Taking on the woefully inadequate EHCP system

Oh no, please don't tell me this as I am just at the beginning of our EHCP journey and everything has been going along swimmingly so far. I do have an entire team of hospital professionals on my side, which helps enormously. 

Intend requesting one for EDD as soon as YDD's one comes through as ed pysch has agreed with me that she needs one, but couldn't face fighting for two EHCP's at the same time.

Think you are right, it just depends on the efficiency of the EHCP co ordinator and how pro active they are.

A friend of mine has been writing the minutes for all of the CIN meetings for her birth son for years. She types them up on her ipad and gets them ok'd before she issues them to all, because she knows if she waits for the SW to do it, 
A. - They won't get issued for weeks/months and
B. - She can make sure that everything is recorded properly and accurately and in her son's best interest and
C. - It means she has an accurate record of everythng that has been discussed, agreed and acted on or not acted on as is more the norm.

Her LA are happy for her to do this as it takes the pressure off the SW and frees her to do other things.

As you suggested in your original post, if they allowed you to amend the original EHCP forms as a draft copy, then all they have to do is check it and formally issue it to all. This is where us parents have to be pro active and do their job for them if need be as the system stinks and I do feel SW's and other staff are overworked as they are expected to do all the paperwork themselves as the day of secretaries has long gone.

Oh if only they believed in Word documents!

We were supposed to convert Hurricane's Statement into an EHCP this time last year.  The transfer review meeting was finally held in June - with just the reviewing officer, the EP and myself as they had messed around with the dates too many times for everyone else.  They had refused to accept the Social Services funded private EP report and instead insisted on 'their own'.  Their own EP (rightly) decided she wouldn't be able to meet, get to know and test Hurricane appropriately in the given time - but instead of submitting a short report stating this and backing up her verbal agreement about choice of school, submitted no report because, 'it wasn't worth it'.

The EHCP went to placement panel before I had seen a copy of it (and he was not granted a place at the school I requested).

An initial draft was finally posted to me in early October with a three day turnaround time expected. I barely recognised my own child in it.  They had quoted test scores from five years ago without explaining they were that old and despite them having more up to date information available.  I was (begrudgingly) granted a week's extension to review the draft - which inevitably became a virtual re-write.  They did finally agree to send me a copy via email but it took much persuasion. They had my re-drafted version back by 10th October. 

It is now 25th November and despite weekly phone calls and emails we appear no closer to them actually even having read it let alone accepted or rejected my modifications.  School placement now seems a distant dream and I simply plod on with trying to make myself enough of a nuisance to the entire SEN team that somebody somewhere will finally cave in and do something just to get me off their backs!

Still no further forward!

Think they may be deliberately delaying things so I can't appeal - because apparently it has to be officially refused (choice of school) before I can do anything.

Just a revised draft would be good!

MG law 
Maxwell Gillott, King's Yard, High Street, Lancaster LA1 1LA
Tel 01524 596080 Fax 01524 840811

These did my transport for me but i think they are more education

Have heard Simpson Millar LLP are supposed to be good.

Have you contacted SENDIAS or SOS!SEN or Family Rights Group frg, they might be in the know of who is good and may be able to recommend someone in your area?

hugs xx

You can do it!  I'm now on second 'big' fight and although hate it, there is no way I'm not doing it.  These councils need to be held to account and if we don't do it who will?  Keep fighting!  Lots of support being sent your way.

                   

Good on you Runmum.

Sometimes they need a rocket up their backside to get them to do anything and lega lletters can get them moving like nothing else or a letter from your MP.

