Hello mate. Hello.
How's it going? Episode 27.
Is indeed. Episode 27.
What the fuck? I know 27.
Big number as big as 28, which will be next week.
So let's try and make this a decent one.
Yeah, lots to get through. Lots to get through, lots to get
through. It's going to be full of
content, that's for sure. Oh.
Saddle up those horses. So we're getting ready for it.
Saddle up those horses. What are we talking about, mate?
What are we talking about? Oh.
We're talking about someone's leaked some information.
Send reform information. Send reform information has been
leaked. So we love a good leak because
you kind of wonder, is it somebody that's disgruntled and
has leaked it, or has it been deliberately leaked to gauge
public opinion? If it's not real, it's very
imaginative. Oh, it's, it seems pretty
genuine. It seems like it's either legit
one they've got in the pipeline or it's just another one of
those little let's sprinkle this out there and see what the
reaction is. Type things, yeah.
So yeah. But it's been described as
credible leaks from. The same source.
Yeah, from the same source about the upcoming send white paper
and they've been published in the I paper and the Financial
Times. So usually they're kind of
papers that have good sources and tend to validate them before
they print something, so it's come from the same source.
It was almost a week after the last send conversation that we
went to in London. Yes, it seemed interesting.
Nothing, nothing came before it. It was no this.
That's finished. Seemed to have waited till after
the send national conversation so obviously lots of people will
read into that. We need to give props.
So yeah, this valuable information came from the Send
Rights Alliance. You if you're not following, you
need to follow because she. She's on the board, isn't?
She she is absolutely on the board.
Finger is on the pulse. Oh yes, Finger is definitely on
the pulse, but she's, she's great at breaking down the
information as well, really, really good.
And it's helped us massively because it's given us a starting
point to, to delve into this. So the leaks suggest fundamental
changes to disabled children's rights and they're saying
nothing is confirmed yet. I love that, but the consistency
and timing makes this impossible to ignore.
So we're not going to ignore it. But the white paper is, it's
expected out in February, isn't it?
So we just carry on living in this kind of limbo of
uncertainty until then. Yeah, if this, if this is just a
little test of waters and see it's very close to when the
white paper's supposed to be coming out.
Yeah, which makes me think. So how long do you leave it to?
Yeah, exactly at. The end of January now that's
what I mean. Or is it a softening up of the
general public before they they release it?
And unfortunately, it's not. It's not the majority of the
general public that needs softening up.
No, no. But we'll get into it in a bit.
But this isn't just about people directly affected by saying this
is going to affect the wider community and they might not
realise at the moment by not doing it right now it is going
to affect everybody. It's.
Going to be a bit of dominoes. It'll it'll affect the the send
families first of all. Yeah, like overnight.
Yeah, and then you just watch for the knock on effect in
schools teachers. Staffing Welfare.
It's going to trickle. Down, you know?
Yeah. It's going to trickle down.
So this is not about fear mongering, but we're going to
digest it and see and see what happens with it.
So one of the key things that came out and this ties into the
question you asked about EHC. PS: If I was sceptical, I'd
probably say This is why this question keeps getting battered
away. Yeah.
But oh, we can't answer the question on EHCPS because
there's potentially going to be a four tier sense system.
Yeah, A4 tier sense system and unless you are born with a
disability, which most of these children are.
Yeah. Unless you, unless you're born.
So I think some of the examples they gave were like Down
syndrome, cerebral palsy, things like that.
You'll get an EHCP immediately. Yeah.
Everybody else will have to basically pass through these 4
tiers. So, yeah, so if you've got
complex needs from birth, yeah, you'll automatically receive
your EHCP. Yeah, the rest of you will have
to go through The Hunger Games from the sounds of things.
So A4 Tier 4 tier system like you haven't got enough shit to
deal with. So the proposal that's been
leaked suggests 4 non statutory support tiers with the golden
EHCP would sit above all of these tiers.
But you now have to get through four additional tiers, like the
worst game of Super Mario, And at the end of it, there'll be a
final boss. Yeah, that you get to deal with.
I keep laughing. I'm not laughing because it's
funny. I'm laughing because it's
insane. Non statutory support cannot be
appealed. It can't be appealed.
Can't be appealed. Who's this in favour of this, in
favour of the families? Is it?
It's. Just nuts.
So yeah, so all other children, you would start at level 1
universal support, and then you'd be forced to move up
through all the four tiers, and only then will you become
eligible for an EHCP. So you've got to work from level
1 to level. Two, I want to see what these
tiers are. I want to see what these levels.
Are yeah, we need to see what these tiers are.
Do you know how difficult it is just to apply for an EHCP and
and get and get access to that? Could you imagine what it's
going to be like? I need to apply from level 1 to
level 2, the back and forth to get to there, and then from
level 2 to Level 3 and then from Level 3 to level 4.
In the grey zone between the tears.
Oh. My word, it gets kicked back.
It feels a bit like, you know, the, the NHS fucking paper that
you, you, you joke about, which is so funny.
The grey paper. If anyone's there, you probably
have the the paper that you first get when you are yourself
assessing your child and whether they hit these certain needs.
Andy made a really good point, a funny point early on.
I didn't think about it at the time, but it comes on this off
white, basically grey paper that feels like that's what this is
going to be a bit like. Like that was Tier 1.
Yeah. OK, this is a scary bit.
What if that is tier one? If that.
OK, cool, you're now past tier one.
What the fuck's in tier 2-3 and four?
Well, because tier one's pretty savage.
It's pretty. Tier One's Savage.
Enough. And that might not be the way
they're doing it, but I just look at it and I think it just
feels like there's all these hosts and hurdles with hurdles.
Really good. Yeah.
So, and again, like Andy said before, we're not
scaremongering, but I also think it's important that we, they,
these leaks get released for a reason.
If they do get released intentionally, and I think they
do, they're doing it because they want to test the water.
Well, while we've got them, let's just prep for what might
be coming. It might be amazing.
It might come out in February and we'll go, Oh my God, this is
a brilliant idea, but don't hold your breath.
Yeah, sorry, don't hold your breath.
So the key concern then, if we we kind of delve into this is
that it's going to create a system where children must fail
repeatedly before getting legal support.
Yeah. So you're going to have to go
show in level one that your kids failing.
Yeah. And then show again that in
level that level 2 is not good enough.
And it's hard enough doing that once.
Yeah, like we, I've talked about how we took Thomas to that
mainstream nursery knowing he wasn't going to cope.
All the staff knew, the principal knew, everyone knew he
was going to. That was savage, putting him
through something. We knew he was going to fail.
But yeah, to your point, it feels very much like that.
But you might have to do that another three times, yeah.
And. How long would that take?
Yeah, exactly. And how long were your kids have
to go through that before it's justifiable?
Yeah. How much damage has been done?
Yeah, emotional damage and going back to the child and the
parents. And going back to like the the
first point that if, if your child has a complex need from
birth or a severe disability from birth, autism, it doesn't
just appear after three years, they're born with it, but
diagnosis takes so much time to to get there.
So one of the things that comes up with this is that the
potential leak shows a profound, we like using that word
misunderstanding of disability. I think is is fair to say and
this could be the heart of the argument.
And that's giving them credit, because credit would be.
You've misunderstood the problem.
Yeah, one size does not. It might not be that they don't
understand the problem, it might just be that they don't give a
shit enough. Yeah.
Or the funding's not there and they're just like, listen, this
is just what we've got to do. I think they understand the
problem personally. Yeah.
But it's just me. I don't think you.
I don't think unless they're being wilfully ignorant.
