Statement Process - Relocating

[Linda_slater@btinternet.com]

Hi.....I'm new to this website so please forgive me if I'm in the wrong area! We are in the process of getting my 12 year ASD son assessed for an SEN as school life for him in just so awful. My husband has just been offered a new job in the West Country so my question is.....can we continue with the assessment in Cornwall or would my husband need to move down on his own whilst we continue the assessment at his current school? Any advise would be greatly appreciated x

[Sally44]

Are you talking about an assessment for a diagnosis, or an assessment for a Statement of special educational needs?

 

Also if your user name is your personal email address I would advise that you change it. If people want to contact you directly they can do that via the private message option.

[Linda_slater@btinternet.com]

......a Statement For Special Educational Needs. Thanks for the advise regarding my user name; do you know how I change it please? I've looked but I can't see how to do it!

[bed32]

What stage are you at now?

 

Ideally you would want to go through the assessment stage in the context of his current school and LA. It could be tricky trying to go through assessment shortly after moving. Depending on the evidence of need the new LA would probably want to see how he fits into the new school to see what his additional needs are in that environment.

 

What are you hoping that the statement will say? And how severe are his problems?

[Sally44]

How far are you into the process?

 

How old is he.

 

What type of school does he currently attend.

[Sally44]

I would also advise that you look at www.ipsea.org.uk website and that you also arrange a telephone consultation.

 

The Statementing process takes 26 weeks in total. Usually the parents have to appeal the final Statement. That can take another 4 months. And it may involve getting additional independent reports. So that is nearly a year.

 

If you get the placement you want, will that be an independent school, and if so will your child be boarding there if you move to Cornwall?

 

Get advice from ipsea. If you move you may most likely get a placement set up, see it fail, and have to re-apply for a Statement where you have moved to. I would recommend you start thinking about what kind of school he needs. Can he cope mainstream or does he need an ASD specific school?

 

The alternative is approx 10 months to get the placement, support and therapy you want in this area written into his Statement, and then move and seek an equivalent placement and provision where you move to. Then if the LA does not do it you can use Judicial Review.

[Linda_slater@btinternet.com]

Thank you everyone for your comments & advise. We are at the start of the process; we've had a battle with my son's main stream school to get them to even acknowledge he desperately needs a statement. Life at school is so miserable for him; he is constantly bullied, he struggles with his school work, has social & communication difficulties. With the Aspergers he also has Dyspraxia & ADD so life in general is a constant, confusing battle for him. He hates school & is so desperate to move; our social worker & CAMHS are of the opinion he needs to be in a smaller, more specialised school where his needs will be met & supported.

 

I personally feel, with all the support we have in place for him at the moment we have no option but to stay where we are. To move, even though we have just started the process, just throws more confusion in to the mix. He needs stability & so do we as a family.

 

I had no idea the challenges that lie ahead with getting a statement; how sad is it that we have to fight so very hard to get the education that our children so desperately need & rightly deserve.

[bed32]

Have you actually made the formal request for statutory assessment? If not it is worth doing that immediately irrespective of anything else. They need to decide whether to assess within 6 weeks of making that request so it is not too long to wait - if they do assess it can take a further 6 months to get the statement finalised.

 

I don't think it is a good idea to keep him in a place where he is miserable on the grounds of stability - you need to be planning some change. There could be something to be said for moving him now - particularly if you can find a school in the new location that is more SEN friendly. In the hope that he will cope better there while you go through the process of getting a statement.

 

I can't speak for your particular circumstances, but I think if it were our family we would either turn the job down or move down there as a family as soon as possible (unless the job was likely to be fairly short term). It is hard to see any real benefits of planning to move down later.

 

If your LA refuses to assess then it seems to be a "no brainer" to appeal and move immediately

[Sally44]

My son refused school at the start of year 5 primary. He was out of school for about a year. We had an educational tribunal [the second one actually], and we won an independent school placement at an ASD specific school for children with around average cognitive ability. He goes to Alderwasley Hall School.

 

What your son needs is small group teaching, specialist teaching, therapy from a Speech and Language Therapist not just about language but also social communication, friendships etc. As he has dyspraxia he needs input from an OT.

 

Does he have a sensory processing disorder?

 

However to get all these things into a Statement you need those needs to be identified by professionals and for those professionals to quantify and specify the provision for each of those needs. It is nigh impossible to get an LA or NHS professional to do that. That is because of the funding implications of them identifying all your child's needs and specifying the kind of provision, support, staffing arrangements and therapy hours they need.

 

Also to get an independent ASD placement you usually need the placement to have broken down ie. for the child not to be attending.

 

If you stay where you are I would also recommend that you identify which school you would want him to attend down South.

 

Then get his Statement to name that type of school in part 4. So my son's Statement says "An ASD specific independent schools for children with Aspergers ie. Alderwasley Hall School". So if we ever move we can seek a similar kind of placement.

 

The SEN process is unfortunately about trying to mend the gap once the dam has burst. So you need things to fail and go terribly wrong before anything is done. Even on the actual tribunal itself my LA still said they had "no concerns" about my son eventhough he had not been in school for about a year, and had been so bad whilst at school that he had attempted suicide.

 

So my personal preference, if it were me, would be to move [if the move is to be permanent], and start the process there. The only potential benefit I can see of staying is that if they know you are in the process of moving they "might" not fight you so much. However the Statement will name your preferred choice of school and unless that is an independent ASD specific boarding school, his placement will change anyway with the move. Then you will have a fight on your hands with the new LA who "should" name a similar type of school as the placement, but who may try to enrol him in a mainstream school. You would have to go to Judical Review if they did that as they are amending the contents of the Statement outside of the Annual Review process.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Sally44