I read an article in yesterday’s Times newspaper on Tues 23.10.18 with tremendous interest and outrage. It would seem that my son’s treatment at his previous school, including the suggestion of a more specialised school, together with the school’s allowing him to leave without a school to move on to, is an almost textbook case of exclusion from school due to Autism. “The EHRC (Equalities and Human Rights Commission) is also concerned about the number of children in special schools. Many parents with SEN children prefer them to be taught in mainstream schools, to keep them integrated with their peers.”
However, the SENCO and the Case Manager suggested, at Daniel’s EHCP review in May 2018, that a place at a more specialised school be sought and, over time, we found ourselves disappointed and, with hindsight, dumped out of the mainstream school he was attending.
The problem is not simply one of SEN children ending up excluded (whether officially or through inability to find a school to which to transition) but of society at large failing to integrate an increasing number of non-neurotypical people. This will have a knock-on effect on families’ physical and mental health, access to support resources – which are already almost impossible to get, and ongoing abilities, by the SEN children as they grow, to live independently, to go to work, to get into higher education and to cope in general.
Welfare state-related mechanisms are already at breaking point. Failing to meet the needs of SEN children and their families – of which we are one – at an early life stage will have negative impacts going forward on the lives of these people and on benefits and employment status in general. The Times article (23.10.18) states that, ” A separate study from Ambitious About Autism found that almost a third of parents with autistic children had given up their job because of school exclusions.”
I have had to quit my own training to be a Fitness Instructor and it seems unlikely that I will be able to pursue this as a career option for the foreseeable future. What is becoming apparent to me, however, is the extent to which a seeming increased awareness about SEN children and increased rate of diagnoses seems to be placing families in isolation and increasing the size of the battle to get these children and their families’ needs met.
ASD: on being a special-needs single parent 