Disabled Childrens Team

I have rung the DCT after being very tearful and frustrated with the events regarding SS and i spoke with a lovely lady there. I told her of the latest situation and that this core assessment is now wks behind due to SS not being intouch for over 4 wks and that i need to speak with someone.

She pulled up Ts details and saw who his SW was and she asked have they not told me of what is happening? well i answered no of course because i know of nothing. She said that the duty worker will be phoning me after 1pm today when she is back in the office. Does this mean they have records of T at the DCT? at first she told me to contact SS dept but after seeing the details on the system she advised someone from there will be phoning me.

I am hoping and praying this is good news and the DCT will be taking T on now and so they should really.

Hopefully it wiil be some good news for a change, they have messed you about enough.

Thanx hun

Ive everything crossed its good news hun xxx

Thanx hun im just fed up with all this running around we have to do and how upset we have to get before anything is done.

OK the duty worker called me back and she said once the core assessment is done they will determine whether he will be taken on by them, depending on whether he meets the criteria.

I then asked so what criteria do they have to work from to determine who is taken on or not? her reply was they dont have nothing written down! (so how the hell do they determine who meets a criteria that they dont have written down or to work from?!) not suprised but i contiuned to ask more. She then said that they only usually take on severely disabled kids and most of the children are in special school, so i said he would need to be special schooled to be taken on then? she replied yes.

So im guessing T wont be taken on by the DCT and she advised that it would be the ASD team that would take him on and provide support not them, they dont deal with kids that have mild learning difficulties.

I told her my son may be played down as mild or not severe but i live it and i can assure her that it is not easy, hence why i am seeking help.

She advised me of a sports zone session at the local leisure center that is on every saturday morning and its free to all with learning difficulties and it ranges across the whole spectrum (never been advised of this before and T would love this!) i thanked her for her help and she advised me that she would be telling Ts SW that i contacted them.

So there u have it guys, T will only have a chance of being taken on by them if he is in special school and my LEA clearly dont want that, so its not good news at all.

I called SS again and still no one there, i wont stop until i get someone today thats for sure!

The sports session sounds very positive. I agree keep calling SS they will have to speak to you that way. Still have evertything crossed for the DCT

My son attends the Sports thingy. In theory! But we often don;t make it cos it's at 9.15 AM! I know that makes us sound lazy but J doesn't sleep and we're permanently knackered so it's nice not to have to rush off somewhere in the mornings at the weekends.

The early session is for kids with LD's and the later session for the kids with physical disabilities , when we get him there he does seem to enjoy it! It's not free in the sense of no money though - i think it costs about a £1 , so reasonable!

The sports thing sounds great Bambi, try and get T into that if you can

From what I have heard from many across the country regarding the LEA, is that they don't give in very easily (as we know) to providing a statement for children to attend SEN schools, mainly because the government want to shut a lot of them down, basically, if they don't have the figures (amount of people attending) to keep these schools open, they can close them and put them in mainstream, which we all know sounds good, having them mixing with NT kids so that NT and SEN children learn about each other and accept each other etc, but the reality is that this is rarely the case, yes, it may help with speech etc but once NT children realise there's somthing different about a child, they bully and the SEN child stands out more and more as they get older, so it's not ideal at all. For the government, it's cheaper to have these children in mainstream, than pay to help fund SEN schools, and we all know what our wonderful government is like so now we know why we have to fight so hard for these statements, because they don't want our children filling up these schools that they want to close down.....

Don't give up Bambi, there will come a point where they can not deny the needs T has and will have to eventually give you that statement, unfortunately, it won't come as soon as is needed to make sure he has the early intervention, but it will be better than never at all, I really hope things work out and that the DCT will take on T and help you