So sympathise with this.It sounds like it is the same everywhere. I am a Senco in a primary school, and the 6 annual reviews I did last summer will be due again soon; with two different authorities. None have been updated or returned. I phoned up both departments to be told they are very busy so will not be able to send reviewed EHCP before next reviews. Several of these EHCPs were really out of date last year; with one child having Nursery targets on his when he will be going into Year 3 in September. It is appalling and makes a mockery of the whole system; particularly when children are moving from primary to secondary; how is anyone not knowing the child well supposed to know what support the child needs.  The SEN departments have all said they will send me an electronic version so I am going to try highlighting in red the parts to delete and blue for the new things to add; but if they are not even looking at the review paperwork it will probably make no difference. The view we take as teachers is that as long as we are setting targets in school which are relevant the child should be ok; and we do regularly have meetinsg about EHCP children; but it should be reflected in the EHCP, so everyone is clear what is needed. Hope you have some success with LEA Run mum and Leo, you really shouldn't be in this position.

So here is the update.

1. Legal letters - no response
2. Request to send soft copy or an officer to the review meeting - did not happen
3. Revised EHCP from last year's annual review - never sent despite legal letters

So next steps

I am seeing our MP key as there is currently a SEN review so this could help Monkey Boy and others. However at the same time our child's welfare has to be our first priority. So....... despite the fact that I should not have to I

1. Took the ancient totally out of date pre secondary school EHCP which was already full of errors from the previous reviews that never got corrected and re-typed the whole thing with what DH and I wanted on the plan. I updated every section not just the aims and outcomes and actions section.
2. I then had a meeting with SENCO. Modified the plan based on her excellent insights  - she went round every teacher and got specific feedback on Monkey Boy's strengths and weaknesses which was very helpful.
3. I then did the amendments myself - school offered but I knew I would be faster. 
4. We are now sending this to the LA and asking them to delete EVERYTHING on the previous plan and simply cut and paste in what I have typed out. If they cannot even manage this then we will send the EHCP to the teachers on school headed paper, implement and monitor. It is really clear and easy to follow now with none of the usual LA filler waffle. Just 3 aims

1. To become a self-directed learner -  NOT an INDEPENDENT learner. The outcome is to complete one task by doing a plan with support from an adult but implementing it himself asking for specific help with anything he cannot do alone. He will do this in Maths and English plus 2 other subjects selected because he has potential in them. We then set out how the teacher can specifically help him to have an accurate sense of his abilities (neither over-confident nor under-confident) and know when to ask for help and what help his available. The list of actions is short and realistic.
2. To cope with being observed, accept set-backs and use feedback constructively. The outcome is to persevere with at least one new extra-curricula activity over the course of the year and by the end of the year to take on specific feedback about a speech or some other performance and demonstrate an improvement when repeating a similar thing. Again we then list a few points to help teachers understand how to help him with this.
3. To reach and demonstrate his academic potential. The outcome is to be on trajectory for maths and English GCSE at grade 4 and at least one other subject at grade 3 as a minimum. (This is so that he can go to college to do something of interest to him that might support the journey towards the world of work.) The grade 4's are very ambitious but they are there so that school are forced to focus on what will help him once he leaves and not make him spend energy on things he hates and struggles with. For example it forces them to think about foundation qualifications as an alternative to GCSEs where he can aim for the grade considered equivalent to GCSE but still do just the practical stuff not the academic fluff in the GCSE curricula that will not help him survive as an adult.

The length of the document has been halved!! 

I would say that even if you want an EHCP to get access to a specific school ignore the LA initially and get something useful into the plan that can help your child in the interim. You can then send the list of aims and outcomes and actions to the teachers whilst you go through the legal battle with the LA to get them to admit that the outcomes can only be achieved with your school of choice. If the staff at your current school cannot implement the actions you want or they do but do not get the results then you are building your evidence and at least something useful will be happening in the meantime.

Hope that's useful - obviously different for all but good to share approaches as this is a massive battle ground requiring mighty resilience on our part. Vive La Resistance!

Has anyone ever been to an SEN tribunal about their child's EHCP? If so, please can you tell me what it involved, what it was like and whether there was positive change as a result; thank you.

We are now 20 months from the start of the transfer review process and the EHCP is still not fit for purpose - there are several things written onto the wrong sections, many factual inaccuracies and many more provisions they have conveniently left out.

Give me strength!