In Annual reviews, EHCPs and the opacity of local authority – part 1 I described the frustration of the annual review process, the fact that the local authority don’t attend these meetings and the difficulty of finding someone to speak to when legislative deadlines come and go without consequence. If you’ve not read part 1 then here’s the spoiler: the local authority declined our request to move Victoria to a specialist placement. So what happened next? Well…
The phone call
I now had a contact, an actual person with an actual name who was taking responsibility for our case. I’ll call them K to preserve their anonymity. During our initial call K explained that our application had been turned down on the basis that Victoria’s needs were being met and she is “making progress”, and that the school hadn’t exhausted all options for funding and assistance open to them. This was confusing and it was the polar opposite of our belief and that of the school SENCO. I started to question whether we were talking about the same child here, but it seems that we were. On the basis of the paperwork supplied, there was no evidence that Victoria needed anything other than what she currently had in a mainstream setting so the decision was made.
Something was obviously amiss. I had seen the paperwork that would be submitted to Kent and have no reason to disbelieve the school when they say they are out of options to allow Victoria to meet her potential. The only solution was to get the 3 parties in a room together to discuss this face to face.
The meeting
On Tuesday 19th July a meeting was held at Victoria’s school between the SENCO, K, K’s colleague at Kent responsible for dealing with changes of placement (although not the person that deal with our case), and us. Despite COVID, the hot weather, bad traffic or any other excuse that could have been made, the meeting was indeed held in person at Victoria’s school, albeit with the placement officer dialling in via Teams. I say “dialling in” because her connection was that bad it made me wonder if she was calling from the 1990s. We finallly got started after 10 minutes of “can you hear us… we can’t hear you… you’re on mute…”.
I set out the situation as I understood things, which was basically Victoria’s life story and our recent challenges condensed into 5 minutes. I felt like I was making a case for the prosecution as I described how opaque the whole EHCP process is, how it appears to be designed to deter people from seeking a decent education for their children and how, at the end of the day, this is all about Kent trying not to spend money on our children. As a finishing touch, I also questioned how Kent had received an “outstanding” rating overall from OFSTED for their educational provision when so many families like mine are being let down by the system.
Apparently I have it all wrong. The system is working, there are processes in place and this is certainly nothing to do with money. Let’s see about that…
Speech and Language Therapy
Over the next couple of hours we discussed the process we had been through and it was acknowledged by both representatives of KCC that we had been failed in a number of ways. For example, we were told that there was no evidence that Victoria needed additional assistance with Speech and Language. K pointed to the NHS assessment carried out a year earlier as proof – everything the therapist suggested we could do was in the EHCP and being done for Victoria. Yet we are not seeing any marked improvement in Victoria’s ability to comprehend verbal and written instruction because Kent will not provide any actual Speech and Language therapy to help Victoria. T
here are a few issues here: I specifically asked for Speech and Language therapy to be included for Victoria a year ago, and KCC refused to allow us to add it to the EHCP as they can not and do not provide such a service. Victoria’s school have requested this for other children too and been unsuccessful. A recent email to the school confirmed that Speech and Language therapy cannot come out of the higher-needs funding for a child. And yet we know for a fact that other mainstream schools in the area have a Speech and Language therapist visit to work with children with similar needs to Victoria on a regular basis. So at best there is inconsistency in the application of the rules…
Changes to the EHCP
When we went through the process of getting an initial EHCP a year ago, it was a collaborative process between KCC, the school and US. And when I say “collaborative”, what I mean is:
- KCC copied and and pasted information from the various assessments into a Word document
- I rewrote 90% of the document because it was not fit for purpose, used woolly language that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny and was basically not worth the paper it was written on
- The document then got watered down by KCC and the school as it included a lot of stuff the school couldn’t deliver without additional resources. The steer we got from KCC was that we had to try the basics first and then could increase provision later if they were shown not to be working
I think it is entirely appropriate that the Kent EHCP template is written in Comic Sans.
So I think it is natural to assume that the content of the EHCP must be agreed between all parties before the final version is issued, what with this being a legally-enforceable contract. During our annual review meeting with the school (KCC don’t turn up to these ever, remember) we only asked for a change of placement and not for any changes to be made to the support and interventions available to Victoria. We couldn’t ask for additional provisions to be included for 2 reasons:
- We are not educational experts so how are we meant to know exactly what is and isn’t possible to help a child with autism and one with Victoria’s specific needs?
- The school aren’t going to include things they cannot currently deliver as they would be held accountable for the delivery. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas after all.
