The plot thickens

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Aspie in the family

Following on from my previous post I have now found out that the ‘concern’ about my son’s attendance has originated from the school’s Board of Governors not my LA as I previously thought.  According to the head the Board are going through pupil’s attendance figures with a fine nit comb and picking out those whose attendance is low.  They argue that there is a huge pressure on places and that because my son’s poor attendance is low this is indicative of the school “not meeting need” (?).  Consequently she says we have to look for alternative provision thereby freeing up his place for someone else.

What the head didn’t say and what I have subsequently found out is that a recent Ofsted report have stated that ‘low attendance’ was one of the reasons why the school did not receive  an outstanding inspection.  Interesting eh and no doubt indicative of a big attitudinal shift in the school and the Board of Governors who are clearly chasing an outstanding report.

I am disgusted that after all this time helping my  son to integrate into the school that two little words on an Ofsted report have triggered such a negative change in attitude towards him.  As many of you know, my son has come a long way from the days when he was agoraphobic and unable to leave the house to now being able to attend school part time.  I am convinced that if he hadn’t got a place in his special school he would not have come on as he has.  Indeed my son often says how much he “loves” his school which considering his earlier experiences in mainstream  is an amazing turn around.

Unfortunately the school doesn’t seem to care about my son or what he thinks.  They continue to insist that they can’t meet need which frankly is a load of crap.  They can meet need;  they’re just under pressure from a Board of Governors who are more bothered by improving their Ofsted ranking than the wellbeing of their pupils.

Posted in Autism Spectrum Disorder, School, Special Educational Needs | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

**Raging**

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Aspie in the family

After all my efforts trying to integrate my son into school (and I’m pleased to say he is now doing four lessons a week) I have today been told that the school want to remove his place.  I cannot tell you how angry and upset I am but to say to I’m raging is an understatement.  How can any caring person or organisation do this to a disabled student in his last year of school?  Well it seems that my son’s school think its OK to do this though I rather suspect there are higher powers pressurising the school to chuck my son out.

According to the member of staff who told me this news the school are under pressure over places.  I’m guessing from this that because my son is not in full time that the school would rather him out so that another pupil can take his place.  However, I suspect that my pathfinding local authority may have some involvement.  They pay for my son’s place and knowing the budgetary constraints they’re under I can just see them trying to pull his place and provide him with shitty home tuition which to date has been so useless in engaging him.  I’ve had a whiff of this attitude from my LA last year so I know they are more than capable of behaving like this.

I explained to the Family Support Worker (god bless her, she has proven to be much welcome support and a shoulder to cry on) that to pull his place at this late stage will cause irreparable damage to my son.  I explained that my son loves his school and to reject him like this will probably cause him to become even more reclusive.  Indeed when I tenderly broke the news to my son he verbally exploded with anger and said very much what I said “how can they chuck me out in my last year”.  I had no answer to that except to say that he needs to build up his hours there while me and his dad deal with the authorities.  He said he would try which is good but whether it will be enough to stop this lunacy we shall have to see.

In the meantime, me and the other half are busily making plans before next week’s review meeting.  We shall not be going down without a fight.

Posted in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mental Health, School, Special Educational Needs | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Sadness prevails but I have a lot to be thankful for

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Aspie in the family

Not all is good in the Aspie in the Family household at the moment.  The passing of my nan last week has led to another swathe of unhappiness descending upon us.  I console myself with the thought that she had reached a grand age (nearly 97) and that with her increasing fragility it was inevitable that this day would come.  Even so her passing is sad, the end of an era as she was the last person in our family to have memories of the second world war.

She was an intelligent and strong minded woman, the only child of a first world war officer (who died in battle before she was born) and her milliner mother.  She was fortunate to be born into a family with the means to provide her with a grammar school education during the 1920s and 30s.  I always enjoyed listening to her tales about her school days and pouring over her old school photographs.  Indeed so inspired was I that I couldn’t wait to move on to secondary school.  I secretly hoped that my school would be similar to my nans and that I would get to study more interesting subjects than was taught at primary school.  In fact one of my dreams was to study Latin.  I’m not sure why eleven-year old me had a thing about Latin and can only assume that because my nan studied it at school and my grandfather taught himself the Latin names for plants that somehow it worked its way into my imagination.  Of course back then I had no idea of  the toxic combination of politics, class and education and assumed education was the same for all.

