the new EHCP process was likely to have teething troubles. Sadly, we were right. We know disabled children who are not yet even in the EHCP system and will not have Plans in place before they start school this September because caseworkers in our LA told them the EHCP process could not be initiated until after their third birthdays. When those birthdays came and went, the LA was too behind to start the process.
Even once in the system, the reluctance to review is deep-seated. Our LA was seemingly shocked by our request that professionals produced new reports for our son’s EHCP, as if the toddler-who-couldn’t toddle they wrote about in reports for his statement nearly 2 years ago is exactly the same child as our preschooler now. In particular, we had to argue the case for obtaining a review and report from an Educational Psychologist, despite the fact that our son had never been assessed by an EP in an educational setting, not even for his statement. (That’s a whole other story.) We won the argument, but I fail to see why we had to have it in the first place.
Misinformation:
Our LA routinely presents misinformation as fact. Friends and I have been told it is our LA's 'policy' not to quantify or specify provision on draft EHCPs (they once said the same about statements). I know people who have, understandably, signed ECHPs on this basis only to realise later that they have signed whatever the opposite of a blank cheque is for the educational provision of their disabled children. None of these parents (my friends) yet know, for sure, where their children will attend school in September as a consequence. How can this be right?
Unmanageable workloads:
Caseworkers have unmanageable workloads and it is not in the least bit surprising that the legal timeframes LA websites remind us of cannot be met. I genuinely feel sorry for people trying to do their best and working their hardest in a vital yet underresourced department. But let’s not lose sight of the real effect of excessive workloads. Our son will likely have a final ECHP before he starts school in September; many other children will not. At a recent appointment with our son’s physio, she expressed grave concern about patients’ families who have been told their children will not have EHCPs in place when they start school and who have been assigned inappropriate schools in terms of support and access via the conventional schools admissions policies. This is, to my mind, outrageous.
Errors and inefficiencies:
Workload overload, of course, leads to mistakes. But the level of administrative incompetence that we and some of our friends have experienced in the statementing and EHCP systems is so egregious as to seem strategic. Our son’s draft ECHP did not include the text we had provided on more than one occasion to describe our son’s aspirations for his future or, indeed, our aspirations for him. These boxes were simply left blank. Blank.
When people cannot even cut and paste as well as our son’s older sister can, what faith can we have in the LA’s ability to make finer judgement calls?
None, it turns out. The all important box outlining the provision our son required to meet the needs and smart objectives listed by his wonderful team of healthcare professionals mentioned only that: professionals should be involved in setting targets in ISPs; and that everyone in whatever school he ended up in should know he is disabled, something which is immediately apparent upon meeting our son or seeing his wheelchair from several hundred yards away. The provision box contained no mention of the 1:1 (at times 2:1) stipulated on practically every one of the many pages of reports produced for the ECHP. In other words, our son’s draft EHCP was little more than glorified toilet paper. It committed the LA to absolutely nothing.
Our case is not an isolated one. I know people in our LA whose agreed draft EHCPs have lost content in final form even. How can this happen?
Luck of the draw:
The utterly inadequate draft EHCP we received for our son arrived by email late on a Friday. We nearly lost our minds over the weekend wondering what our LA had in mind for our son (nothing at all?) and had no one to talk to about it or explain. But we were lucky. On Monday morning we knew exactly who to talk to, thanks to knowing Tania, and a very senior person in the SEND department she had previously put us in touch with. (That didn’t make the weekend any better, let me tell you.) Our son’s draft EHCP is being revised to reflect fully the reports, outcomes and recommendations of his healthcare professionals. The errors in the draft, we have been told, were simply a mistake. We are relieved and we feel lucky.
Luck should be no part of this, though, should it? And this is what genuinely keeps me awake at night. Resolving problems with EHCPs too often seems to depend entirely on what and who parents or carers happen to know. I have no doubt that if I didn’t have the right mobile phone numbers, if we weren’t active on social media and know several lawyers, our son’s draft EHCP would not be being revised and we would be headed for Tribunal. Children’s needs should not depend on the networking, knowledge or energy levels of their exhausted parents. I cannot believe I have to even type these words.
Failure of aspiration:
My final point is my shortest. EHCPs were, at their most ambitious, supposed to expand the horizon of opportunities for our children. At their most basic, they were just supposed just to meet their needs better. Two years after our statementing debacle, the consequences of which we are still living with, here we are again. Our LA’s inability to meet deadlines, their administrative oversights, their unlawful ‘policies’ and their unfeeling treatment of children with disabilities and their families runs through it like a stick of rock. I believe and hope things are changing.
