Back in the 1990s a basic assessment by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist was all that was required for ‘a statement’ to be agreed indicating the form of schooling deemed appropriate by Haringey education services.
Finding the right school, whether within the mainstream or in the special school sector, was still largely a parental responsibility.
In 2014, under the Children and Family Act, ‘the statement’ was replaced by the ‘Education, Health and Care Plan’.
This was a ‘person-centred’ and individualised document specifying both educational and specialised interventions such as speech and occupational therapy.
In many ways this marked significant progress, notably in its holistic recognition of children’s health and social care needs.
As we have witnessed with our grandson, it has also become a tortuous and distressing process, needing reams of expert evidence and an online questionnaire requiring his parents to detail our grandson’s disabilities in the most disparaging terms.
The dramatic increase in diagnosis of conditions such as autism and ADHD – and the resultant increase in the costs to local authorities of supporting a burgeoning number of children designated as having Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) – has generated much controversy.
While politicians such as the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage blame professionals – and parents – for ‘overdiagnosis’ of SEND conditions, a recent survey of teachers found them evenly divided.
On the one hand were those who recognised some overdiagnosis, especially in secondary school children. On the other hand, a similar number thought such conditions were ‘under-diagnosed’, especially among younger children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
The writer and theatre director Stephen Unwin, who has an adult son with severe learning disabilities and epilepsy, challenges politicians who blame children and parents for spiralling SEND costs.
In response to repeated claims that SEND costs are pushing local authorities into bankruptcy, Unwin points out the vast sums they waste on fighting parental claims in tribunals, in paying lawyers, property developers, consultants and financiers, as well as subsidising a booming private sector in special schools.
As Unwin says, parents “face a relentless, hostile and bureaucratic fight for basic support” for their children, meeting with disbelief and repeated assessments that “leave them feeling blamed or broken”. Surely they deserve better.
- Mary Langan is chair of the Haringey Severe and Complex Needs Reference Group (SCALD).