Five years later my dreams lay in dust.  My expectations of school never materialised (there was certainly no Latin classes) and I ended up leaving school bored and frustrated.  I look back at those days with a lot of sadness that so much potential in my year group was lost but back then (the 1980s) expectations were incredibly low.  There was never any mention of University or aspiring for professional careers.  We were expected to leave school and either enter the workplace or go to college and train for non-professional jobs.  Everything was very much along class lines and whilst I ‘conformed’ and got a job I still felt weighed down by a feeling that I hadn’t proven myself.  Unlike my nan I wasn’t proud of my education.

In time I was to rectify that and go on to achieve a first class degree in the social sciences, the first woman in my family to obtain a degree and the first to achieve a first.  This may seem insignificant but for my family it was a big step forward as many of my other relatives had not been so lucky.  Repression and poverty were prevalent in previous generations of my family which meant that a university education was just a pipe dream.  Even my nan who was slightly better off than the rest didn’t make it; I don’t know why considering she was so bright.  Perhaps the depression of the 1930′s and an obligation towards her widowed mother meant that university was just not possible.

Either way she didn’t go and neither did my mum and so I ended up being the first woman to have that experience.  However, I often wonder if I hadn’t heard about my nan’s school days would I have ever got there?  Would I have been like many of my peers who without question accepted their education?  The chances are that without my nan inspiring me I wouldn’t have fought to reclaim the education that I had dreamed of for so long.

I have a lot to thank her for.

Posted in Family Life, Society | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Children missing from education – it’s not always the parents fault!

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Aspie in the family

At long last Ofsted have raised concerns about thousands of youngsters missing from the education system.  In a recently published report they state that children with special educational needs, those who have been permanently excluded, newly arrived migrants and youngsters with mental health problems are not receiving a full time education.  They go on to state that if the findings of inspections in 15 local authorities were replicated across the country, it would mean that 10,000 youngsters are missing from the school system.

Sadly this news comes as no surprise to me.  Both my children have had spells where they have been out of education; my youngest still is.  In my experience both my children’s difficulties arose from their time in primary school where the lack of specialised support combined with a rigid and uninspiring curriculum caused so much distress for them that they developed mental health difficulties.  If that wasn’t bad enough I then had to deal with the apathy of both school and the local authority towards my children’s situation.  No-one gave a dam about whether they were receiving an education or not and it was left to me and my husband to fight for alternative provision.

Unfortunately that alternative provision only amounted to a few hours of home tuition a week provided by semi retired teachers, many of whom did not have the understanding of autism to adequately support my children.  It really was pot luck as to whether you got a competent teacher or not which considering the needs of my children is simply not good enough.

Children such as mine who have developed mental health problems in addition to their disability and/or special educational needs really do need a specialised (in our case autism  trained) teacher.  (Note trained; autism awareness is not enough.)   In addition there needs to be better mental health support ie a therapist who can work with the parent and school to help the child reintegrate into a school setting, if appropriate.  Alternatively a school could have a professional dedicated to working with pupil with SEN and/or mental health problems as a means of bridging the gap between home and school.

To date I have never come across this sort of provision.  The NHS (notably CAMHS) and education are such disparate services that as a parent you find yourself piggy in the middle trying to navigate some sort of integrated working between the mental health services and education.  In reality (my reality) there was no such thing and I found myself doing the reintegration work myself which included telling the teaching staff what I was going to do.  Unbelievably, few of them understood how to help an autistic teen with severe anxiety and CAMHS did not involve themselves with the education side either.  They didn’t even write a letter or report to school.  They didn’t even contribute properly to the statementing process.  Everything was left to me.

Now I have nothing against helping my child and indeed helping my son back to health and into school has been one of my most satisfying achievements to date.  In many cases we are the ones most equipped to do this as we know our children best.  However, to do it in isolation without the understanding or back up of professionals is tough.  Many a time I’ve found myself questioned by professionals and many a time I’ve had to stand up to them.  There seems to be an unacceptably low level of expectation for children like my son and I often felt that people were too ready to give up on him and let him languish at home with a few hours of tuition a week.  Now I realise that for some pupils home tuition works as does home education but for my son it doesn’t.  He simply will not engage with either external tutors or myself because in his eyes (due to his autism) school is school and home is home which I why I had to push for him to get back to school.

