0 comment Wednesday, September 3, 2014 | admin
Right, things are now going apace and I will give a quick recap:
- I discovered to my somewhat "Why doesn't this actually surprise me" way that Parent Partnership is sponsored by the LEA. Ergo, the chances that I am going to have completely impartial representation there has somewhat gone out the window. Fine, we'll still see what I can manage to sort out.
- Discovered a great place called SOS-SEN which helps you get on the fast track with help to go through a tribunal. And from there, a number to a top firm which handles SEN cases; and - wait for it - they take legal aid. Details will be taken and they'll open my file. It now becomes Someone Else's thing to deal with.
- Discovered a few misquotes from the meeting minutes of new tribunal in which it seems the school forgot to mention child's issues last year with mainstream; I think people assume I don't keep my paperwork of every incident report of his behaviour when I ask for it all in writing, but I do. And I have every single one. I haven't thrown out any of child's reports since we started doing the work to get him Statemented (yay for legal backgrounds!). So if they want to claim it never happened and they don't have the documentation, I can produce the documentation, as well as the notes I wrote saying "If you keep forcing child through mainstream he will explode". Thankyouverymuch.
- Now have mission to go and look at independent special schools for ASD as there are no such schools that exist in my county - they've all closed or been shuffled into mainstream. These will be residential and while it breaks my heart to not have my son here, I will still get to visit and see my wee man. At the same time, it will also allow me to return back to doing art and writing as well as caring for my own needs and try to get better. I have been told that the LEA will have to pay the fees if the statement is changed to allow for it so I have to get through the schools process, check them out, have my son assessed to see if they can take him. Some of these schools have fees so high I nearly fainted (six digits!!!!) but if they are the right place for child, yep, too bad, they'll have to pay it. Ouch. Almost tempted to see the most expensive one first, you know?
- This is going to kill my energy levels, so tomorrow (although I have been unable to do this for a while, so tired, I think I can, I think I can) I am going to bring in all the paperwork I have in order to apply for housing benefit. It's time to stop working for a little while as I just can't keep this pace up. Travelling all over SW London on the train to look at schools full of kids like the Wump will have me in recovery for days afterwards. I am putting work on hold for a while until I have the strength and energy to do so productively. The time will come. It just isn't going to be right this minute, and hey, that's cool. I can be fine about that. But I need to replace the tax credits with something else in order to keep my house at the moment.
I haven't breathed a word of any of this stuff to sprog as the few times I showed him photos of a prospective school that got used against me when he repeated it when he had a blowup (I don't like this school! Mum says I'm going to a new one! *facepalm*). However when child goes to spend a two night assess period at a school it will be hard to keep the lid on that and I won't even try. It will be a very unsettled time and I'm well aware of it, so I need my wits about me.
So. Inhale. Exhale. Codeine. I know codeine sort of cancels that whole "Needs wits about me" thing but I also need to be painfree and sleep tonight.
- I discovered to my somewhat "Why doesn't this actually surprise me" way that Parent Partnership is sponsored by the LEA. Ergo, the chances that I am going to have completely impartial representation there has somewhat gone out the window. Fine, we'll still see what I can manage to sort out.
- Discovered a great place called SOS-SEN which helps you get on the fast track with help to go through a tribunal. And from there, a number to a top firm which handles SEN cases; and - wait for it - they take legal aid. Details will be taken and they'll open my file. It now becomes Someone Else's thing to deal with.
- Discovered a few misquotes from the meeting minutes of new tribunal in which it seems the school forgot to mention child's issues last year with mainstream; I think people assume I don't keep my paperwork of every incident report of his behaviour when I ask for it all in writing, but I do. And I have every single one. I haven't thrown out any of child's reports since we started doing the work to get him Statemented (yay for legal backgrounds!). So if they want to claim it never happened and they don't have the documentation, I can produce the documentation, as well as the notes I wrote saying "If you keep forcing child through mainstream he will explode". Thankyouverymuch.
- Now have mission to go and look at independent special schools for ASD as there are no such schools that exist in my county - they've all closed or been shuffled into mainstream. These will be residential and while it breaks my heart to not have my son here, I will still get to visit and see my wee man. At the same time, it will also allow me to return back to doing art and writing as well as caring for my own needs and try to get better. I have been told that the LEA will have to pay the fees if the statement is changed to allow for it so I have to get through the schools process, check them out, have my son assessed to see if they can take him. Some of these schools have fees so high I nearly fainted (six digits!!!!) but if they are the right place for child, yep, too bad, they'll have to pay it. Ouch. Almost tempted to see the most expensive one first, you know?
- This is going to kill my energy levels, so tomorrow (although I have been unable to do this for a while, so tired, I think I can, I think I can) I am going to bring in all the paperwork I have in order to apply for housing benefit. It's time to stop working for a little while as I just can't keep this pace up. Travelling all over SW London on the train to look at schools full of kids like the Wump will have me in recovery for days afterwards. I am putting work on hold for a while until I have the strength and energy to do so productively. The time will come. It just isn't going to be right this minute, and hey, that's cool. I can be fine about that. But I need to replace the tax credits with something else in order to keep my house at the moment.
I haven't breathed a word of any of this stuff to sprog as the few times I showed him photos of a prospective school that got used against me when he repeated it when he had a blowup (I don't like this school! Mum says I'm going to a new one! *facepalm*). However when child goes to spend a two night assess period at a school it will be hard to keep the lid on that and I won't even try. It will be a very unsettled time and I'm well aware of it, so I need my wits about me.
So. Inhale. Exhale. Codeine. I know codeine sort of cancels that whole "Needs wits about me" thing but I also need to be painfree and sleep tonight.