Yeah, but that surely would be a horrendous mistake to make.
Of course it would a horrendous mistake to make.
So the there you go. Let's say it does show a
profound misunderstanding of disability.
So we look at the kind of the the key points of this argument
is that clearly, as we've discussed many times, disability
is not linear. We've talked how Thomas and and
Lydia, autistic, profoundly autistic, go to the same special
needs school, both nappies, non verbal, massively different.
Massively different. Massively different.
Totally different kids. And you have to also remember
that many children don't get a diagnosis in infancy.
No, some have to wait. Yeah, the profundity's not there
or they just aren't the numbers there.
Yeah. And as as many parents have
said, look, the difficulty with with certain traits of autism or
everything else associated with being neurodivergent, it can
emerge later on in life. Yeah, it can emerge between the
transition between primary school and senior school and
then the the the fluctuation or hidden disabilities as well.
Yeah, mixed into that. God it's hard enough getting
these EHC PS: as it is just mental.
It's so mental. Yeah, but then like, if you
delve into it, into what the leak's saying, even the
government's own example doesn't hold up, does it?
And. What was that what they use as
an example? Some, some they, I think they
mentioned kind of cerebral palsy, but there are certain
children with cerebral pals that don't need to.
Get. Oh yeah, exactly.
So you can be Oh no, but you fit the criteria, so you have one.
Well, I don't require. One, I don't need one.
And again, we talked about kind of getting diagnosed early.
That's not always possible depending on where you live or
the process that you're going through.
And some children don't have complex needs.
And they still, this is a point that's been raised by quite a
few experts. They mentioned complex needs,
but they haven't given the definition of what complex.
Complex is. Yeah, exactly who defines that?
Yeah. So that would be really useful
to know what is complex. They're going to produce a a
guide with a disability, isn't it?
This white paper needs to be detailed, man.
It's got to be. It can't be.
You can't leave it to it. Can't be vague.
Someone's interpretation or complex is no.
And who gets to decide that? I bet you're knocking a few
doors and ask parents is it complex and be like fuck yeah
it's complex. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I know, but this guide says it's not.
Oh, really? And then we've got the danger of
a fail first system. A tiered system means repeated
inadequate support, delays, the meaningful help, escalating
distress and trauma. And we've talked to quite a few
parents about this. And you know, in the in the
dad's group that we've got, it could push more children out of
education. Oh, well, that's, that's kind of
one of the first things that one of the guys said wasn't it is
standby for all the homeschooling to go through the
roof. When homeschooling goes through
the roof, teachers are going to start striking.
They're going to start kicking off because they're going to,
well, they're going to go on welfare because they're not
going to be able to get a job because they'll have to stay
home and home school. So the long term cost and
implications. Can affect everybody.
It's just. Welfare.
Social Care. Mental Health, you know how
difficult it is anyway if you're a parent and your sole life now
is staying at home with a child with really.
What's really sad, as I was saying today, the the the
biggest thing that could make an impact is teachers strike it, in
my personal opinion, because it's that thing that strikes at
the heart of the economy functioning.
If teachers strike, kids aren't at school, parents aren't at
work, shit hits the fan. But what's the knock on effect
going to be for teachers like we?
I think we've discussed this in previous episodes, haven't we,
that you're going to go out and train every single teacher on
how to cope with neurodiversity and these these potentially
needs of children? Teachers are going to quit.
And it's taken parents probably 5 or 6 years to understand their
own children and you're going to hold a course over the summer
and say, guess what, guys? And also, some of these teachers
didn't want to train to work with special needs children, and
that's fair enough. They've got into mainstream.
That's fine, they didn't want to do it and now, now they've got
to deal with a completely different set of issues.
The classic thing with this, you know, you start something, say,
oh, you know, it's only two kids.
Yeah. Yeah, it's only two kids in your
class the following year, we might just have to squeeze it up
to three. Yeah.
Next year it's five. Yeah.
And you're still trying to teach neurotypical kids and have
neurodiverse children in there as a teacher, At some point,
you're just going to go, this is too much.
Yeah. And then and then what?
Now we have a SENCO lead. And you know obviously the SENCO
lead, but you can imagine the workload now.
Crazy. For for a lead and having every
parent go whoa I need to get from level 2 to Level 3 and
having to deal with all this. Yeah, it's it's nuts.
Schools already stretched. Yeah.
Teachers aren't specialists. There's no funding, so there's
no capacity. Yeah, it does it actually.
It's going to end up putting the the teachers and the parents
against each other. Yeah, there's going to be a lot
of this happening. Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. And then do you have
neurotypical families turn on neurodiverse families because
it's affecting their children's education?
Yeah, exactly. Well, why?
And we've said that's in day one.
And you'll have, like, the simplistic views of some people
going, well, they should just be in a specialist school.
No fucking shit. Irrection.
Yeah, that's exactly, yeah. That's we know.
That's what we're pushing for. Have more places, build more,
more of these. So you're going to have that
kind of divide come around as well.
But that's kind of, that's the message that needs to be getting
across as well. Because if this does go down the
way we think it might, the same community is very powerful, very
vocal, but we don't have the numbers.
We don't have the numbers for, for a lot of issues that people
want to listen to. But that's because everybody
doesn't realise that this is going to affect a lot more
people than they realise. I mean, teachers, parents, the
welfare state. I mean, again, well, I'm, I'm,
I'm kind of, I'm moaning based off assumptions really.
We don't know what's going to be in this white paper, but this is
this. This is the information that we
have. And it's a snippet, so this
might actually be what's happening, but there might be a
lot of stuff on the backbone, the framework of it all, that
actually makes it make sense. We don't.
Know we'll do another podcast about that.
We will, but I mean, there is some stuff in there obviously
about, you know, the people losing their legal right, which
is the the big point with the CP, wasn't it?
And we'll, yeah, we'll have a look at that.
But there's a bit of the terminology.
There's a contradiction around diagnosis that comes out as
well. So there's a bit of hypocrisy
here. The government narrative says we
should stop medicalizing children.
All right, they're all children. We should stop focusing on on
medicalizing them. The proposal suggests the
diagnosis may determine entitlement to support.
So the only way to do that is you're medicalizing children.
Just medicalized them. It's it's becoming a condition
based system, not a needs based one.
So well your condition says here that you're not entitled to it.
Yeah, no, but the needs are that are definitely require it.
Yeah. No, no, it's black and white.
This is a condition here. You're not entitled it entitled
to it. So there's going to be a massive
variation within kind of the diagnosis process there.
And is it going to exclude children with profound needs who
never re receive a diagnosis? And that's again, that's that's
the issue that a lot of parents and their kids have got now.
And then the other thing that springs to mind is if you go
down this route and it is a condition based system, not a
needs based one. Yeah.
Is the next step then to look at DLA?
Probably. It's like, no, no, the condition
here says you're entitled to XY and Z, Yeah.
It's the next logical step, isn't it?
Well, I would think you can't have one without the other.
No, because why would you then go, oh, the DLA says I've got
the the maximum entitlement, but then I can't get it on this
education based system that you've put in place.
Yeah. So surely the two will end up
marrying up when that starts to happen.
Oh. God, especially if you do have
the knock on effect of people homeschooling.
Yeah, and can't work. Yeah, and now the DLA gets
dropped. And then we have the the other
thing that came about in this, this leaked article is a threat
to individual assessment and legal rights and it explains
what we could potentially lose. So EHCP is currently provide
individual needs assessments and the all important legally
enforceable provision and these are the foundation of disabled
children's rights. And the right to appeal.