I realise I have digressed a bit here but the point is that provision for children like my son is so poor that it comes as no surprise that so many are missing from education.  Unfortunately some people seem to think that children missing an education is the fault of the parents and whilst that may be the case for some it isn’t the case for all.  Too often I read (as I did yesterday in the comments section of a major newspaper) of people demanding that parents face up to their responsibilities, that parents be punished should their children fail to attend school.  I can’t tell you how angry this makes me feel.

I never wanted my children to become ill and drop out of school.  I wanted my children to do well at school and aim to be the best they could be and I did everything to support that.  However, no one supported them and they were left to struggle in a large class until such time that they simply couldn’t carry on any longer.  I can’t tell you how awful it is to see your child become suicidal because of what is or isn’t happening in school.   It is deeply traumatic and leaves you with an acute sense of betrayal.  You expect school to be a caring place and to teach according to the child’s needs but often it doesn’t.  Education has become so inflexible and there is such a pressure to meet government targets that there are few opportunities for teachers to meet the needs of the individual child.  For those children who are already vulnerable is it any wonder that they drop out of school?

Posted in Aspergers, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mental Health, School, School Refusal, Special Educational Needs | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

A trial in #homeeducation

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Aspie in the family

After a lot of thought, I’ve decided to have a trial period home schooling my daughter.  This hasn’t been an easy decision but after the difficulties I’ve had trying to integrate my daughter into her new school, it seems that this is the only option left.  There comes a point where the never-ending battle becomes too exhausting and you start to ask yourself why you’re doing this.  I mean why put all my energies into fighting a broken system when that energy could  be used more positively to help my daughter.

I know this is a  bit of a sea change for me because for ages I’ve been arguing that parents shouldn’t be forced into home education because of the lack of suitable educational provision.  In a way I  still think this.  Parents shouldn’t feel forced into home education particularly when it’s not suitable for their child.  Certainly for my son home education was not an option because he adamantly refused to be taught by me.  Part of this was due to his compartmentalisation, that is school is school and home is home and never the twain should meet.  As a result I’ve had to use a combination of home tutoring by the LA and part time schooling at special school to help my son but even now I’m not sure we have it right.  In part I think this has been due to an inadequate assessment of his difficulties and lack of integrated working between the mental health services and education.   More of this another time as I have lots to say about this and the currently painful process of finding a college for my son.

My daughter is different however.  She  has asked me to teach her and that is the main reason why I’m going to give it a go.  Of course I have my reservations about this not least whether I’ll be  able to manage teaching my daughter alongside looking after her brother, running a family home and working part time.  There again with several years experience of working in community education and supporting adults with specific learning difficulties I’m already in a reasonably good position in which to help her.  However whether I can apply my experience to my daughter and whether  she will respond to me remains to be seen.  There again I was very pleased that she was  able to do a piece of writing for me the other day.  This has given me a good idea of what she can and can’t do and has provided me with an idea of the areas we can work on in the coming weeks.

For now though this is a trial.  I haven’t told the school or the LA and I don’t intend to until I’m absolutely sure this is the right way to go.  It could be that school could still work for her if we can provide more specialised support as suggested by the head recently.  With this in mind, we’re now waiting for a CAMHS appointment to check out whether our daughter has additional difficulties that might explain her school refusing.  This will, I hope, provide the medical evidence needed to stop her school absences being recorded as unauthorised which is something we are very keen to do.  Unauthorised absences are not something you want as a parent as it puts us at risk of court action and a hefty fine!  Unbelievably harsh isn’t it but that’s the system for you I’m afraid.  You just have to work with it and find the medical evidence needed for the education system to believe that its not your parenting that is the reason for your child’s school absences.  For now though, while we wait for an appointment, I’ll continue to work with my daughter at home until such time that we have  clearer idea of what to do.

