Proposed statement....

[Clare63]

I posted last month to say the LEA had agreed that DS needed a statement and that a proposal would be sent to us shortly. Well its been over a month and finally arrived today, have had a quick read but felt all emotional and raw, actually seeing stuff in black and white about how others view my son makes hard reading. I will of course go through the whole thing with a fine tooth comb over the weekend but right now I can't face too much of it.

 

The proposal is very woolly with NO specific's what so ever, the statement recommend mainstream but on reading the EP report he thinks otherwise, this is basically what he said

 

"I am not hopeful that xxxxxx can be successfully returned to XXX school. His social immaturity, emotional vulnerability, anxieties in socail situations and restricted range of people with whom he seems willing to communciate, militate against this. His appearance and manner seem to reflect his anxous and vulnerable nature and set him apart from other youngsters his age.

 

Placement at a special school such as XXXX XXXX would seem appropriate"

 

The only other body they included in their report is his current school, which I believe have given a good reflection of his difficulties. They did not contact our Consultant or GP or the Children out of School team we are currently working with.

 

Would appreciate comments on the following or anything else you think I should consider/think about : -

 

1) If the EP says special placement why and how does the LEA say otherwise

 

2) If the statement is not specific do I give them chance to correct or appeal straight away and go for specialist placement ?

 

3) Would there be any value, getting an indenpendant Psychologist report, even though the EP and our own camhs psychologist indicate a need for specialist placement ?

 

4) What body would be best to help me, work through this ? do I need a lawyer ???

 

Sorry if I am waffling and stuff, but wanted to get this posted so I could get some pointers.

 

Many thanks in advance

 

Clare x x x x

[Guest Lya of the Nox]

i would say no to getting more advice cos what they have said works

but peeps with way more knowledge will be a long

sent u a mail but still a looking, ( tomoz, am gong bed!)

x

[Clare63]

Thanks Lya, your a good friend, thanks for looking out for me.

Night night, sleep well.

 

Clare x x x

[Flora]

Would appreciate comments on the following or anything else you think I should consider/think about : -

 

1) If the EP says special placement why and how does the LEA say otherwise

 

2) If the statement is not specific do I give them chance to correct or appeal straight away and go for specialist placement ?

 

3) Would there be any value, getting an indenpendant Psychologist report, even though the EP and our own camhs psychologist indicate a need for specialist placement ?

 

4) What body would be best to help me, work through this ? do I need a lawyer ???

 

Sorry if I am waffling and stuff, but wanted to get this posted so I could get some pointers.

 

Many thanks in advance

 

Clare x x x x

 

Hi Clare,

 

This sounds all too familiar!

 

To answer your questions:

 

1) They do this because they will try to get away with providing (ie paying out money) as little as possible. For every person who will contest this sort of thing there are dozens who accept it without question.

 

2) If you think your LEA are going to be obstructive towards the kind of placement you think your son should have (and it certainly sounds at this stage that they are), and as such you reckon you will have a tribunal no matter how much they agree to change before hand, my very strong advice would be to ask them to finalise the statement immediately so that you can lodge your appeal as soon as possible without giving them the opportunity to waste any time (especially considering the age of your son). There will be plenty of time before a hearing for you to meet with them to agree on things. For instance if you lodge an appeal for parts 2,3 and 4 of the statement, you will have the opportunity for mediation to attempt to agree on any parts before a hearing. Some LEA's (apparently) agree to everything prior to a hearing but not all.

 

3) This depends on a few things. Firstly what can you afford? Will the LEA EP and CAMHS back you up without question? From my own experience I would recommend getting as many independent reports as you can afford (they don't come cheap) because quite often the LEA will bully their own professionals into backing THEM up. This is what happened to me, however I did find out recently that the mainstream school SENCO refused to lie for the LEA at tribunal which caused them to offer a special school placement (even though this placement was totally unsuitable it meant we no longer had to prove that mainstream wasn't suitable IYKWIM). Also, they didn't have their own EP as a witness because he refused to attend from the beginning, because he had already let Bill down badly at primary school and had apologised personally to me for that. He recommended all sorts of things in his report which were either ignored or taken out of context when the LEA wrote the draft statement.

