The brutal battle to get help for children with special educational needs

John Harris accurately nailed two of the three crucial yet rarely stated causes of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) crisis (In this new austerity moment, a fight is on: for the rights of children with special educational needs, 25 August). Yes, the past 15 years’ reversion to Victorian education is the worst possible development for Send children, who it just doesn’t fit emotionally or cognitively. And yes, austerity underfunding has created untold, unforeseen economic costs.
In fact, once vulnerable young adolescents hit the streets, those costs go way beyond local government and education to impact policing and justice, homelessness, social care and healthcare, and national productivity. Parents drop out of the workforce to help their Send children cope, and to fight for their needs. The children themselves are left unprepared and unqualified for their own future employment. A double waste.
But the H in the EHCP – education, health and care plan – reminds us that Send children are not just being failed educationally. For many with diagnosed mental illnesses or ADHD, healthcare should help them stay in mainstream schooling, improving all the above. They “just” need child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) and GP services to provide the medication and therapy to let them cope with life.
The Send crisis can’t be separated from the utter collapse of mental health services. Waiting lists measured in years aren’t waiting lists. They are a complete absence of necessary healthcare at the most vulnerable stage of life, and a deep shame on our society.
Yet every year, some 20,000 psychology students graduate. In my experience as a lecturer, many are motivated by the desire to help the next generation’s mental health. As the clinical jobs simply don’t exist, most never fulfil this ambition, ending up in human resources or generic industry jobs. Our Send youngsters continue to be failed, but not for want of people keen to help them – if the system allowed it. A total, all-round waste.Clare DaviesSouthampton
While John Harris eloquently sets out the challenges facing parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities – the daily grind, the constant need to fight, the constant pressure of being gaslit by so-called “professionals” from both local authorities and, indeed, the teaching profession – he doesn’t mention one other vital constant in the life of many parents with Send children.
Many of the children who are the subject of Harris’s article also find themselves with severe mental health concerns and having to interact with the NHS’s child and adolescent mental health services. Like the Send system, this is an utterly broken service – underfunded, with often poorly qualified staff whose morale is through the floor.
The upshot for parents who have to support their child is to suffer a wall of indifference and face what appears to be a policy of refusing to recognise the challenges and mental health conditions of the young person, preferring instead to insinuate that it is poor parenting.
My experience of both services as a parent has taken its toll. Our family continues to fight, day in, day out, but one cannot help wondering if this is not only a consequence of the years of inadequate funding but also of poor leadership and a deliberate policy of demand management, knowing that many parents will simply give up.Stuart Singleton-WhiteReading, Berkshire
I write as one of the “pushy parents” mentioned in John Harris’s article and as a community paediatrician. There is a shortage of special school places nationwide, and although there are now some specialist units attached to mainstream schools, they are oversubscribed.
In every clinic, I am meeting parents in despair because their significantly delayed child has not been assessed or has been deemed by the local authority to be suitable for a mainstream school when they start reception. I am also in this position, despite fighting for 50 weeks to get an EHCP for my son, requesting a specialist placement. Our catchment school is refusing to take him and his named mainstream school says it cannot meet his needs. So he has been forced to start mainstream this week as this is what the local authority decided for him.
Add in the long waiting lists for NHS services and the wait for tribunals (over 30 weeks), and EHCPs are often out of date or missing vital information when they are finally produced, and the children often miss out on significant periods of schooling. It is no wonder that parents are having to go this route and also that 98% of tribunals are successful.
But what is not seen is the impact on families who are not able to navigate the complex Send system (which even I struggle with). These families are often also the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. It is no wonder that so many children are persistently absent from school or reaching absolute crisis. Without action (and money) from the government, a whole generation of children with Send will be excluded from any kind of education.Dorothy SimmondsConsultant in community paediatrics, Leicester
“A schools system built around discipline and ‘attainment’ has only increased the same problem,” writes John Harris. While I read his article with sympathy and understanding – I was a secondary school teacher in the state system for 30 years – I also feel that he runs the risk of forgetting that schools are not parents. We cannot imagine a school system devoid of “attainment”, nor of the discipline necessary for attainment to be achieved. Yes, teachers must recognise the individuality of each pupil, set suitable goals and help them reach them. But as we strive to see them leave our classrooms a little wiser, a little happier, a little more confident in their abilities, there has to be a work-appropriate environment for the class as a whole to learn. Schools are ultimately in the business of knowledge and skills acquisition.
This government has promised to help children and the profession meet their diverse challenges. We must be ambitious but realistic. Each and every pupil deserves support. But no one individual can be allowed to disrupt the learning of others.John PearsonChichester, West Sussex
I spent 20 years working as a mediator for an independent organisation in London until 2022. We chaired mediations between parents/carers and local authority managers when the parent’s application for an EHCP for their child with special educational needs had been refused. In most of these mediations, the local authority representative and the parents reached an agreement to assess the child’s need for an EHCP, although the outcome was not guaranteed.
Certainly, better training would enable teachers to identify children with special educational needs earlier and that would assist the parents in beginning the process of making applications.
Increases in support staff would also assist greatly. The huge issue, though, is that the majority of children who are eligible for EHCPs have significant needs and often need 1:1 or 1:2 support in their class.
Given that there is a shortage of teachers across the country, the government will need creative plans to meet the needs of all schoolchildren as some classes may need one teacher and several support staff.Rosetta DelisleLondon
My granddaughter is profoundly deaf, but has cochlear implants that allow a degree of “hearing”, so she is able to attend a mainstream school. Each year, my daughter must fill in a new EHCP of 34 pages because the authorities think that maybe the deafness will somehow get better.
The distress caused by this, as my daughter has to go over the same details every year only then to have them lost and delayed over and over again by a department that is understaffed, sometimes hostile, sometimes helpful, sometimes understanding, sometimes incompetent, is considerable. Hours, days and weeks are wasted by repeatedly checking the report to ensure every word confirms the disability because any vague statement will result in a refusal and the need to appeal.
My daughter eventually learned the type of language and processes needed for a positive outcome, but how many can do this? The system is in a terrible mess, like so many others that have been the victim of government cuts that hit those least able to survive.Name and address supplied