Posted in Aspergers, Girls with aspergers, Home Education, School, School Refusal, Special Educational Needs | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Marketisation of #SEN

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Aspie in the family

SENDirect is a project being developed by the SEND Consortium which is made up of several national charities: Ambitious about Autism, Contact a Family, Dyslexia-Action, Mencap, Scope, ICAN, KIDS and the National Autistic Society.

SENDirect will be a National Online Brokerage Service providing a range of services
including information and support for parents and carers of children and young people with SEN and disabilities.  You can read more about it here but essentially under the new SEN reforms due to be implemented next  year we will be landed with a new brokerage service that aims to “create a sustainable marketplace of provision”.

Yes you heard right, a sustainable marketplace of provision which basically means that special educational needs is to be opened up to market forces.  How exactly this will work I don’t know but I’m guessing that just like social care the LA will contract out services to private providers who will compete on services and cost.  As a special needs mum a competitive system is not reassuring and leaves me with many questions not least.

  • What services will be available?  What services won’t?
  • Who are the brokers?  Will they charge for their services?
  • Is the service optional?  Do we have to use it?  If we opt out can we access providers ourselves?

Personally the thought that friends of Cameron a group of people are going to make a profit out of SEN and disability is not right.  We’ve all heard the horror stories of how people are being treated in care homes and only recently we’ve heard how carers are spending less and less time with the elderly in their homes.  Now I appreciate there is good practice going on but its the principle of the thing that bothers me and that can be summed up in one question.

Should a small group of people be exploiting the vulnerable for financial gain?

Posted in Care, Disability, Special Educational Needs | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Deja Vu

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Aspie in the family

As you know the council named a school on my daughter’s final statement of SEN without our full agreement.  I was angered by this and also their decision to terminate my daughter’s home tuition with immediate affect.  In fact it was the latter that really upset me because no thought had been given to organising any transition.  Bearing in mind my daughter has been out of school for over a year then anyone with an ounce of intelligence would understand the importance of a programme of transition from home to school.  Alas it seemed that education officers did not (or did not want to) consider this.  Incompetence or cost-cutting (or both) – either way it’s pretty crap.

So, rather than push for some sort of transition, I decided to do it myself.  (Sometimes you may as well get on with it  yourself as arguing for things to be done actually wastes time and energy which could be used more fruitfully.)  Also, with a threat of court action hanging over our heads regarding our daughter’s non attendance (brought on by the lack of support in her old school) I felt I had no choice than to show I was doing my best to integrate my daughter into school.

Unfortunately getting her into school has been hard going.  Her anxiety was so high that she initially found it very difficult even looking at the school yet alone going inside the building but we persisted as we know from experience that repeated exposure to anxiety-inducing situations helps to overcome the anxiety in the long run.   As a result we were able to move her from looking at the building to looking around the school to siting in a classroom with two of her classmates.  Unfortunately the latter stage is where we hit a stumbling block.  My daughter found sitting in the classroom so overwhelming that she has not been able to go back to school since.  In fact such was her anxiety that she became withdrawn and unable to talk about school for a week.  In my experience these setbacks are to be expected and are part of the course of overcoming serious anxiety; you know one step forward, two steps back sort of thing.

Unfortunately the school have not been very understanding.  When we tried to explain our daughter’s reaction and the need to start again the head’s response was that she didn’t want any pussyfooting around.  From that crass comment I can only assume she has no understanding of the complexity of aspergers and mental health difficulties.   I also wonder how much she believes of what we’ve said.

You see part of the problem we face is that my daughter masks her distress at school and lets go at home which means that what school sees doesn’t match with what we see (and vice versa).  Hence it wasn’t obvious that my daughter had struggled with sitting in the classroom.  To the teaching staff she appeared as though she was coping but later at home it became clear that it was too much for her.   As a result, it falls on me to tell the teachers but the problem with this is that the school have to trust what I say.  If they don’t, if they view me as some form of lowlife who knows nothing about her child (or aspergers) then we will run into difficulties and our relationship will flounder.  I don’t want to fall out with school but I do want to be treated as the person who knows her child best.  Unfortunately the school appears to be dominated by a power hungry head who doesn’t understand enough about the autism spectrum and who doesn’t recognise the importance of working “WITH” parents.  It feels very much a case of “you do as I say” which makes me feel as though I’m back in my daughter’s old school with a head who thinks they know it all but who clearly doesn’t.

