Support for Children with Additional Needs

Families raising a child with additional needs often find themselves navigating school support, assessments and services with very little guidance, and language barriers can make an already difficult process considerably harder.

Parents frequently tell us the same thing: they knew something was not right, they raised it, and then nothing seemed to happen for a very long time. Much of that delay comes down to not knowing what to ask for, or who to ask.

How Support Actually Works in England

It helps to know the shape of the system before you enter it.

SEN Support is the first stage, and it happens inside the school. The school should identify the need, put help in place, and review whether it is working — a cycle described in the SEND Code of Practice as assess, plan, do, review. You are entitled to be involved at each stage, and to be told in plain terms what is being tried and whether it worked.

An EHC needs assessment is the next step if SEN Support is not enough. Importantly, a parent can request one directly — you do not have to wait for the school to do it. The local authority must decide within six weeks whether to carry out an assessment, and where a plan is issued the whole process should take no longer than twenty weeks.

If you are refused, at any of those stages, you have a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. A refusal is not the end of the matter, and a great many refusals are overturned.

How We Help

• Explaining how school support and assessments work, in Urdu or English
• Helping you read letters, reports and assessment paperwork
• Going with you to meetings where English is a barrier
• Helping you write down what you want to say before a meeting, so it does not get lost
• Connecting you with other families in the same situation

We are not specialists and we do not provide clinical services or legal representation. What we offer is help understanding the system, and the reassurance of speaking to someone who will take the time.

Where Else to Go

Every local authority must publish a Local Offer setting out what is available in the area, and must fund a SENDIASS service giving free, impartial and confidential advice to parents. Both are worth using alongside anything we can do, and neither costs anything.

Talk to Someone

If you would like to speak to someone about your child, call 07727 874307 or send us a message. Tell us roughly what stage you are at and we will arrange for someone to sit down with you.

What Parents Usually Need First

Almost always the same thing: an explanation, in plain language, of what the system is and what it is supposed to do. Once a parent understands the structure, most of the rest becomes manageable.

• SEN support — the help a school arranges itself, without any formal assessment. Most children with additional needs are supported at this level
• EHC needs assessment — a formal assessment by the local authority. A parent can request one directly — you do not need the school to agree, and this is the single most commonly missed fact
• EHC plan — a legal document setting out the child’s needs and the provision the authority must make
• Annual review — a plan is reviewed at least yearly, and can be amended

Where Families Get Stuck

Being told to wait. Parents are frequently advised to give it another term. Sometimes that is right. Sometimes it is a delay, and years pass.

Not knowing a refusal can be appealed. A refusal to assess is not final. There is a right of appeal, and a proportion of appeals succeed.

Meetings in English only. A parent whose strongest language is Urdu can be sitting in a room where a great deal is decided and very little is understood.

Nobody writing anything down. Verbal assurances from a school disappear. Following a meeting up in writing changes what happens next.

What We Can Do

Explain the stages, help you draft letters and requests, come with you to meetings, and interpret where that helps. We are not lawyers or advocates, and we will say so when a situation needs specialist SEND advice — but a great deal of what families need is simply someone alongside them who has seen the process before.

A Word to Parents

Many parents arrive at this convinced they are being difficult. You are not. Asking for a child’s needs to be assessed is a right, exercised routinely by families who know it exists. Knowing it exists is most of the advantage, and it is unevenly distributed.

Enquiries are treated in confidence.