Central Beds children with SEND wait 'months or years' for help claims mum

The wait for a first appointment at a child development centre in Central Bedfordshire is more than 70 weeks, a meeting heard.

“If you need a diagnosis, treatment or referral to other services you’ll be waiting many more months or years, all while your child suffers without support or adequate education,” according to Dunstable parent Amy Ivins.

“Why has there been no mention or scrutiny of this? she asked Central Bedfordshire Council’s children’s services overview and scrutiny committee. “Has anyone told you needs assessment refusals are rocketing again?

“Where is that expensive data dashboard which was meant to keep you all in the loop? And what about the 63 children with no school place this year?

“It seems to have become an accepted situation that there’ll be several dozen special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) children a year with no school. Why isn’t this permanently on the agenda? It would be if they were mainstream children.

“We welcome the new SEND school places, but they’re more than a decade too late for many children.

“The stress caused by barriers to (obtaining) support, the long waits for assessments and a lack of suitable school places made some parents feel their only choice was to give up on the local authority.

“The only options are far outside this county and all independent schools, which require a lengthy and expensive fight for parents at tribunal.

“For those caught in limbo between a school which can’t meet needs and the alternative provision the local authority is meant to provide there’s a permanent sinking feeling that you’re at the end of the line.

“You’re hurtling towards having no option but to home educate, while your income plummets, respite is minimal and the child’s mental health collapses.”

Conservative Cranfield and Marston Moretaine councillor Sue Clark said: “I owe it to all our families to get it right. We’re investing heavily to create more special school places.

“The multi-agency audit of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) will be introduced in February, and we’ve introduced an early intervention panel to ensure we get funding to schools quicker and earlier.

“We’ve made some progress against the written statement of action. We’ve prepared an accelerated action plan to cover the three remaining areas of weakness where we still have work to do, and we’re waiting for Department for Education sign-off on that.

“We’ve recruiting more staff, such as educational psychologists, which has been a real area of shortage for us, and recruited senior members to our SEND team.

“I agree we’ve let our parents down for long enough. There’ve been some false dawns and it’s taking too long. I’m sorry we haven’t made some of the progress we should have made.

“Despite investing in staff, we’re working really hard to keep pace with demand,” added executive member for families, education and children councillor Clark.

“This is particularly affecting our EHCP turnaround times. We know it’s simply not good enough the results we’re achieving in this area.”