Posted in Aspergers, Girls with aspergers, Mental Health, School, School Refusal, Special Educational Needs | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Oh dear, we have a Family Support Worker

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Aspie in the family

For those of you who don’t know, my son has regressed again and has not been able to get back into school this term.  I’m not surprised by this step back; I always knew we were treading a fine line between him being in school or not.  His anxiety is such that any change throws him out of sync and we end up back at square one.  For now, I’m doing what I did before – keeping stress to a minimum and maintaining a routine at home until such point that he is  able to engage on the subject of schooling.  I’ve learnt that pressurising him on the matter gets us nowhere; he ends up becoming even more uncommunicative and unhappy.  At the end of the day his emotional and mental health is more important to me than his education.  That will come, I hope, when he is ready.

Unfortunately because of his school refusing we have been given a Family Support Worker (FSW).  I say unfortunately because I am not a fan of them.  I find their role undermines my role as a parent.  I know its customary to have someone like this involved if you have a child with additional needs but I’m finding having a FSW is creating another barrier, ie
everything I’ve been doing for the last few years she is now doing.  So, stuff like talking to teachers and obtaining copies of documents is now being done by her rather than me and I find it irritating and condescending.  It’s as if someone somewhere has decided I am not a good enough mother and need help.   I don’t.  I am perfectly able to talk to professionals
and elicit the relevant information myself; I don’t need a third party.  I am also quite capable of bringing up my children.  I’ve been doing it for 18 years now so I think I have some idea of what I’m doing.

I’m not criticising FSWs because I know for some people a Family Support Worker is a vital source of help but I think it’s wrong to assume that all parents of SEN children need one.  For me it has created another barrier between the teachers and I because it means that everything the teachers say and what I say goes via her.  Already a meeting has been convened to suit the FSW and a teacher with no thought to whether it suits me and my family.

However, I will give it a go.  You never know, she may have the answer to my son’s school refusing.  Miracles can happen.

Posted in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Parenting, School, School Refusal | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Contempt

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Aspie in the family

I wrote to the LA complaining about the way my daughter’s tuition had been abruptly ended.  I argued that it was unfair that no thought had been given to her disability and the need for transition.  A few days later I received a response saying that because my daughter had not been declared medically unfit that she was not entitled to home tuition.  It is worth noting that CAMHS refused to see my daughter even though we suspected she was suffering from depression and/or anxiety when she first dropped out of school.  To make matters worse, we were also warned that the LA had the power to take me and my husband to court for my daughter’s non attendance at school.

How doubly cruel it is that not only have the NHS failed her but now the education system has the power to punish me and my husband for our daughter’s non attendance.  And yet it  is the education system that has created this nightmare situation by not providing the appropriate support to our daughter in the first place.  Instead she has been exposed to a harsh educational regime that has resulted in her becoming unwell and disengaged.  Her barriers to learning are even bigger now so much so that it will take many more resources to get her back on track, if at all.  If anyone is at fault it is the state, not me or my husband.

To say I was upset with such a threatening letter was an understatement.  I couldn’t understand how I ended up in such an acrimonious situation.  All I ever wanted was an honest discussion with the LA about what was the most appropriate form of education for my daughter.  But frankly, throughout this whole sham of a #SEN process, I have never been treated as an equal partner and my views have been regularly disregarded.  The authority may tick the boxes that indicate they listen and involve us but at the end of the day it means nothing.

As a result of my experiences I have come to the conclusion that as a parent I have absolutely no respect from those who run our council or indeed those who run the country.  It seems to me that there is a huge contempt for parents that flows through the system and which becomes evident when I attempt to work with those at the coalface.  As a result it becomes obvious that I am not expected to understand much about my children or to question those who deliver our services and that when you attempt to do any of these things you end up pissing people off, as I have done.  I am not going to apologise for pissing people off because that’s their problem for not listening and valuing what I have to say.  In the end of the day I am my child’s only advocate and I will do all I can to ensure she has a good quality of life and if it means falling out with people then so be it.

