Legal case

Our much loved son Child S is 13 years old - he is a very tall boy at 5ft 9ins and weighs over 13 stone. He has autism, ADHD, epilepsy, dsypraxia and severe learning difficulties, which makes him a vulnerable child. Child S's complex needs and mental health issues have caused him to exhibit severe behavioural difficulties in the home environment, as he cannot cope with the transition from school to taxi to home and vice versa. This Jekyll and Hyde effect is very common with children who are on the autistic spectrum (as described on the National Autistic Society website). Also, Child S is in a school for moderate learning difficulties even though he has severe learning difficulties. He now needs a 52 week placement in an autism residential school that has a waking curriculum and a low arousal approach where he can learn the necessary life skills. He needs access to on-site specialists who are experts in autism and special needs; occupational therapy; speech and language therapy; and educational psychology. 

We have instructed SEN Legal who are a national and highly successful specialist Education legal practice with a reputation for helping to obtain special educational provisions for children and young people with special educational needs. 

We really have no option now because we are very worried that without urgent help something bad could happen to him and to other family members. 

Funding a complicated legal case like this is expensive and would put a huge strain on any household budget. If the professionals involved were doing their jobs properly and following the law then we would not need to do this. 

We need to raise money to give Child S achieve the best possible outcome, which is a duty of the Local Authority. For example, we need to obtain independent expert opinions on Child S's psychological, educational and social needs that could easily cost more than £3,000 plus VAT. We will also need to take Child S's case through the SEND tribunal system. The reality is that even though parents are meant to not require legal representation for the tribunal it is not a fair fight as the local authority have a legal team to argue against such cases. He has been very let down in the past and this needs to be righted before it's too late. It really is a David and Goliath fight. 

Social services failure to deliver adequate support

Child S's local authority will not give him what he needs to turn himself around because they think he is better off medicated on risperidone, putting on huge amounts of weight and with his family muddling through as we have done for years with hardly any respite. We are a family in crisis because we simply have not had the support delivered by social services child disability team to help Child S, even though his little brother is often at the receiving end of this. This is a serious safeguarding issue for the youngest child from his older sibling and unbelievably the local authorities know about this but are doing nothing. Indeed, we have been blamed, threatened and intimidated by social workers despite my constant flagging up of incidents in the home environment. 

A local autism charity also escalated this on our behalf because they were so appalled that we had not been listened to.

It is inhumane to let Child S grow up like this without the appropriate treatment that could turn his life around. 

Hope for other parents

Some law firms hired by local authorities will use certain tactics against parents, who are in this terrible predicament through no fault of their own, to increase their costs. 

Successfully crowdfunding a case like this will give hope to other parents in a similar situation who may be deterred from fighting their case on grounds of cost. This is one way we can fight back against those local authorities who are still denying severely disabled children their rights to education and support. This postcode lottery with regards to social care and special needs education must end now.