Special Educational Needs (SEN)

This also has to apply to health since children with SEN will be diagnosed at and from birth. These systems do not work well enough within health such that children are being diagnosed too late and their outcomes are harmed as a result. They do not benefit from effective or any early intervention as a result.

In Clause 25, health must be legally required to have clinical care pathways and resourced services, based on accurate data, for this purpose. This provision is currently too general and vague. Additionally, it has to be the legal responsibility on health to provide critical early health diagnoses and interventions to ensure needs are identified and met as early as possible. This is what the National Services Framework requires but has not yet delivered as it has not been mandatory. This is not an LA responsibility since many of these children will be known at birth and from birth. Systems are currently not resourced to do this within health and children with SEN And disabilities (and their families) are being harmed as a result.

Fewer children will receive statements therefore missing out on all the support they need...children who do not require statements yet still have additional needs will not be catered for at all....how does this equate with 'every child matters' and the SEN code of practice??? This whole debacle needs a radical rethink...the needs of the children and their right to an education suited to their needs MUST come first!!!!

Those children and YP without SEN who are also disabled or have long term health conditions also need to be supported through a national framework. The SEN system has been adapted, rightly or wrongly, for this in the past. Without a new specified framework, it is unclear how their needs will be met consistently and well.

In relation to 21(5), it is not as clear cut as this in the real world for many children with SEN and disabilities. For example speech and language therapy for a child with no means of communication or language will be necessary for a child’s education, but also for their wider life. Therefore such an outcome around speech and language should be that it is necessary for a child with such needs 24/7. This provision seems to seek to mirror wrongly the current provisions where therapeutic provision in particular can only, wrongly, be secured for children with SEN through education. Families who go to Tribunals for therapy provision do so in the lack of little if anything from health services, even where the needs are severe and when there is no other legal recourse. The other reason is needs are not diagnosed and quantified, such provision will usually not be forthcoming. This all has to stop.

Hi, I feel this bill and the clauses that are within it are essential to the future of those children with specific needs. To insist that pupils are now given a chance to learn despite their needs is something which I feel needed to be done years ago, if Swansea can do this to the positive effect then why can't other local authorities be allowed to do this. One thing that does bother me is does this mean the Government are now washing their hands of Special Needs? If so then it makes a mockery of the 4 statements above and means that they don't give a damn about people who are different, it's not the case of people fitting nicely into tick boxes but accepting people's qualities and for who they are. Let's hope this bill fits the former rather than the latter! This needs to be the start of things to come not to push Special Needs under the carpet!

This new Clause about involving families and being family centred is really welcome but it also needs to extend explicitly to health bodies too.

General comments

Interface is a parent led Parent Carer Forum in London. We are all parent carers of children with SEN and/or disabilities. We have seen and support comments by EDCM and the SEC and the submission by the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) to the Select Committee for pre legislative scrutiny.

Families with disabled children face challenges on different levels in the form of:
– negative perceptions of disability
– (sometimes) family rejection
– wider communities (including faiths) not always supportive or inclusive

Additionally in respect of health in particular,
– Often pathways to diagnosis are not there, are not clear and are too slow
– There is a lack of understanding of and investment in early intervention in health
– There is no focus on prevention of problems arising from health needs e.g. sleep, behaviour, eating
– There is limited support – e.g. around and post diagnosis, psychological conditions
– Families are often passed on to education, who may not understand the needs of the child or young person
Health, education and social care systems can also add to the burdens on families, with
– Families joining up services themselves
– Families unable to get help from right services at right time
– Constantly fighting for services
– A silo mentality between services and constantly “passing the buck”
– Lack of any or any joined up outcomes for the child, young person or family
– The stress contributing to stress, illness and/or family break down
– Negative effects on children and young people themselves in terms of less long term stability, happiness and poorer management of long term conditions

While we welcome the direction of travel arising from the SEN Green Paper, including the extension of the system from 0-25, there remain concerns with and gaps in the legislation as proposed. In particular:

• The lack of a duty on health is still a big concern, since ultimately only the LA/education route is actionable. The vision for child and family centred/integrated working/outcome focussed is unlikely to be delivered without that explicit duty. It is important to avoid the current situation where health provision is frequently squeezed into educational provision so that it can be compelled through the local authority. This frequently happens for example in relation to therapies (speech and language, occupational and physiotherapy).