And the right to appeal the leak suggests A reduced or restricted
EHCP assessment process, schools deciding provision without legal
duty, parents potentially losing the right to challenge
inadequate support and only be able to challenge process
errors. So as long as everyone can show
they followed the process, tough titties, That's it.
That sounds like it's going to go down like a shit sandwich.
Yeah. And was there anything about
that? And I don't think there was
retention of EHCP if you've already got one.
There wasn't, was there? There wasn't much into that.
No, because that is a question that people are going well.
Does it start from a set date? People are applying weapons to
the EHCP that are already in place.
If you're a send betweener then we discussed it.
Do they then keep in place to the next review date?
No. Sember's way, I really feel for
him. Like we've said before, I think
it's it's fair to say that Thomas and Lydia, even if they
did get their EHCP reassessed, they'd be at the level where
they carry on getting the same support.
They're getting that. Yeah.
But this is this is, this is scary for a lot of parents.
Yeah, yeah. And.
Again, it's the unknown. The unknown is scary.
It's almost better to see this as shit as it is than what it
was a week ago when no one had a clue.
But we we got an e-mail today, I'll just kind of read a little
bit about it. It's from a lady talking about
her granddaughter who's 5. This might sound familiar.
Non verbal severe learning disabilities still in nappies
sent to a mainstream school along with her neurotypical twin
brother. And the parents have objected
and tried to to fight it. The child has elopement issues
whilst at school. There's been many occasions
where nappies haven't been changed.
She's eating stones outside and they've asked for urgent review
into it and it. I believe the mother had to
record the conversation or the review on audio on her phone.
And then the EHCP that was promised was was not amended and
nothing was taken into account until she pulled out and said,
I've got the recording of the conversation where you've
promised all of these things and.
They sort of didn't. Know, they said.
Now we'll look at it seriously. So they're trying to find a
place for in a specialist school.
So that's it folks. You can't trust anybody, any
professional unless you record it.
So you can basically use it against them.
It's the only position where you're safe.
How, How have we got to have this fight?
Have we got all the details? Oh, I've got all the details.
Yeah, we need to follow up with that.
Yeah, we'll follow up with that. But that's that's the same level
of that's, that's, that's the promise that is, yeah, stick
them in a mainstream. School.
Oh, what? How many more kids are going to
be like this? No, no.
But we followed the the process and it says.
And that's happening while the current framework is still in
place. That's.
In the current framework where we have.
Which kind of works. Some legal, yeah, protection,
but Can you imagine now which go no, no, there's there's no as
long as the process is followed and the school can show they
follow the process, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
The the school could essentially say, yeah, we did an assessment
and we assessed that they could go mainstream.
But then like if you're a normal, if you're a mainstream
teacher and you've got a kid like.
That like the the teacher must be tearing her air out.
Like, why is this kid here? Yeah.
How am I, how am I going? How am I educating the children,
the Romans? And I've got a kid like this,
isn't it? Yeah.
That's nuts. That's just nuts.
It's it's. I mean, I know there's
situations where, you know, sometimes parents, they, they,
they're struggling to digest the whole autism thing or whatever
the disability is. So they want them to go to
mainstream because they just feel that if they do the
opposite and they get a specialist, they won't be able
to grow and, you know, be the best they can be.
But that's the system just sent that kid to A to a mainstream.
That is the system. That is the system.
But Can you imagine the amount of parents that are just going
to be wanting to contact schools, local authorities,
whoever to do the best for that you?
Know what you're going to get a lot of as well.
You're going to get a lot now because the system because
parents like the ones I've just mentioned that are kind of that
they're not really digesting it and you're going to get the
professionals are going to start encouraging like I'm just
wondering if you know if my son should be in specialist.
No, no, no, they'll be fine and I'm OK I'll just take your word
for it. So it won't even be a battle
because they'll be quite receptive to that to to be told
that their child. You want to hear what you want
to hear? Yeah.
So it's going to be a lot easier now.
Yeah, that's what they're going to do when they're in there.
Yeah, and oh, it's going to be fucking.
And this is what I mean by teachers.
Teachers are going to be start going.
Nah, mate, all right, what? But.
Then do you have the internal politics within the school where
teachers are going? Look, I'm I'm on the front
bloody line here. I I, I literally I'm basically
at war. Yeah, I every day is a
battleground now. Yeah.
And I've got to deal with this. But then have you got like the,
the upper echelons of the schools who are like, no, no, we
we'll get more funding. Yeah, we'll get more money in.
Again, right with this we, and this is a piece that I I might
not be aware of, but is this still talking about having a hub
fixed to a mainstream school? That seems.
To dedicate teachers. It does, doesn't it?
This seems to have got this may sounds like they're just going
to be in with all the other kids.
I don't know that I just, but I haven't heard them mention hubs
for a few months. Like how many kids?
How many? How many kids?
How many schools already stretched to capacity?
Yeah. And then what?
You're going to find room to build a dedicated hub?
Yeah. What for?
For children between the ages of 11 to 16, Yeah, there's going to
be a hub there. Got one big classroom for all of
them. That's just another school.
You've just made another. School.
So you're going to, we're going to have portacabins for these
kids. So disabled kids in portacabins?
That's the thing, and. What about the toilet needs?
Yeah. What about everything else?
Yeah, you might as well just build bloody another school yeah
to to deal with that it's. A weird one.
It's fun. And who's going to, who's going
to take on that responsibility and to be dedicated?
To if there's any teachers that want to get in touch, by the
way, let us know because they must have been approached.
They must be. Schools must know.
Yeah, if the white papers coming out in February.
Oh, there, there'll be consultations that have taken
exactly a couple of people that have.
Been on SO if you want to, if you want to get in touch
anonymously, we will absolutely keep it so that you are
anonymous. If you want to tell us what the
fuck's going on, that'd be. Great.
Yeah, because you've got this, the funding thing as well.
So there's going to be apparently, according to this,
maybe a shift away from individual funding.
So you've got to follow the money now.
So the report suggests less funding tied to individual
children. OK.
More more money given directly to the schools to in in quotes
here manage needs generally whatever the that means yeah so
we're we're taking the money that's tied to the individual
child and we're just going to give it to the school they're
assigned in a big pot it's. Just going to go in a pot.
Yeah, and the school will manage the needs generally.
But that's because they're not going to specify an amount of
funding per child. I'm guessing there's just going
to be a local authority is going to receive X amount of funding
every year based on the amount of children with special needs.
But then what do you? You're going to and it's.
Just going to go. On a park are they are these
schools going to generally go Oh no we're going to get dedicated
fully trained teachers in where are they yeah where are these
it's. Going to be a hard one to to
audit. Or they're going to have some
schools which are really good at going.
We can make this little bit of money stretch and then we could
use some of the money for. New PCs Yeah, I.
Mean but, but where's the accountability to that?
Yeah. No, I don't.
Yeah. Well, accountability, we'll talk
about that in a minute. So there's no clarity, again, on
legal obligation to meet needs of these children.
Oh, right, just that there's no legal obligation to meet the
needs of the children. Yeah.
OK, so at the moment there is an obligation.
Oh yeah. And they're failing repeatedly.
Yeah, but now if we remove the obligation.
There's no obligation. We won't fail because there's
nothing to fail. Genius thinking.
Amazing. Amazing.
So no accountability if the support is inadequate.
And we already know what happens when there's no enforceable
duty. That's how the current crisis
began. So this can only make things
better. And another point we've just
kind of discussed there, the impossible burden on schools and
teachers. Yeah, I know if I try.
And again, sorry, I'll say what I was going to say.
