Went the day well?

Reflecting upon yesterday, I have to be grateful that the local authority were prepared to meet with parents to discuss all future engagement with parents. The hour and a half meeting with various senior managers at Haringey was attended by parents from SEND PACT, DifficultParent.com, SENDIASS and some of the former steering group of Haringey Involve.  Many local authorities would not entertain such a meeting.  We were able to fully express our feelings and explain where we have identified areas that have gone wrong such as poor communication from the SEND Department; ideas on how to improve communication belittled and dismissed; parents working very hard at engagement being asked to do too much in a very diverse borough; parent volunteers being disrespected and being gas-lighted and blamed for the failure to implement an effective system of governance and reporting, whilst some have experienced sarcasm and having their views and experiences invalidated when they ask for support for parental engagement from the local authority for example, by the local authority agreeing that it is the local authority who are responsible for the implementation of a system of good governance, reporting, communication and coproduction, not parents.

But how do I get over the anger and bitterness I feel that three and a half years of parent's time has been wasted trying to persuade the local authority to go about things differently.  Why should I believe or even hope that one day I might believe that this is the dawn of a new day?  Tomorrow and moving forward it is all going to be different?  Will there be contented parents, engaging with SEND Department officers, as the parents experience their wealth of knowledge as parent carers and beyond being listened to, reported upwards, acted upon and real change being seen Haringey?  Will residents thrive and grow more resilient and less reliant on the local authority as services are designed to meet user's needs to live their lives to their full potential? Will we throw away a system that can exacerbate existing conditions though delay to meet need; make parents unwell from stress and fighting with authorities and a system that instils in vulnerable families that it is a 'them and us culture', creating a climate suspicious of authority in all its forms?

Haringey's Officers must think carefully about how they communicate with parents being mindful to respect Haringey's own Code of Conduct and Principles of Codesign. At the end of the meeting it was agreed that the first steps would be that Haringey will spend the next 2 weeks writing papers regarding a code of conduct and come up with codesign principles for the SEND Department and that we will reconvene in two weeks to discuss these papers.  It was suggested by parents that moving forward Haringey needs to reflect on communication and how it will ensure that it is creating the right conditions for successful engagement with parents.

Moving forward, how do we believe we can get over this? That this is not a trick to get them through OFSTED and to ensure future DfE funding for the charity Contact.  Like all people who have experienced abuse, I have to be sceptical.  I am mindful of the cycle of abuse.  I wonder what will happen after this OFSTED inspired Honeymoon Period: where promises are made, of course they will change, sure we can get over this, this time it'll be different because they promise that they are listening and will help.  Followed by a period of increasing tension as there is increasing push-back of parent's suggestions, criticisms and sarcasm, parents being belittled.  There is a quiet word in your ear and a suggestion that it is us who are the perpetrators of this cycle, the phone call that suggests that you are ungrateful, you cannot be trusted to 'behave' in meetings and the angry email that says that you are always arguing with them. Then finally the fallout, you stop being invited to strategic meetings, you ask why and this is where successive parent representatives give up and walk away, again, because it never changes. Because you are just the 'volunteers'. That it is OK to treat you this way.  Because it is not OK to treat anyone this way.