However I’m not stupid enough not to realise that I have to work the system and with a heavy heart I’m now in the process of talking to the named school in the statement.  I will do all I can to work with them because it may be that they can offer the appropriate support for my daughter.  Nevertheless its hard to cooperate with the enemy when you’re seething with anger underneath.  The sense of injustice at how my children have been treated by the ‘system’ and the ‘professionals’ that uphold that system has affected me so much that I find it increasingly difficult to trust the education system.  As a result I often find myself looking forward to the day their formal education ends but of course it doesn’t end at 16 anymore does it?  There is now a compulsion for post 16 year olds to continue with some form of education or training which will no doubt produce another set of challenges for my family to deal with.  My heart sinks at the prospect.

Posted in Aspergers, Disability, Girls with aspergers, Mental Health, School, School Refusal, Special Educational Needs, Statement | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Perhaps Monday

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Aspie in the family

Towards the end of the last school term (just before the schools broke up for summer) we initiated the mediation process.  I did this because I wanted a more honest discussion with the LEA about how to secure a more appropriate education for my daughter.  I wasn’t happy with the minimal hours of home tuition she was receiving as it did little to support her social and emotional needs.  Since dropping out of school she has become more and more reluctant to leave the house.  It felt like we were going down the same agoraphobic route as my son and that terrified me.  I really don’t want her to get as ill as her brother and for me to cope with two children with such severe anxiety disorders on top of ASD.  The combination is very disabling and exhausting to deal with as a parent-carer and so keen to protect her mental health I’ve been trying to find a better educational solution for her, something that would enable her to build up her confidence and self esteem as well as the academic stuff of course.

Unfortunately that ‘something’ has been almost impossible to find.  There are few schools in my area that specialise in Asperger syndrome and those that do are often male dominated and intimidating for my daughter.  Neither are we happy sending our daughter long distances to a specialist school.  Having gone through all we’ve gone through with our son’s out-of-borough education (a dismal failure because he couldn’t cope with going far from home) we are apprehensive of repeating this with our daughter.  The chances are that the same thing would happen again.  My daughter, like my son, is unhappy leaving the house.  She is also sensitive to motion and suffers a lot from nausea when travelling for any distance.  She just about copes with the car for short journeys which makes trips to town doable but further afield than that, she refuses to go anywhere.  Clearly with these difficulties, it makes sense to stay nearer to home and with that in mind we asked the council about the local MLD school (I shall call it MLD School No. 1 for reasons that will become clear).  I had received good advice that the school accommodated higher functioning children like my daughter who fell between the cracks of mainstream and special school.

So we joined a parental tour of the school and were pleasantly surprised with the level of support and educational provision on offer though I was rather appalled at the unfriendly attitude of the head towards us.  She was perfectly nice to the parents of the younger children but not us for some reason.  Why that was I don’t know; perhaps it was because we had an older child that they couldn’t accommodate.

It didn’t put me off though.  I still thought the school was the best bet in the circumstances so I suggested it to the LEA who consulted with the school.  Unfortunately the message came back that the school was full and to accommodate my daughter would undermine the education of the other students (or something to that affect).  So my passive, gentle daughter who hardly says a thing to people would be detrimental to the education of others?  The argument sounded pathetically weak so I contacted our local Parent Partnership who advised me to find out if the school could meet need.  I approached the LEA and asked that very question.  This rather simple question clearly floored them because for about three weeks I heard nothing until out of the blue I got a call from MLD School No. 1 asking if the inclusion teacher could visit me and my daughter.  This felt ‘odd’ but I went along with it in the hope that something miraculous would happen.  Well a miracle didn’t happen.  The chat was merely to tell me that the school could meet need but that they were full and couldn’t accommodate my daughter.  It seemed an unusual waste of resources to send someone round to tell me that.  Why couldn’t they just tell me over the phone?

At this point, the LEA recommended we visit the other special school (I’ll call this MLD School No. 2) which we did.  But as I described in this post we didn’t think it was the right fit for our daughter (even though they had a vacancy).  Unlike MLD School No. 1 there appeared to be less opportunities to do GCSEs and the few pupils that did them were sent to the adjoining secondary school.  We were quite dismayed by this because if our daughter is sent to the adjoining mainstream secondary school what is the point of her going there to start with?  She may as well go to our local secondary school with TA support which is what we wanted in the first place but which the LEA disagreed with.

