The Cheshire parents left 'broken' as they are made to fight for their children's education
Panic attacks, trauma and ‘worst-case scenarios’. This is the reality for Cheshire families facing the heartache and turmoil of battling to get their children into the limited specialist education offered in the Cheshire West region.
A group of parents - predominantly mums - say that Cheshire West and Chester Council’s allocation process for children with special educational needs and disability (SEND) is broken, leaving them feeling depressed and powerless as their children struggle without a suitable learning environment in which to thrive.
It comes amid a widespread shortage of funding for special schools across the UK. The funding shortfall means there aren’t enough places in SEND schools to meet the demand, causing problems for families trying to get the appropriate education for their children with additional needs.
But parents in Cheshire say the issue under the Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) local authority goes far beyond what is being experienced across the country.
“At CWAC the problem goes beyond the funding,” Kim Bilcliffe, from Hartford, Northwich, told Cheshire Live. “The way a child gets a place in a SEND school is from a SEN team at a local authority. And parents are powerless in that process.
“Parents are talking with a SEN team member and then we are completely neglected and that’s what’s impacting families the most. We are completely powerless to that process and decisions are made about our children and they are not relayed to us.”
For families with disabled children who need additional support in school, or require a specialist school, an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) is required. Without the formal document, a child is unable to be allocated into a specialist school.
And it's the job of a local authority’s SEN team to assess a child’s needs and provide each family with the EHCP.
Kim, who is one of the leading members of the campaign group CWAC SEND Accountability, said that while statutory timeframes are in place to assure that families never have to wait longer than 20 weeks for the crucial document, families in Cheshire West are being made to wait up to a year.
The delay leaves children in the borough having to start school in a mainstream setting, at schools that are not fit to deal with their specialist needs. Kim says some are even joining a mainstream school when left with no other option, but then not attending after their parents realise they aren’t receiving the care and education they need.
Kim explained: “At the moment at CWAC they are only meeting that timeframe in 28 per cent of cases. It took us 28 weeks, another parent is on week 43 - there’s no consequence for breaking that timeframe.
“One mum is on week 50 and has chased and chased but hasn’t had any contact from the SEN team.
“A lady who’s been waiting nearly 50 weeks has had to start a mainstream school and is really struggling - her child is isolated. They were waiting and waiting for an EHCP so they had to start a mainstream school. The school just doesn’t have the knowledge of how to teach and take care of an autistic child.
“The problems are so common and affect every family going through the process.”
For Kim, it took almost a year and thousands of pounds to get her four-year-old son, Jacob, into the specialist school he needed.
Jacob is autistic and has acute sensory needs that means busy, unpredictable, loud environments can cause him physical pain and high levels of distress.
Desperate to keep him out of a mainstream education setting - an environment which Kim says would be "the worst place" for him and described it as "completely out of the question" - the Northwich mum racked up bills of around £4,500 in private assessments and solicitors’ fees.
Kim told Cheshire Live: “Jacob’s EHCP went weeks and weeks past its legal timeframe of 20 weeks. I formally complained to CWAC, only for the response to be a letter conveying recognition of the law being broken, yet nothing seemed to change.
“I was still waiting weeks for my son’s EHCP to be finalised. Once it was, it had the name of another child included in a key section of the document.
"It also had factually incorrect statements which the SEN team refused to change, stating that Jacob could ride a bike and that he was picked up early from nursery as he refused to eat there. I can only assume these were copied and pasted from another child’s EHCP.
“After CWAC commissioned an educational psychologist to assess my son, despite never actually meeting him or seeing videos and producing a report based on a phone call he had with me on his drive home from work, we decided we had no other option than to commission a private report.
“We also did the same for speech and language therapy, due to the tight constraints CWAC put on what therapists are allowed to write, and an occupational therapy report, due to the waiting list to access the support being over a year. The cost of this was just under £2,500.
“After this, despite overwhelming evidence we were sent a letter that said the SEN team panel had decided ‘Jacob’s special educational needs could be best met in a mainstream school’. This is the worst-case scenario for a family that has a child that would be actively traumatised in a mainstream setting.
“After weeks of sleepless nights, acute anxiety, panic, writing pleading emails to SEN team managers, calling the SEN team phone number on an hourly basis, I had absolutely no response.
“No reason as to why we’d been given this recommendation; Nobody to talk through our options or what the next steps would be - nothing.
“About a month later, after more than £2,000 had been spent on solicitor fees, I finally had a response from the SEN team who told us the mainstream school recommendation was a badly-worded admin error and the actual recommendation was for a specialist ASC school for Jacob.”
Chester mum Samantha Walley is one mum who is currently in the midst of a long battle to get her five-year-old son, Harrison, the education he requires.
She claims to have been lied to, gaslighted, and had many attempts to contact the SEN team ignored. And after a year of going through the process, Samantha is still nowhere near a resolution.
Samantha is now taking her case against the council to a tribunal after her request for an EHCP assessment was refused - despite professionals telling her that Harrison needs a specialist school placement due to his complex needs.
With the battle for an assessment ongoing, the Chester mum was left with no choice but to put her son into a mainstream school - a school she says "admitted they cannot meet his needs despite their best efforts".
Samantha said: “This process to date has left me broken, my mental health has been hugely impacted, and I still have a long way to go to secure my son the specialist setting he needs. The part of the process that should have taken six weeks has - to date - taken 51 and we're still not even halfway through.
“Beyond these delays and awful communication, is a vulnerable young child who has been disadvantaged and ignored by a system that should protect him.”
The impact on her mental health, which Samantha speaks about, is a common theme among parents of children with additional needs in Cheshire West, according to the campaign group.
The group conducted a survey of 52 families in the borough and says the results showed that 92 per cent said engaging with CWAC’s SEN team was “actively detrimental to their mental health”.
Kim added: “The biggest impact it has is on families’ mental wellbeing and mental health.
“We have countless parents in our group who are on anti-anxiety medication, we have countless parents who complain of having panic attacks every day.
“Having a child with additional needs is hard enough and after that initial trauma, you want that support to come flooding in. But actually, what happens here is the opposite - it gets worse and worse and you’re put through even more trauma.”
A spokesman for Cheshire West and Chester Council said that while there are ‘significant’ national issues regarding SEND provision, they are working to try and improve outcomes for parents in the borough.
A statement said: “Councillors and members of the Parent Carer Forum have met with representatives of the CWAC SEND Accountability group to hear their concerns and further face-to-face meetings will take place over the coming weeks as we provide responses and actions to address them.
“There are significant national challenges regarding the increase in requests for Education Health Care Needs Assessments and the demand for special school places outnumbering the actual number of places available.
“The annual number of requests for EHCPs in the borough is continuing to grow compared to previous years, doubling since 2020. The Council is committed to sustaining our SEN service and additional resource has supported the team to employ additional staff to help cope with the level of demand.
“Further work is underway to improve our processes and channels of communication, as well as ensuring parents and carers can find all key relevant information on the SEND service easily in public forums.
“Cheshire West and Chester Council continues to provide a Special Education Needs service to children and their families in incredibly challenging national circumstances. We are working hard to strengthen the SEND system in response to increased demand.”
The group is planning a protest outside Cheshire West and Chester’s HQ at The Portal in Ellesmere Port on Tuesday, April 30, from 10.30am to 1.30pm.
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