If I train to be a teacher and now suddenly obligated to look
after children with special educational needs, I mean, OK,
are you going to pay me more? Well, this would.
Be a question, Yeah, they're probably not, but you would
deserve it. As a parent of a neurodivergent
child, you absolutely deserve it.
You deserve a pay rise if you're now looking after them as well.
100%. And what we haven't talked about
is all the parents out there, I am telling you now, if you're
listening, if you happen to be listening to this podcast and
you've, you're a parent of neurotypical children, your
children are going to be affected negatively to some
degree. If your child's teacher is also
having to deal with children with with additional needs, your
child is going to be affected. Yeah, it's just a fact, 100%.
Look, and this sounds maybe like an extreme example, but I guess
the nuances are there. If I trained as a French teacher
and then went into a school and they said guess what, you're
teaching maths from now on. Yeah, quite trained enough.
Yeah, I'm not trained and. How long is this training going
to take? Maybe like 2 days over the.
Summer, like, do you know what I mean?
Is it going to be like a 60 minute zoom?
Like what? Like, that's some training.
Yeah, but if how many teachers are there in the UK?
Yeah, exactly. We're.
Going to train all of them. Well, they will.
They'll probably pull them all. On a, what do you do about the,
we all know certain teachers that again, 99% teachers, they
say they're great teachers, but even the teachers will know
teachers that are absolutely shit and they're just there
until they get their retirement pension and they're just going
through the motions. What are you going to do with
those? And then?
It's just and then. The other thing to shit show
you've got more newer diverse kids in a school.
You know what kids are like. They're horrible.
Yeah, the horrible. Bastards, the horrible bastards.
What's going to happen? They're going to start picking
on these kids as well because they're different and don't have
the nuances of understanding. Easy target, aren't they?
Easy target? I mean, oh, it's just a shit
show. So teachers are not trained to
diagnose scent. Saying it's a shit show.
We haven't even seen the white paper yet, but if this is even a
snippet of what it's going to be like.
As we, as we keep hearing repeatedly from every school,
you know, that you, you if you've got neurotypical
children, they're already underfunded and overstretched.
Yeah, every school is like that. They're like churches, aren't
they? Like we need some money raising
for the roof. Every school is exactly the same
as it stands at the moment. And Yep, what's the risk?
As we said before, you're going to pit parents against schools,
placing blame where expertise and resources don't exist.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah, you're going to be pitting them against each other because.
There's no it's going to be. No one's fault.
Because we have no one else to go against, no.
So we'll take it out on the person that is dealing with it
day in, day out. So nobody, nobody wins in this
situation. And the thing that's probably
going to put the fear of guard up of most people is that
reduced appeal rights. Yeah, no, I was just reading
that. Reduced reduced appeal rights.
So no meaningful challenge in place.
So, and I think this is really, really critical because even
though the system is a bit shit at the moment, you did have the
right to repeal it and go down that process.
And the article in the Financial Times suggests that appeal
rights may be limited. And the rumours going around
indicate parents could only appeal if the process wasn't
followed, not if support is wrong or insufficient.
So if if, if the support the school gives is wrong or
insufficient, as long as we can show that we followed the
process, then there's nothing you can do really.
If we haven't followed the process then you can appeal.
You're removing the right to challenge like you can't the.
Success rate for the school. Keep removed the right to.
It's like you remove the right to challenge and then you
completely remove the whole point of getting it right in the
1st. Place no, you still have real
accountability. Like from their perspective, our
perspective, the reason is get it right is because it's the
right thing to do. But from their perspective, the
reason to get it right is so you don't get challenged.
Yeah. From their perspective, yeah.
But if you remove the right to challenge, they've got no
incentive to get it right in the first place.
And then we can have sandbikes going 100% success rate.
We've smashed. It we've performed it the.
Stats show that nobody has No one challenged us.
No one challenged us because no one challenged us.
Absolutely perfect. So again, if that is, if that
isn't there, I'll tell you what MPs wait till the next.
Election in case. Wait till the next election.
In case this was just fettered out there, just to see what the
response was, please listen to what we're saying and take that
as the general response. Yeah, it's going to be worse for
some people. We're being, we are being very.
We're holding it back, but trust me, the the comments that we
have seen, I think it's going to be like the the episode of Shrek
where people get pitchforks. And again, we're viewing this
from the perspective of two dads who've got children who whatever
happens. Yeah, we're in a specialist
school. Setting, We're in a specialist
school setting. We're very unlikely to for our
children are unlikely to to lose their EHCP or if it does get
reassessed, they'll get it straight back again because they
both have profound needs. If you're a parent trying to
digest this or you're listening to what we're saying now and
you, you've got a child who's a sent between or any multitude of
children at different, different situations, you're going to be
fucking raging, raging and scared.
Already the amount of private messages we've had of people
going, I'm just going to get everybody to contact my MP,
we're going, we're going to flood their inboxes with
absolutely everything from send families.
Good example is your EHCP in 60 seconds video, Yeah, which has
got nearly 1,000,000 views. Yeah, really, a million people
have seen your face this close. That's just on Facebook.
Yeah, we, we put it on Instagram
last year and I think it had like 800,000 views on Instagram
and we thought, do you know what?
We've just started the Facebook page.
Let's put it on there. You put it up on Friday.
Yeah. And since Friday, today's
Monday, by the way, 1,000,000 views and I'll tell you what the
messages coming through. And that's, that was going to be
my point. The the amount of people that
sit and this is kind of where it's getting a bit ridiculous.
There's parents, EHCP exists, it's existed for a long time.
There is a legal framework to it.
It exists to. Now we're getting all these
questions of parents desperately trying to figure out how to work
the EHCP process, the. Current system.
Exactly the current system that kind of works.
Guess what guys? Guess what, guys?
Yeah, exactly. An overwhelming majority have
been about the ECP. We potentially could put another
four steps in it. Yeah, and more paperwork, more
everything else. Yeah, and and don't worry about
having to appeal because you won't be allowed.
What the fuck? I think I swore more on this
one, but yeah, I think. But then think about it, if
you're the person at the say at the moment, the local authority
and you're dealing with all these cases of EHC, PS:, You're
just dealing with EHCP. Wait till we tell you.
Guess what you're going to deal with Level 1, Level 2, Level 3,
Level 4, EHCP as well. Yeah, guess what, we've got some
good news because we've got a four tier system.
Yeah, we're going to hire somebody part time per week to
help out. Oh, it's just nuts.
So is this all about cost saving Gareth?
Shall we say the quiet part out loud?
Does removing legal legal rights equal a cheaper system?
Yeah, I think it does. Yeah.
Yeah, it's about cost, about money, but I'd still think
they're kicking a can down the road.
You're going to get more exclusions.
Yeah you are definitely guaranteed 100% going to get
more mental health crisis from this.
They're kicking the can down the road.
They're. Short, short term savings.
Yeah, you might just be thinking, I don't know whether
they are thinking short term or you know and can say we've made
immediate savings, but the long term damage and knock on effect
in everything else. Do you remember when we talked
about I had a bit of a rat? It's not like me.
I had a bit of a rant in one of the early episodes.
I was going to say I've not heard you run in a lot.
It must have been an early it. Was when this was announced and
I may have dropped the C bomb. In the conversation, we were
talking about prisons and how many or what the percentages of
individuals that are in prison that are neuro diverse.
You know, I made a bit of a sly comment going, well, whatever
happens, at least we'll have somewhere to stay under this
government or under this regime, not necessarily this government,
past governments as well. You better build some more
prisons if this is what's going to happen because they're going
to be so many kids that fall foul of not getting the right
education and needs. Exactly.