Consultation with the LEA was now becoming messy and we were becoming increasingly fed up with the evasiveness of the inclusion person.  No-one, it felt, was listening to us or more importantly listening to our daughter.  In desperation I asked for a mediator and after a succession of telephone calls and form filling, a confident middle aged man appeared on my doorstep.  After the obligatory shaking of hands on what was one of the hottest days of the year, we sat down in the front room and started our meeting.  It wasn’t an easy meeting.  The mediator, an experienced lawyer, pushed us and questioned us and generally annoyed us but that is the point I think, to make us think about what is right for our daughter.  I am not unused to aggression; my experience as a senior PA to board directors kicked in and I was able to hold my ground quite successfully.

But there is a serious point I have to mention about SEN mediation.  How impartial is it?  Does it really work in the interests of the child?  No matter what a mediator says about working for the rights of a child or young person can they really defend the interests of our child if their aim is to get a resolution no matter what?  I suppose it depends on your situation.  Our situation is ambiguous; we’re unsure about what we want because we can’t find what we want.  Provision is shockingly poor for aspergers girls like my daughter and so we’re forced to carve something positive out of what is essentially a broken system.  This, I feel, makes us vulnerable to the aggressive techniques from a mediator who seeks to solve the situation by taking us down a particular route which for us was pushing us towards MLD School No. 2 because that was the school with the ‘vacancy’.  There was no mention of other possibilities such as the local secondary school with TA support or the possibility of attending a specialised unit which is what I wanted to explore in more detail.  It was all about getting a quick solution and of course the most convenient solution (for him and the LEA) would be for us to accept the school with the ‘vacancy’.

I was frustrated by this but nevertheless I pursued with the meeting and asked for clarification on certain points, namely how would the MLD School No. 2 support my daughter should she sit GCSEs?  The mediator said he would pose this (and other questions of mine) to the LEA after which we would then all meet up in September to come to a final decision (the resolution I guess).

Unfortunately mid way through August, I received a letter informing me that the mediation company was in administration and that they could no longer provide us with mediation services.  (How I laughed when I got the letter; I just couldn’t believe our bad luck.)  Anyway, not one to be undeterred by this, I asked the LA for a way forward, hoping that they would provide details of alternative mediators.  They didn’t and instead suggested we meet them without a mediator.  I wasn’t happy to do this as I knew from experience that our LA is evasive and slippery.  I wanted honest discussion that I felt I could only get through a mediator.

At that point the summer holidays were well under way and the melee of looking after two autistic children (and the occasional demands from an older teenager) swamped me to such a degree that ‘SEN education crappy stuff’ went to the back of my mind (well almost; you never totally forget as the dark clouds of SEN never really blow away).  But now that the summer holidays are over and my daughter has settled back into a routine I decided to pick up the SEN reigns once again and got some advice as to how to move things forward.  It just so happened that on the very day that I did this the LA sent me an email confirming that my daughters statement had been finalised with the MLD School No. 2 written on it!  I can’t say I was happy that they’d decided this without completing our consultations.  Nevertheless it isn’t such a bad thing because it now means that we can challenge them through SENDIST though whether we will go this route I am unsure as it means another time delay which I don’t think is in my daughter’s interests.  It may be that  I have to find a way of working with MLD School No. 2.

But the real shocker and the thing that has upset me the most is that the council have cancelled my daughter’s home tuition with immediate affect.  They have given no thought to how my autistic daughter will cope with this sudden change which I find very harsh indeed.  To suddenly end it like this shows total lack of thought for her disability and the need to gradually transfer her from one setting to another.  The worst thing is that I haven’t told her what they’ve done.  She has had such a good week with her tutors, ironically one of the best ever and now it has been cruelly taken from her.  I can’t tell her, not whilst she is happy and we have a weekend to enjoy.   Perhaps Monday.

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Posted in Aspergers, Girls with aspergers, School, Special Educational Needs, Statement | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments