The next thing I want to cover is a little bit about EHCPs.
🔹️What is an EHCP?
An EHCP is an Education Health and Care Plan. This is a legal document which outlines a young person’s (YP) special educational needs, how these can be supported and the outcomes the YP (or their parents/carers) would like to achieve.
🔹️How to get an EHCP?
If a school is not willing, or is stalling, you can apply for an EHC needs assessment yourself. The threshold is law is actually very low in deciding whether to carry out this assessment or not.
They must consider:
Whether the child or young person has or may have special educational needs (“SEN”); and
Whether they may need special educational provision to be made through an EHC plan.
If the answer is yes, the LA (Local Authority) MUST carry out an assessment. This is set out in law.
From my experience in EHCP groups, often the LA refuses to assess and then concedes if the Parents appeal so don’t be discouraged!
🔹️How long does the process take?
In short a long time, 20 weeks if all goes smoothly although I have heard of people going to various Tribunals and it ending up taking years!
🔹️Checking the draft
If you are awarded a draft, you need to check that Section B contains all of the YP’s needs and that Section F should contain provision to meet the needs in Section B. If it doesn’t, again appeal.
Watch out for words such as “regular access to” as regular isn’t quantifiable. Regular could mean daily, weekly, even twice yearly. It needs to be clear, what, exactly how often who by and what qualifications they should have.
This is a very very brief outline, for further information see IPSEA’s website as that explains all the stages and how to appeal. There is also a great Facebook page for help with EHCPs xx
https://www.ipsea.org.uk/Pages/Category/education-health-and-care-plans
Jacob and his 4 sisters 