Our EHCP Story

Z trying on my sunnies - we spent the day celebrating in the garden

I had been typing up some notes that I was planning on making into a post for a while now, but honestly while it’s been a really weird time, I was feeling quite negative and it never amounted into a proper blog post. So, I’ve thrown that on the ‘to do’ pile for now, because I've had some really good news and I wanted to focus on that instead.

Z’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC/EHCP) has been completed and the final version sent out to nursery and his future school! It’s been a long wait, I think we may have started the application for this before Z had his diagnosis. It’s a big weight off my shoulders to have this done now. It means that he will get support at nursery (fingers crossed that we get to return before he starts his school in September!!) and it means he can attend the lovely specialist school we applied for. I even got a phone call from Z’s lovely Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) to congratulate us on it, she said it was very thorough and one of the best she’s seen (and she misses Z).

I thought it might be helpful to talk about the process of how we got the EHCP in place, although I don’t remember all the exact steps we took, I’ve a habit of keeping every bit of paperwork I’m sent so I’ll try to outline it as best I can. If you’re not sure what an Education, Health and Care Plan is (I’d never heard of it before), it is a document that acts like a personal profile for a child that needs extra support in place for school. It means that at nursery/school Z will have help in areas he struggles, including any one to one support he might need, extra help with food, hygiene, speech and language etc. It gets reviewed over time and amended to support new goals as he gets older.

*Sorry, it’s a long one!*

We started when Nursery (along with Z’s paediatrician) put us in touch with ‘Early Years Forum’ (EYF) - a council ran group of professionals (such as paediatricians, educational psychologists, speech & language therapists etc) who meet monthly to discuss your child and suggest support they may need. To give an indication of time we were referred to them in September 2018 but my first contact from them wasn’t until June 2019. My first interaction with them wasn’t great, because they simply said that he would be discussed at another time and no further action was needed currently. Obviously I didn’t agree with this. So I contacted them to say I wasn’t happy with that and I thought an EHCP would help. They told me I could make a parental application for the EHCP, which I didn’t realise I could do - I thought it could only be done from an educational setting or professional otherwise I’d have started way before this. I’d like to mention that since contacting them the EYF have been very helpful and supportive.

So at this time we were starting our process of private diagnosis and you can imagine there was a lot going on! I was a very tense, stress ball of a mummy. To make the actual EHCP request I contacted my local authority, I don’t remember exactly the process, but I was given a lot of forms to fill in and information was requested from Z’s SLT, nursery, paediatricians, basically every service we used had to send in information and reports on Z.

After this point I did a lot of ringing up and chasing for information as it went quiet for a while - I was out looking at potential schools now and the realisation that mainstream school wouldn’t be the best option was hitting home hard. Now, the EHCP was more important than ever. I needed Z to be in a school he loved, where he would be encouraged and thrive and not held back or be seen as the ‘naughty child’ in class or slip under the radar. Acceptance and understanding is what matters the most to me so I wanted to find a school that fit in with that.

It was August 2019 when we got the call to say his case had been given the go ahead, he’d be assigned a key worker to oversee the EHCP. Again we had to provide a bunch of evidence, any useful information, medical and family history and information all about Z and his abilities, what he struggles with etc. It all feels quite hard to keep going through the same negatives, focusing on what Z cannot do, but I know really that doing so means he gets the support he needs. Then it was a matter of waiting again. They gave me a date to which a decision would be made. I’d waited eagerly, counting down the weeks, the date passed with nothing heard!

So I contacted the key worker who told me that we were still waiting for an Educational Psychologist (EP) to see Z and without a report from an EP she couldn’t take it any further. Now, I had no idea that the process was depending on that. Nobody had ever explained it to me or mentioned it. I was literally just having a go at all this with no direction from anybody, just trying to politely hassle any professional I could. So I sent a slightly passive aggressive email to the key worker at this point, I was pretty annoyed that nobody had mentioned this part to me before, especially with it being so integral. Luckily the EYF arranged an EP for us. I’d been told we could be waiting months for this as there is apparently a real lack of any in the area. Somehow, amazingly and I don’t know how they managed it so quickly but we got an appointment a few weeks later.

Z was observed at Nursery by the Educational Psychologist who’d arranged to meet me immediately after to talk through her findings. It was how I expected, Z didn’t tolerate other kids trying to play with him and he has communication issues along with other problems, the EP told me that it wouldn’t make for a pleasant read but she felt the same as me that it helps to get him support. We got the official report a few weeks after, bringing us now to December 2019.

Once that was sent off it was pretty much just a matter of waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Eventually the draft copy arrived late March 2020. It was then a matter of checking through everything, and writing a few amends which I then emailed back to the office. Z’s final EHCP was then sent to me and copies given to his nursery and future school. That was it. April 2020 and it’s complete. It’s a massive weight off my shoulders now knowing that it’s complete and we’re on track for Z to start school later in the year.

So there we go, I really hope that this helps anyone looking to go through the EHCP process. Honestly, it does take a long time and is quite mentally draining at times. I called and emailed A LOT to check on progress. I definitely felt like I was being a pain in the bum for the key worker but I’d rather do that and know things were moving than sit and stress over the unknown.

Sarah x