 

4) IPSEA and the NAS are very helpful. However, I have heard that it is hard to get their direct support at tribunal if you are articulate and have the ability to do it yourself. I had a lawyer prepare the case, and a barrister for the hearing; but this is VERY very costly, so if you can afford it then go for it, but if not there are the other voluntary organisations. Also, there is legal aid but this is only for preperation of the case, they can not represent you at a hearing under legal aid. There are other organisations I'm sure and hopefully someone else can tell you about them.

 

If you think you are going to end up at tribunal for part 4 in particular, you need to have a good look at all the schools available locally. There were none local to us so Bill is going to a residential school. If there'd been a local school that could have met his needs I would have been happy with that, but I knew in advance that their weren't any so I secured him a place, pending funding, at an independent AS specific school. If you think you may have to go down this route then you should start looking around because you need a firm offer of a place before you can name that school in your appeal (unless it's a LEA school).

 

Clare, sorry for waffling on. I'm willing to share any advice and experience I can. As you know I've just been through this battle. I've got names of professionals etc that I could give you if you want. If there's anything more you think I can help you with feel free to pm me.

 

Good luck

 

Flora x

[Bagpuss]

No advice Clare...but thinking of you and wishing you luck with it <'>

[Clare63]

Thanks Bagpuss for your good wishes ~ <'>

 

Flora thank you for the all the advice (I was hoping you would respond ) was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, some pointers on where to start really. Having a busy few days what with Connor's birthday this weekend, so intend to settle myself down on Monday and go through it all with a fine tooth comb and come up with a plan of action.

 

We visited an independant school for AS (The P group) which we loved and felt could possibly be the RIGHT place, can I ask you, should we go to them with the proposal and ask if they would offer us a place, at this early stage ie before going to apeal ?

 

Many, many thanks

 

Clare x x x

[JsMum]

Claire we are going throw an appeal, the LEA want to send my son to mainstream secondary with full time 1-1 even though they are aware of how anxious he is about school and hasnt attended frequently since June 2007. I am requesting a specialist residential school and I have sought the whole area for a specialist school and none meet Js difficulties, if anything they would add to his problems not make things better, so the school that is spersific to his needs would be perfect, the hardest thing will be sending him away, but if we dont do this and he attends mainstream then I cant see us having a very pleasant future and really do daught I would be able to control him as a teenager so its a specialist school that we are looking into and we have a fight on our hands with the LEA, we now have a report from the Ed psych that will help us and we are collecting all our private assessments and reports over the last 6 years of a very turbulant primary years as J has struggled so much in a system not equipt to support all his needs.

 

I have a solisitor preparing my case and I will have to represent myself at the tribunal but I will face lions and tigers to get the right provision for J so I dont really care who it is at the panel or who is with me, I know I will do my best to represent my child, SENDIST said that there is many parents who have gone in it alone and come out triamph so dont be put off by doing it yourself, get as much help as possible though throw helplines such as IPSEA and ACE, NAS, NETWORK 81, ECt,,, but dont give up thinking its going cost so much money or I dont have a chance, by going you have a much bigger chance than if your dont do anything at all.

 

Good luck, it looks like you will have to write a few more letters to your LEA and get an appeal in to send your son where you think is best not what LEA want to do, at the end of the day your son has a right to a proper education, good luck, I am sharing my story to let you know you can do this, others here are in the beginning, middle and end, some have lost and some have won, but the ones that dont do anything things go too far to be mended and the damage is a life sentence into adult hood.

 

Please please go all the way.

 

JsMum

[Clare63]

Thanks JSMum for sharing your story and your owrds of encouragement, I believe I share your passion to fight for what is right for my child.

 

Wishing you all the very best for your impending tribunal.

 

Clare x x x

[pearl]

Good luck Clare <'>

[julie1]

i have had to go through this process twice with two of my children, if the professionals say your child needs a special school the lea should listen, go to appeal from my experience they always back down, but you will have to fight them.good luck and stay strong.

[Clare63]

Thanks Pearl & Julie,

 

Heard today the EP is leaving his post next week to start another job......goodness knows how this will affect the appeal, the LEA will probably decided we have to have him assessed again.

 

All this is so confusing, I think I need more time to get my head around it all.

 

Thanks everyone for posting and pm'ing it really, really is appreciated.

 

Clare x x x