• The lack of coverage of all disabilities, especially those with long term health needs. Those children and young people need support within education too and they need a national framework for securing and providing and funding that support.

• The lack of clarity and a clear legal framework for those at School Action Plus who will require a range of external inputs to ensure they are able to progress and learn and have their SEN met within schools – including therapy input (speech and language, physiotherapy etc) and specialist teaching input

• The lack of clarity around the Local Offer and its need to be legally bound into the joint commissioning process, otherwise it will be meaningless.

• The seeming creation of a new category of only very high level of need to meet the EHC criteria and the implications of this for existing children with Statements – seemingly creating a whole new category of SEN above School Action Plus of very disabled children. Yet health and social care legislation do not draw their lines in the same way or so nearly to fit this model

• While Clause 19 is welcome, there needs to be more about embedding parent participation and co-production with parent carers in local Forums so as to ensure families are embedded in all the wider policy and strategic changes from the outset. Otherwise there is a real risk that there will simply be more of the same in the new system

• The transition to the new system and timings for that: some parent carers are being told that Statements will be slashed as a result of these reforms. That is not helping with trust and confidence.

I have serious concerns about assessment and provision for children with specific learning difficulties, dyslexia in particular. What will replace Early Years Action/School Action and Early Years Action Plus/School Action Plus? How will children and young people at these stages be supported? What has become of the recommendations of the Rose Review (2009)? I see children and young people daily who are not meeting their potential in school and yet their difficulties haven't been recognised or acknowledged. The proposed changes to the Code of Practice don't inspire confidence that these issues about SpLDs will be addressed in school, rather they suggest that SpLDs will be ignored. Given that initial teacher training only offers dyslexia and other SpLDs as an 'optional' module the outlook for children with literacy difficulties in the state sector is bleak. The secondary emotional and behavioural problems associated with unrecognised and unsupported SpLDs are likely to be a significant consequence for many young pepole whose parents are unable to afford the independent route to assessment, intervention and specialist education.

The language used will allow LA and schools not to provide the provision needed for children with SEN&D.
The difficulties that are present now will the system of statmenting and having to have health provision only provided if it is proved to effect education directly. Many health issue effects a child's education but hard to prove to get resources need

Children and young people with SEN/Disability, wherever they live in England, should be afforded the same rights. With the impact of benefit changes, the mobility of families and for those families who live on LA borders, it is vital that the child has similar assessments wherever they live and that they have a EHC plan to support them should they attend a special academy.
The EHC plan should be a child’s English Educational ‘passport’ to receiving appropriate provision to meet their needs. This passport should be drawn up in a similar manner and be presented in a recognised national proforma, irrespective of where the child lives. The child’s needs do not change just because they move, although the ability of the school to provide for these needs may change!
With the impact of benefits’ changes, high mobility rates of families in some areas and the increasing vulnerability of many families it is becoming increasingly important for SEN children to have as much stability as possible. This can be provided through a robust Plan which identifies needs and provision across LA and NHS boundaries.
The threshold for entry to special schools has always been through a statement or emergency assessment for a statement. If special academies are to be exempt from the threshold of an EHC plan, then how will a parent know if the child’s needs have been correctly identified and are being met? Will the child be ‘stuck’ in a special academy for the rest of his/hers life as there is no review process which enables the parent/child to express a desire for change of placement?
Parents respond very positively to the knowledge of the time lines for statutory assessment. It helps them to manage often very challenging circumstances at home. Parents’ anxiety could be increased if they do not know how long the assessment process will take. The impact of these anxities will be felt by the child and could have an adverse effect on the child.
Personal budgets
These have the potential for parents who know the system to ‘jump’ the queue for provision of services. Why should parents who send their children to mainstream schools have to ‘purchase’ what should be statutorily available?