And that's not tarring people that are neurodivergent with
being criminals. That's saying that when you
don't have the support that you fully deserve when you're
growing up, that might be what happens.
And the stats speak to themselves.
Exactly. The stats show it now.
Now with the system we've got. Wow.
So, yeah, short term savings, definitely long term damage and
this is very important as well. You touched upon it at the start
of the conversation, timing of this timing of this leak, and we
were invited to send national conversation.
And a lot of families again are saying they do feel betrayed
because this leak for whatever reason has dropped just over a
week after the SEND national conversations closed.
And it's given that impression again.
And we raised it with the minister that a lot of families
think the decisions were already made.
Parents voices were ignored. Regardless of there's a SEND
national conversation, many people felt the format wasn't
right and companies were given false hope.
Yeah, I could see both sides that that whole national
conversation thing. I can see, I can see their side
of it. Absolutely.
An hour with 1000 people. I think they said 1000 people
were watching, yeah. 1000 speaking to a few, there's,
there's some people saying there's there's been a lot more
than that for each episode. Right.
OK. Like trying to get yourself
heard in an hour. And that wasn't an hour of full
free flow back and forth. No, I think it was maybe twice
where they they, they voted on the screen and what the
questions were like. You didn't need to do that.
I could have told you exactly what the results were going to
be like. What do you think of the system
and the support you've been getting?
I'm going to be like, that's going to be 90%.
People are saying it's shift, yeah.
Why? Why are we doing this?
You don't need to. So yeah, I do.
I do see why why they felt kind of let down by that.
And it was maybe it was just a box ticking exercise is.
What? Well, this is what I thought a
lot of people were saying it, you know, this is just a box
ticking. Exercise.
We consulted parents. We consulted 1000 of them.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing that
feeds into that, and it may not be the case, but I think we've
spoken to a few people and we've tried to find the the one hour
recording because a lot, you know, has it been put on there
as a recording for people to watch at a later date?
Yeah, because we tried to look at the other ones that were.
And many families said, no, we've not been able to find it.
We've searched for it and they haven't put it up so we can
watch it at a later date and be part of that.
You know, we couldn't be live and ask the questions.
They should experience that. Which again, feeds into that.
You're not telling us what's going on.
Yeah. So we're going to put two and
two together, and we may come up with four, we may come up with
five, but we'll work with what we've got.
So again, going back to what this could mean for children
with existing EHC. PS:.
We don't know. The uncertainty is terrifying.
Yeah, it genuinely is terrifying.
It's almost worse to know nothing at all.
It is worse if you know a ship plan.
Yeah, you can prepare for it. Oh yeah, absolutely.
But. When you don't know anything at
all. And and these leaks as well.
This is the other thing. They're unclear whether children
with EHC PS: will keep them. That's a big one.
So you would have thought I'm
leaking something. I'll say yeah, you're safe.
Yeah. It's it's everybody else that
comes afterwards. Yeah, first line, if you
currently, if you, if your child currently has an EHCP, this will
not be affected and carry on. It's just a little bit, yeah.
And how many parents have fought tooth and nail tribunals, God
knows what else. Well, we know people that have
to. Get EHCP.
Years we we've talked about families that have remortgaged
their homes. Yeah.
And again, we're not scaremongering that it might be
the case that you're not going to lose your EHCP.
But no, they haven't stated either.
But again, to be fair to them, this was a leak.
The white paper hasn't been released.
If the white paper comes out and it's not in there and there's
there's details missing, then obviously excuse me about it,
but. We need to talk about what's in
front of. Us exactly we need all we can do
is talk about. What's going to prepare people
or just make them aware? Exactly.
But again, with the HCPS, removing that legal rights
usually means reduced or removed support.
Yeah, so again, not scaremongering, but as parents
you should not assume that your child's safe.
In that sense, no, definitely don't assume.
And I think it would be wrong to think that everything's going to
be rosy and everything's going to be fine because it is a
reform. It's a reform.
It does mean change. This is I've just what what's
kind of bugged me with it is they've like completely
overhauled or they're going to completely overhaul the system
from top to bottom by the looks instead of kind of fine tuning
things that weren't working. Do you know what I mean?
Like EHCP for example, like they've talked about digital IDs
for actually we haven't mentioned.
That we're coming on to. That bit, the digital IDs bit
for for the children, I'm absolutely for digitising the
system. That's what it needs because
they've had a paperwork, like actual paperwork, that is still
flying around. Well, that you should be able to
digitise the system. Yeah, exactly.
But that. Shouldn't be too hard and you
should be able to do that without most.
Private ideas to companies, yeah, are digitised.
Jesus Christ, just go to Tesco, look at the club card.
Just get a Google Drive, guys. Yeah, no.
There's no need if you. There's no need for it to be
like this. No.
To be this. Oh, painful.
Yeah. Time consuming.
Yeah. What am I filling out Paperwork.
Yeah, exactly. I can log into account and do
everything there. Oh look, when you have to fill
in your EHCP review, we're still doing that.
Like do. You know what?
And you have to write it from the perspective of your child
and then what you think is. But there's various other
services for the government that is digitalised just again, this
will affect many families as well.
Child Maintenance Service. It's it's a digitised system.
Yeah, it's shit, but it's but it's digitised.
Yeah, yeah. Because it makes money, yeah.
It's just bizarre, but I don't know why they haven't
implemented that stuff because that would have been cost
saving. And again, like I think we've
said, we've said before, yes, it needs more money, but let's
first figure out if we can just spend efficiently first, then we
know how much more we need. But they're just throwing.
But this is creating more paperwork for everyone now to
get their heads round on top of what they were doing before.
Yeah. So it's it's again, it seems
crazy. You you again a very simplistic
term. So you would have thought, yeah,
digitalized system got the the wastage and time in.
There, right where we at now, we've got a baseline.
Wait a minute, we haven't got enough staff that specialised in
this right? Do a massive recruitment
campaign like you did for Core subject to GCSE teachers.
Give them bursaries. They're just pulling whatever.
The case may be get more people specialised in this.
So what happens next? Well, none of this is confirmed
it's a leak, but the key thing here is the consistency of these
leaks matters. If this isn't a leak, some
absolute fucking loser has just decided to type this out.
They'd leak it to a newspaper. Like let's be honest like this,
there's no smoke without fire. This has come from somewhere
legit. Well, for, for for a paper like
the I paper and the Financial Times, to produce something, you
must have a source. Yeah.
That, you know, and it is reliable.
I can't just turn up to the Financial Times I paper and go,
guess what? I've got a leak.
Here it is. And I go, do you know what?
That sounds absolutely credible. Who are you?
That doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
So the leak says that all children will be sent to the
Isle of Man. Yeah.
And educated there. Yeah.
All right. That sounds reasonable.
Yeah, I'll print that. We'll put it out.
Yeah. So it has to be has to be
credible. But going back to your point,
because there's some really interesting things here.
There's digital IDs and things like that.
So, so one of the things again, just go back to the the legal
side of things and the key thing here, the system quietly shifts
legal decision making from law to discretion.
And I don't think a lot of people that have kind of
realised what that means. Sneaky, that is.
So a lot of the commentary is focusing on the different tiers
that we've mentioned from the leagues, the removal of EHCPS,
funding cuts. But there's also a deeper issue
that's kind of, I don't know, just kind of slid under, isn't
it? These reforms don't just change
support, they change who has the power to decide.