But let me tell you: they haven’t yet.
- Have a care for the carers working 100-hour weeks - December 8, 2017
- The failings that made our son’s special education EHCP transfer a nightmare - July 8, 2016
- How a grandma got a clothing giant to “adapt” and help families with disabled children - February 12, 2016
It would be bad enough if this was a one off bad experience but it is at the heart of most people’s experience. What are we supposed to do ? They are never held to account and if you should try they all get together and do a great line in cover up! We are at the other end of the scale looking to prepare for adulthood. Nothing can be added because no one will engage!! It is beyond stressful!! Should you dare to show cracks in your ability to cope with the stress that becomes a safeguarding issue. Isn’t one of the regulations that this process should not cause stress to parents??? We too have been lucky to have the most wonderful person in Marguerite Haye involved in ours without her I think I would have chucked the towel in but even with her we still are faced with brick walls! And you are so right it should not be down to luck.
As Manager of the Hertfordshire Downs group i can say that all of the above is very common for families we work with. As a parent myself I can tell you that our EHCP (priority for transfer as my daughter is in year 6) was not even started by the statutory 15 Feb deadline. When the timeline did start about a month ago the SEN Officer only told me that Section A enabled me to have an input. There was no mention of any new assessment or reports. When I asked about this she seemed extremely put out and said it would delay the whole process if I requested new reports, particularly an EP one (which it did). Then I was asked to accept an unwritten informal EP visit instead of a report (which I didn’t) and, to cut a long story short, this week a meeting with 8 professionals present and two parents had to be abandoned after it transpired that the SEN Officer (already hostile because I had submitted my own amended draft of her pre-populated EHCP) had not obtained or included any thing of the new EP report or latest SLT report. She claimed they were not available to her in spite of the fact that the school and parents both had copies. The EHCP transfer meeting is now scheduled for 2 days before the end of my daughter’s last year at school. I am not at all confident that we will have an agreed EHCP in place before she starts at Secondary school in September.
I’d like to say this is shocking but I honestly can’t as I’ve heard so many other similar stories locally. The system is still not working; what a huge waste of money to change a broken system for a new one which is also broken. It sounds so simple on paper though, let’s all just work out what the child really needs. If only everyone else could care as much about the child as their parent/carers do.
So, too complete a trio of hertfordshire feedback…HERE! HERE! HERE!
My own EHCP has, so far, taken 9 months+, And around 100 emails, four cancelled meetings pending denied and delayed EP. Of the advices, one list, one refused, one claimed he couldn’t do it (and PALS have never heard of it), one came after the meeting (despite 9 months notice), one discharged child even though life long heart condition, one advice was based entirely on content of out going statement and one meeting with child by third party was not known to have taken place for 3 months!!!!”
And I’m an EHC Plan trainer! 3 a advices had no provision.None referred to aspirations although they had been sent.
My meeting in the end was quite good, even if we didn’t know who was coming, my daughter was a star so proud, but yet to see a pre-pop inclusive of all reports, as this was not available for meeting due to absence of reports. This is gonna be a 12 monther. What’s the record?
Have had to explain to nurseries and SENCo’s how to write advices and where to find out more! The lack of initiative and inability to research (look on your LA’s website!) is remarkable.
9/10 of parents I support, and more of those I train, are unhappy with proceedings, outcomes are some time away. Like EP’s!.
Main outcome appears to be that LA is better at making fudge cake; best served with a chocolate tea pot.
It took 85 weeks to get an EHCP for my son who was a transfer from a statement. It was shocking how poor the first attempt was. No Ed Psych report (it turned out our son hadn’t seen one for 7 years despite being in a specialist school). In Lincolnshire all transfers were handled by the special schools the kids were in. In our school it was a shocking farce. Lots of parents have signed those blank cheques – lots of kids being let down and worse.
Something that resonates with me especially in your account is the part about misinformation. LA’S just can’t seem to be honest, yet we are expected to accept what they say is correct. For example my daughter received her draft EHC plan with the school named. I wanted to name a different school and was told that the transfer from a statement was not an opportunity to name a school. Even more scary was that the LA rep said I was the first parent to request a school. This is just one instance of being misinformed. How can we trust them?