How I work

Supporting Parents:

Getting the right support in place for a child to thrive is a journey. The better prepared you are, the more likely it is that it will be a smooth ride. With this in mind, I go through the following steps:

Discovery Meeting: what's going on for you and your child/ young person right now?

STAGE 1: A Case Review and Needs Summary, making recommendations about next steps and sharing these with school

STAGE 2: If an EHCP is necessary, I can submit the Request to Assess

STAGE 3: Checking a draft EHCP for compliance

Some parents require support at STAGE 4: advice around choosing a school/ setting. 

Many people only require my help at Stage 1. After this, they have a clear understanding of what needs to happen next and can communicate more effectively with school and other professionals.

The Discovery Meeting is free and gives us a chance to discuss your situation and decide whether you need my support. 

If you think I can help, then the first step would be for you to send me all the documents that you have about your child. This would include everything from school - SEND Support plans and reviews, recent school reports and any diagnoses and/or reports from other professionals (SALT, OT, paediatrics, Ed Psychs, etc) - literally all the paperwork you have.

I will read it and create a Case Review. This will be a snapshot view of what the documentation is saying about your child. If you are wondering about applying for an EHCP, it will outline the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence you have, and what I would advise as the next steps. This is crucial, as I don't ever want to proceed to making a Request to Assess without knowing that we have a good chance of success. It also means that if I spot gaps ( for example there is not enough evidence of the graduated response from school, or there is a lack of professional reports/ diagnoses) then we can contact relevant agencies/ professionals and try to get these in process as soon as possible.

I will also collate the reports into a simple, comprehensive "Needs Summary" which will be useful for when we make the Request to Assess, and is a great document to have for any school or professional to be able to get an accurate picture of your child's needs. It is also very useful for the LA to have if/when they write a draft EHCP.

I work at a rate of £65 an hour. The Case Review and Needs Summary documents usually take me between 3 and 5 hours to complete (depending on the number and quality of reports).

Supporting Schools:

I can run whole staff training events, workshops for parents, or bespoke packages for leadership teams. Prices depend on the number of participants and scope of the support. Contact me for a discussion.