And what's new and under discussed so far is our current
system. As we've mentioned many times,
and many parents will say at least we have it, it's law
based, you have the individual assessment, you have statutory
duties and there are enforceable rights.
The LEAP system appears to be discretion based.
So now schools decide how funding is used, teachers decide
what support is classed as reasonable and parents lose
meaningful appeal routes. So this isn't just a reform.
You could potentially say it's a constitutional shift inside
education for our children. How many messages do we get
where schools have been given funding and it's been misspent?
Oh. Loads.
Now they just get to choose how they spend it.
But now, now you, you can't even ask the question.
No, you can't. No, you can ask the question.
They don't have to answer it. I will.
I don't have to answer that. I don't have to answer that.
And just for that, I'm going to take another £10 out a little
Timmy's fund and put it somewhere else.
Yeah. So why this, why this matters?
So discretion without legal duty basically means we could be in a
post code lottery once more. Yeah, I mean, we're already in
one. It's like even worse.
That's what's going to happen. It's going to happen, Yeah.
We've seen it on so many different things.
Yeah. And now we're going to throw
education in there as well. Two identical children with
completely different outcomes. Yeah, but that's that's true,
isn't it? Yeah, two identical children
could receive entirely different support depending on it could
even be in the same area on the school.
It actually could still be in the same town or city.
This is what the post code thing is.
We used to call it a post code lottery.
It wasn't really because, generally speaking, it was
countrywide. Yeah, whatever trust you were
in. Exactly.
And now whatever. Trust.
Yeah. And now it's going to depend on.
You could be just at a different school on the other end of the
town. Yep.
So, so 2 identical children can receive entirely different
support depending on what the school leadership is like, the
budget pressure that school is under and staff confidence.
Yeah, and that could literally. It could change depending on the
political leading of a of a head teacher.
OK, kind of liberal. I I believe you know.
I know. Like, get out there, do some
more walks in the fresh air. That might sort.
That out but on the flip side if you're a head teacher that's got
that that has an autistic child autistic for example, yeah, you
might benefit yeah but then you'll have that's not right it
should be like that but. Then you can have parents go
well, of course he's going to favour that.
He's misspending the money. Exactly why?
Because you've got 2 disabled kids.
Oh, she's misspending the money. There's, there's a massive
change. This, this is a massive change.
And people aren't really kind of realising this just yet.
And I think that's really important that they do.
And it's, it's happening without anybody saying it out loud.
So we're not debating support models, we're debating whether
disabled children still have legal rights or whether their
future depends on who happens to be in charge of that school.
Of that school exactly and. What happens when the leadership
changes? Because that happens quite a
lot. In some schools.
They head teacher last two years and then they've moved on.
You're losing your EHCP. Why?
Because I'm a bit right wing. All.
Right. It could be so.
That will literally, again reframe the whole debate for
that school. It's funny with the the send
digital passports for send coming up because it seems like
ever since digital passports. Was it's been knocked around a
bit. It's been knocked about a bit
and we've all. Who do we give it to 1st?
It's. Generally knocked it back, yeah,
pretty hard. I think it's like 80 odd percent
of the country like get. Stuff a lot of people like, no,
you're already in my business. And lots of stuff.
So with this, it's like, OK, cool, well, for your child to
get the support they need, they're going to have to have
one. It was a bit like Keir Starmer,
who says you're not going to be able to work in the UK unless
you've got a digital passport and everybody just went and get
fucked. This is just you.
Still need us to work because you still need the taxes.
Exactly, so with this it feels like the other way around.
Like if you want your kid to get the support, if you refuse, if
you refuse the digital send passport, that's on you.
You clearly don't want them to get the support.
They. Need, you know, you need a
digital passport, so the digital send passport and this is
another risk that people need to get their head around it.
It potentially could become a compliance tool, as you said.
Yeah, not a support tool. Yeah, we'll dress it up as
that's. Why?
It just seems to have come out around the same time.
Yeah. So you can hear the words
digital passport, and everyone thinks, you know, that's really
efficient. Yeah, but there's some hidden
risks in there. I guess the unspoken danger
about it is this could become a cap on support, not a reflection
on the need of the need of the child.
Yeah, a static label that follows your child.
And they're gonna have that for life like your.
Digital password says you're this.
Everyone else could refuse the digital, digital ID, digital
passport. They'll have it for life because
they're disabled, yeah. And it also becomes a
justification for why nothing more can be done for your child.
So like, if we work into that tier system, if the passport
says Tier 2 support provided, then as a school, you could
argue, well, there's the right support was offered, the process
was followed. Yeah, there is no escalation
required. Yeah, it's that process, but
again, isn't it? You can preview.
Digital Passport says that. So even if your child, your
child is drowning and clearly can't cope, this creates kind of
administrative proof without educational outcomes.
So a digital passport might show that support was recorded, not
that it actually worked. And that's the thing.
We go to the passport, say, look, all the support was
provided, but then you argue, well, none of it actually
worked. OK, cleaned up.
We followed the process. The digital passport says this.
And where do you go from then exactly?
Nowhere. And you've gone over the phone.
Go. You go nowhere.
Nowhere. You can't appeal.
And this is something that you need to get your heads round
about this. It's not, it's not like a oh, we
just don't do it to make life easier because nothing in this
sounds like it's making life easier for us and families.
No, it's making life easier for them.
It's making a life a lot easier for the.
Powers that be. Yeah, none of this looks like
it's actually go on. This will make us send families
life easier. I think it will, it will
streamline if, if everybody was like the system itself, I'm sure
is going to work quite well. But it's going to, and when I
say work, I mean it's going to do what they want it to do.
Oh yeah. Yeah, I reckon it's going to be
pretty slick, but it's going to be an absolute fucking nightmare
for countless parents and their kids.
Yeah, yeah, this sounds horrible.
This will cost lives. Yeah, well.
This will cost lives. Yeah, and children as well as
parents. How many?
And this is something that happens as well.
And if if you're an MP or somebody in this process, I hope
you fucking listen to this as well.
The amount of parents that have contacted us, even though the
child has EHCPS, but they're not being followed properly.
The amount of parents that have had to say to us, my child is
talking about ending their life. Yeah, and we had that one dad at
the very beginning and that caused many, many other families
to reach out. Go, my kids 9.
And she's talking like that. Nine years old, can't cope,
doesn't want to be here anymore. And then how many parents are
going to go? I just can't cope with this.
I just can't. There's I can't do anything.
I feel helpless. The only way out is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to record that in
your digital passports. Yeah, because that's happening
now. Yeah, that's happening now with
the legal. Framework that we have.
So put this in place, Yeah. And how many parents again are
able to navigate the system as it is?
Well, do you know how many times me and you've responded to
someone asking for help and we've gone?
This is what you need to do. You do this, you do this.
Here's a letter template. Fill that in with all your
details. Send that.
When they don't respond after X amount of weeks, then you send
this letter and you do this, this, this.
There's not going to be any of that.
Yeah. Because all of that is about
appealing and rights, yeah. And legal framework.
We're not going to be able to advise people like that.
We're not going to be able to give them templated letters.
Yeah, yeah. We need to, we need to speak
about Davey. We should do.
I reckon we try and speak to him.
I think we should because at least he understands this at.
Least he gets it, yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure there's many
other MPs that have family members that will be affected by
this. Maybe they should be the ones
trying to fix the system. Well, I'm sure he's going to be
very vocal. I hope so when the white paper
comes out. I hope so.
And then the other thing, this system quietly redefines what
early intervention means and it becomes early containment.
So ministers keep saying early intervention, that seems to be
the buzzword at the moment, but what's actually being proposed
in these leaks actually does the opposite.
