SCN0361
Written evidence from Parental Submission 137
Assessment and Support:
- We have been lucky enough to have great support and dedication from those who have cared for my son. The assessment process however, was difficult mainly because communication between LA and healthcare providers was poor: referrals were lost, notifications to education were lost, requests for reports were lost. It was only me as a parent who noticed that nothing was happening and picked up the phone to ask where my son’s paperwork had gone to. Nobody else owned the outcomes for him.
Transition from Statement of SEN to EHCP:
- The Statement was a coherent document. His EHCP was less coherent because it was cut and paste in from a variety of sources as that was all there was time for to meet the deadlines. I had the impression that nobody had re-read it to check that there was a logical flow from outcomes to provision. The change to an EHCP did not make provision for my son any more holistic. People assumed there would be no social care assessment and the healthcare provision is still primarily in support of his education, although providers (as before) also reach out to us at home. It was horrible to see time and energy and money being put into what seems a needless administrative exercise rather than going towards frontline provision.
Level and distribution of funding:
- Although my son was assessed as needing full-time TA help in the mainstream, only part of the funding for this was provided from the LA, the rest had to come from the school’s budget for all SEN children. But a child needing full-time help cannot share a TA; a TA cannot be in 2 different classes at the same time.
June 2018