Forgive me I was unsure of where to post this...
We have a mediation meeting coming up with our local "children with Disabilities service" as we have lodged a complaint against them...
long story short- ( as much as i can as it is involved to say the least)
We asked for an assessment to access Direct Payments or social Services support for our youngest, 10 years old diagnosed HF ASC, ADHD, post traumatic stress disoder, EDS (genetic condition I also have)and OCD. He has no access to extra- cirricular activities, apart from a charity based playgroup on saturdays for a few hours (which we are extremely grateful for). He is statemented 25 hours at school which as you can see does not cover after school activities at all (let alone lunchtime/playtime no matter how many times we have requested and shown a need for increased hours in his statement. we have been told that he would have to be severely disabled to merit more hours! make sense? not to me either) but I digress...
So he no longer wants me or his dad with him to go to something outside of school, but needs the one-to one support to manage mainly his anxiety as well as difficulties associated with his autism. we can't afford it. We have no "outside" help at all. I am disabled myself and work currently as a TA in a local school with a child on the spectrum. you know how much "childcare" costs, now add specialist care as we are looking for a one to one Support assistant so he is able to access more activities.
So we asked for an assessment of our son's needs. It was a farce, flawed and in no way reflected our son's needs and we were refused support. the assessment did not even mention any of my son's co-existing conditions, mentioning his High Functioning Autistic Spectrum condition only, so we complained. We asked for the criteria from CDS and were given a photocopy that blatanly states that Children with ADHD (which my son has)and Emotional Behavioural problems (which includes those on the Spectrum) are entitled to support! We were also told for good measure that a child with our son's level of need in a Special school in their borough (we live in one borough, our yougest attends school as well as our GP is in another neighbouring one. This is a distance of literally 5 minutes from each other- almost across a road.) would qualify for support but one in a mainstream- in their borough or neighbouring one would not. Surely this is discriminatory and illegal? Plus those in specialist schools usually receive support through the school as well.
Then social worker who did the assessment left, then her boss left. All along we asked repeatedly for another proper assessment and though the council acknowledged the assessment was flawed, refused to give us another and we were told that the orginal social worker who "assessed" our son also refered him to "Aiming High for Disabled children" (assuming with the flawed assessment), who promptly told us that our son didn't qaualify for support as his DLA level wasn't "high enough".
The same day acknowledgement of our complaint in reference another assessment came, we received a letter from Aiming High.. that suddenly their citeria had widened and included those with our son's level of DLA. Now we had two issues. One that CDS wouldn't give our son a proper assessment and now that AHDC are basing their criteria on the child's level of DLA and not a true reflection of the child's individual needs! Considering the goverment's plan to change DLA to Personal Payment, How is it acceptable as a criteria?? as it stands we haven't been able to accept the offer from AHDC as we have yet to hear back from them and have yet to receive the application they "assured" us, was on the way to us.
So, long story short? (Did I say that?? sorry)
We have had our meeting with the Mediator, as we were contacted and offered mediation. And the mediator has now also met with a rep from Children with Disabilities Services and they have also agreed to meet with us and a date is set for just under 3 weeks from today.
Any advice, anyone who has been to a mediation's experience, anything at all that can help me with this would be soooo sooo gratefully received...
(oh and I'll be asking your help again as my son is going into year 6 in septemeber and transfer is not long away... We know the school we want him to go to- he loves it too as he has been already-with an Autistic resourced provision attached to the mainstream... we're again gonna have to fight for it- out of borough and small in-take/acceptance of less then 10 a year...)
but again, any help with mediation would be sooo appreciated...