So early intervention to us means and to many other families
means you identify the needs early, you assess it properly,
and then you put the right support in place.
And in an ideal world world, that's how it's supposed to
work. We know for some people it works
like that, some people it doesn't.
Sorry, go. On now what it risks or now at
risk, meaning you place children in the lowest tier possible.
Yeah, of course you do you. Start off level 1 you.
Put them as low as you possibly can.
You've got to work your way up and that delays escalation and
that is a great way to manage cost and risk and not the actual
need of the child. I'm just looking here.
It's obviously aliens of engine versus early containment.
See, they were containment. So that reminds me of this is
like being an 80s kid. Ghostbusters, that big thing
that is to catch ghosts in contain them.
That was that was the containment field.
Whatever the field it was called, it was like you catch
him, stick him in there, forget about him.
They're done. It feels like it's like, OK,
let's identify him. OK, cool.
They're everywhere and I let's just, I can keep them over
there, keep everybody quiet. Do you think as well in going
through this process that you would have thought out, OK, say
we have, I don't know, I'll pick a number, 2,000,000 cent
children in the UK. It might be more, might be less.
I haven't got the figures in front of me.
Do you do a cost analysis of that and say, well, let's play
with the different figures? How much does it cost if 2
million has HCPS? How much does it cost if 50% of
them are level 1, 20% level 2? Yeah, you know, 10% and 10%
Level 3 and four, yeah. What's that cost analysis model
look like to the, to the yearly expenditure?
Do we play around with these figures, move the slide up a
little bit and see what happens then?
Yeah, all these factors come into into play because we know
like, you know, we've said this when you're born there's a price
attached to you, isn't there? Yeah.
How much it? Costs to educate you how much it
costs you to get you into the working environment and then how
much you return on average in terms of revenue or tax over
your lifetime, NHS costs and everything else like that for
you before you you die. It's all part of it, isn't it?
15%, so it's between 15 and 20%, but it might be more than
obviously we had a conversation with Ben and me last week.
Even if it was 15%, that's about 10 million people.
OK. Yeah.
So we what we talking about here return on investment.
Yeah, exactly. And obviously the, you know, a
decent percentage of that is going to be high functioning,
you know. Yeah.
And they won't have each EPS and stuff like that.
But yeah, it's pretty scary and it is, it is going to be a
profit loss, yeah, type deal. That's what it's going to be.
That's our government's tense. They work like businesses, don't
they? That's kind of well.
You'd like to think they work like businesses, but I don't
know many businesses that just piss money up the wall.
I know, but they throw money to one side, don't they?
And avoid paying. Yeah, you know, they buy shit
they don't need to to avoid paying tax.
And, well, it's easy to go after disabled children than it is to
go to the Cayman Islands, isn't it?
And and this is and it's it's a sad fact.
I kind of saying it late is kind of hard, but if this does go
sideways, as a community, we need to get vocal.
And I don't mean, like, obviously not smashing shit up,
but we need to be heard. And sometimes it's hard to be
heard because everyone is so busy.
This isn't like something that affects you, whether it be
farmers, for example, and they kick off because they're being
shafted. Yep.
Well, they're getting the tractors because they can.
And they go and block roads. A lot of parents, when this is
happening, they feel so helpless.
They can't leave the house, a lot of them.
So yeah. You can't get to a rally in
London. You can't get to a rally in
London. They haven't got the money to
get to a rally in London. Of course not.
But it's these, these are the things that make it easy.
Yeah. To to have disabilities as a
target. Because what?
Are you going to do about it? What are you going to do?
You're. Going to do.
You're going to come down here. Right.
What are you going to? Do you have fidget spinners?
Exactly what you're going to do and is it?
I think it is a bit like that. Well, I say if it if it does go
sideways, then you find your local MP, you get every family
member who's affected or is in your child's life.
You hammer that that MPs. Inbox continuously every family
does that so they got nothing they can actually look at no
other cases but everything in their inbox 90% of it is hammer.
It is hammering them about this, yeah, with the reminder that
there is election coming about your seats, not.
Seen Is it three years time now? Two years, three years, Who
knows? Who knows what Mr Starmer wants
to do? Yeah, but you just make it
uncomfortable that this is the only topic that matters.
Not about someone's legal boundary on a bloody fence or
something like that. No, you just hammer them again
and again. I haven't had a response to my
e-mail of two weeks ago. Every member of the family does
exactly the same. Yeah.
It's within your rights, it's still legal, but you make it
such a big talking point that it can't be avoided.
And it's all very well. It's great having the campaigns
where we, we all attach our signature to something that, you
know, they, they're great and they have a place and they are
important to do. But they essentially get handed
into Downing St and I don't know what that gets done with it.
X amount have to be have to be signed don't they for them to to
have a conversation. And then OK.
Cool, they have a conversation then what?
It doesn't enforce anything. It's a very good point and I'm
glad you raised it and I've spoken to many blah blah I.
Don't think I've ever seen one that is actually coming to
fruition. I I think you just absolutely
find your local MPs, you get into the community and you
organise yourselves. Yeah, you need to do things that
directly affect them. And signing the petition and
then being forced to have a conversation for 10 minutes in
down, in, down in Parliament isn't really affecting them, No.
They have much more difficult conversations behind closed
doors. The risk of them losing their
seats and just not being able to get any other work apart from
this. I've seen Kemi Bade Knocks move
to reform, by the way. Yeah, No, not Kemi Bade Knocks.
She's that's fine now. It's not Kemi, it's the former.
Of course, if she moved to reform, that's out of a step
down from. Braverman.
Suela, yeah, Suela Braverman reform.
They're all jumping ship and. They So the Reform Party is just
going to be the old Tory party. But my point there is that they
want to keep their jobs. Yeah, I'll change.
I'll change my policies. Oh yeah, they want to, they want
to keep their jobs. They'll, they'll hop, skip and
jump if they, if they need to, absolutely feel that your vote
might go elsewhere. Unfortunately, that's all we've
got. But it's pretty powerful.
Yeah. So again, going back to the this
that's not intervention. This is containment.
Containment always breaks first on autistic children, PDA
profiles trauma affected kids, children's whose distress is
misread as. Labelled behaviour, yeah.
So early interventions should stop children from failing, but
this new system requires failure as evidence.
Yeah, yeah. How, as a parent, do you want to
keep setting your child up to fail just to get what?
I know you mentioned it early on with.
Yeah. But again, that wasn't, but that
wasn't, that wasn't kind of a process.
Yeah, that wasn't a recommended process.
That was just us going this is what we need to do.
In fact, it was my mother-in-law.
She was the one that went, this is what you need to do.
It wasn't a suggested process. It wasn't a recommendation.
It was just like, OK, we need, we need him to fail.
And it was awful putting him through it.
But in the long run it worked. But the level of failure these
kids are going to have to go through to get what they need,
it's on another level. But if you, if you are a symbol
between, you're in mainstream, right?
We're all talking about building a child's confidence.
Yeah. Guess what?
No, no. You failed again, mate.
Yeah. Yeah.
You keep failing. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Failure.
You're a failure. Yeah, you're a failure.
Treating. You're a failure.
You're not succeeding.
The other kids start going. Oh, yeah, you're a failure, you
know, But you've managed to get yourself to Level 3 now.
Yeah. Well done.
So it depends what you think failure is.
A failure, you've got to Tier 3. Is that failure?
Well, it depends how you look at it.
You. Know what you would have got
your EHCP but you've just completed GCS ES so the systems
work for the government. That's it.