However, during our meeting K told us that this is exactly what we should have done. We can apparently ask for anything to be added to the EHCP and it is the local authority’s responsibility to ensure this is delivered. Wait… we can ask for anything? Actually no, we can ask for anything that a “professional” has suggested in a written report. But that professional can only be someone that has seen Victoria for a short one-off assessment and not someone that works with her day in day out and is best placed to identify Victoria’s needs. Like her teachers and SENCO…
Anyway, as we didn’t ask for any changes it was concluded that the current provisions were working. They also assumed the same as Victoria is deemed to be “making progress”. I had to explain several times what that term means. Each time Eddie the Eagle performed a ski jump he made progress. The Jamaican bobsleigh team made progress. My dad’s Vauxhall Viva made progress. They were all going forwards, but relative to the rest of the world the gap was growing when it needn’t be. With the right support, experience and equipment all could make better progress, keep up with and/or catch their peers to reach their full potential. Except maybe the Viva…
Our choices going forwards
The aim of this meeting was to agree a way forwards and it basically comes down to 2 choices.
We can appeal the case by taking it to tribunal. Legally we have 2 months from the time that we are notified in writing of KCC’s decision to launch an appeal. I asked K when we would receive that decision in writing. “You mean you’ve not received it yet?”. Another part of the process that is currently broken it would seem…
Taking the local authority to court is a scary prospect. It will take a lot of time and effort to start with. Certainly more than we have to spare given that this is affecting Victoria’s education now and waiting a year for a hearing is only going to waste a year that could be better spent in other ways. And because we are not entitled to legal aid, it would be extremely costly. Families earning more than £32k a year are discouraged from seeking redress from the courts on financial grounds, a rare example of the better off being discriminated against.
Our other option is to accept KCC’s decision and prepare ourselves to go through the whole process again during an “Emergency Review” which we can call later in the year. This is going to cost, as we were told by K that our best chance would be to have private assessments carried out. Nobody seems clear on who should be responsible for Speech and Language Assessments for Victoria now but it’s probably something we would need to request through the NHS and I gather they are struggling a little right now, so another reason to go private.
Opacity
It feels like we are starting the EHCP process again albeit better informed, but this is why I describe the process as opaque. I feel I am a fairly intelligent bloke with access to an internet full of information; we have the support of Victoria’s school and an amazing amount of help, information and expertise from We Are Beams and the Fathers’ Club; we now know many people on similar journeys with whom we compare notes and seek advice; and we have the time to invest in this and yet it has taken nearly 2 years to understand the basics of the EHCP process. How on earth is this process anything other than opaque? How can anyone say it is designed to help the very families that need it most?
And the worrying thing is, if the current government get their way, this is only likely to get worse
Takeaways
Here are a few takeaways from this experience so far:
- If you child doesn’t have an EHCP but has additional educational needs, start the process now. The sooner you have it the sooner you can challenge things when outcomes aren’t being met.
- Don’t be intimidated by “the system” which is designed to put people off. The life of an autismDAD/mum/parent/carer involves a lot of pushing on closed doors and fighting to be heard, and this is just another of those processes. The people you deal with may have fancy titles (everyone is a “Director of…” it seems) but they are just people at the end of the day.
- You need to include at least 8 people from your local authority as well as your MP on daily emails and threaten legal action at least 3 times before anyone will answer the phone. Note that despite legislation being in place to ensure local authorities respect certain timescales, there is no implication for them missing these deadlines by weeks.
- The local authority know they are letting children down and will agree with you off the record. It is up to you whether you give them hell for being the representatives of this shit system or give them slack as they are only following the process as defined.
- Find out exactly what your child needs from “professionals” (but not professionals at school as they don’t count) and include it in the EHCP. Don’t be bullied into not including things because they cannot be provided by the local authority.
- Make sure the people carrying out any assessments know why they are carrying them out. Remarkably that is not always the case.
- Document everything. Print everything out. Follow up every phone call with an email to generate a paper trail. Take all of this with you to every meeting. Ensure you are the most prepared person in the room at all times.
- Never lie on any paperwork but read back any comments you make to ensure they cannot be misrepresented or misinterpreted. Never say your daughter is “making progress” – it will come back to bite you.
- Work with your school as much as you can rather than against it. Education in the UK is far from perfect and there are many examples of Good and Outstanding schools failing children through their own policies and practices. But I genuinely believe in our case it is the local authority failing local schools and your school might be just as frustrated as you.
- There are people out there that can offer advice and assistance with these matters, it’s often just a case of finding them. Ask around at school, social clubs… in fact anywhere you meet people. Special Educational Needs are more common than you think and there are a lot of people with a story to tell and advice to share if you’re willing to discuss it with strangers.
I have a feeling this story is still to be continued…