How long are these tiers going to be?
How long do they? How long is it going to take to
get through? Everyone starts on level one.
Yeah, everyone starts on level. One is it like, OK, well you've
got 12 months now to so if. You start at level 1 when the
kids three years old. Well, you might have a chance.
To get out there, we'll reassess you in 12 months, but still,
you're still Tier 1. As many parents, I should have
gone through the process earlier, but I didn't realise.
Now they've gone to senior school, I'm noticing it all now.
I'm noticing the difference of reach, puberty, whatever.
The whole, you know, we're starting the process when
they're 12. Oh, but the process is XY and Z,
so by the time they actually get the support they need, they're
already screwed. Oh.
I can't wait for this white paper.
So again, this is not this is. I've got to stress this, this is
a leak. It's not verbatim or what's
actually going to come out. It's been leaked for a reason
though, so we can only look at it.
Yeah, this is not us doing a policy analysis.
This is very much from a parent's point of view looking
at this, who we're trying to be very much system aware in what's
going on. And the bit we've kind of
discussed at the very end the the shift away from legal
decision making that's looking at digital passports as well as
a compliance tool, maybe not as a support tool, how the system
is quietly redefining what early intervention means versus what
actually could be called early containment.
Again, it's, it's our perspective as two parents
looking at it. We're not experts in the field.
We're just kind of got enough experience of dealing with the
HCP's life as a send parent. Now we can look at this and go,
well, that's not going to work, is it?
How's that going to work? Yeah, the, the big one is what's
going to protect these, protect these, these kids from a legal
perspective. Yeah.
And if legal rights are removed and decisions become
discretionary, Yeah. What exactly protects disabled
children when budgets are tight, staff are stretched and no one
agrees on that's what, enough support?
Yeah. Well, no one agrees on what
enough support looks like. Like, well, this is it.
As a parent, if I go now, well, I don't agree with that's enough
support. Who decides?
Well, additional passports, apparently.
Yeah, on your way. Yeah.
So there's a lot to digest here, and this is only a snippet.
And this is like a, this is a teeny tiny bit of what this
white paper is going to be. Or could be.
Could be sorry, could be, could be.
Yeah, that'll be a long episode. Yeah, but when it comes out, oh,
we've got to digest that. Yeah, have to get solicitor on
as well. Yeah, probably.
There we go. So.
That's that. Sorry, but you know.
It's big news, we. Had to talk about it.
It's big news now. Slightly more uplifting in fact.
I'll tell you what mate, the community we've built since
obviously the Discord community that we've that we started,
well, we've got about 180 people in there.
Ish Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. 180, yeah. So.
Just under 30 people that have signed up to join the stim and
whistle. Stim and whistle.
But again, this white paper, I imagine that community is going
to be really valuable, but maybe in more of a supportive aspect
because there's going to be less answers.
Yeah. Because yeah, as far as what do
I do in this situation, Fuck knows.
Fuck knows, because none of us know.
Yeah, it's going to be a little bit like that, but it's still
going to be valuable because there's going to be so much
support in there. Yeah, and the information will
start to trickle out. I'm just, you know, if, if you
don't, a lot of people are are alone and the only people that
understand sometimes are those kind of people that are online
or in this sort of communities that we've built and various
other sent advocates have have built as well.
Get involved, get in there, sign up, join up, look at what's
coming about. People are discussing.
Just familiarise yourself with stuff.
Educate yourself with information because you're going
to have to be on your game when this comes out and you cannot
afford to be left behind. No, no, no, no, no, no.
And none of us want any other family to be left behind either.
It's not dog eat dog or anything like that.
No, it's that every child deserves an education, the
health, the care plan that they need to reach their full
potential. Tough one.
Isn't it? Tough one.
Well, hopefully that's. Hopefully, yeah, I'm just going
to go do a quick chat. Right?
James Hunt stories about autism. He's got a book coming out soon.
I saw a little reel of. Him doing the audio book?
Yeah, he's recording. He saw.
He's recording his audio. Congratulations, James, mate.
Yeah, well done. Well in You're now a published
author. WTF.
But yeah, if you want to join the community, you can't.
It's free. Get in there, links are
everywhere. Yeah, if you're you want to join
the stem whistle. You want to join the STEM
whistle? It's £4 a.
Month 4 English Pounds. 1 LB a week. 1 LB a week and you can go
in there whenever you like. Yeah, and chat to other parents
and. A few people in there last
night. Yeah, absolutely.
So that continues to grow. And what I'd like to happen is
it it grows to a certain extent. It's like a proper pub.
You can just pop in any night of the week or any time during the
day and there'll be people there that you can just have a chat
with. That's it and carry on.
And the other thing is we've got this bloody London Marathon.
We need the sponsors, we need the sponsors guy.
There's, there's 81,000 people at the moment on Instagram,
We've just hit 30,000 people on Facebook.
We need to raise £5000 and at the moment we are stuck on
£1600. This is how I'm going to put it,
right? I don't want to sound like a
Dick, but I am going to sound a bit like a Dick if this podcast,
which we do in our spare time with full time jobs and we love
doing it, don't get me wrong. And disabled children.
We do love it, full time jobs and disabled children like a lot
of you guys. If if this podcast at any point
has been worth at least £0.50 to you.
Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully, the
culmination of all 27 episodes will be worth more than £0.50 to
you. But if it's worth just £0.50,
please, please take 5 minutes, go to the link tree.
Less than that, Yeah. Take a minute, go to the link
tree. On our bio.
And just because we are getting dangerously close to the
marathon and we are 33% the way through.
Yeah, we've only raised 33% of our target.
If you could all like I say if you think this podcast is is
worth 50P, preferably more, but if it's worth £0.50 please.
If all of you went and donated 50P that charity would be
getting a shit tonne of money and it would be all thanks to
you and us running for a bit. In the charities ambitious about
autism, we've mentioned them before.
They do sterling work for our children.
All of our, you know, autistic children, they also do amazing
work on what happens after. That's the bit what happens
after they leave full time education which a lot of parents
are just shitting themselves. And I've been ignorant to up
until a meeting. We are at the school.
And not just that they have access.
They can put pressure on policy. Yeah, but they're a charity.
Yeah. And they require people stupid
enough like us to go out there and run these ridiculous sort of
events, as many other parents are doing as well to try and
raise funds. So again, we are going to sound
like a broken record, but if you've sent us an e-mail and
asked us for advice or help and we've gone there and we've
helped you out, that's got to be worth a pound.
All right, Pound doubled it, but yeah, seriously, that was going.
To be worth paying so. And the fact that we are, I
mean, we are here like we're here for you and, and it's
nothing to do with money. We're here for you if you want
anything, if you want, pointing in the direction, if you need a
template for a letter, if you want to join a community full of
loads of other parents, if you just want to be entertained for
just over an hour talking about, you know, neurodivergency, Is
that a word? I think so.
We're here for you. But if you could just support us
with the London Marathon, because otherwise we're going to
have to pay for the rest of ourselves, Yeah, And I ain't got
no fucking money. No, because we're a send family.
So because none of us do. Yeah.
But OK, I'll stop begging now until the.
Next episode, so. Well, yeah, we'll beg then.
In fact, we are going to have to beg on every episode until yeah
anyway. Don't make us put reels up of US
training. Yeah, don't.
Sweaty. Disgusting.
Yeah. All right, we'll leave it at
that. Perfect.
Thank you mate. No problem at all.
Guys, love you all and we'll catch you on the next one.
Have a great 10. We'll catch you in the steam and
whistle. Yes, see you there.
See you later. Bye.