A letter to Haringey Chief Executive regarding the Haringey SEND Department
- By Brian Leveson
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- 16 Apr, 2020
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Facebook is awash with rumours of a 'relaxation' of the policy around direct payments / personal budgets for short break. But there is no clear communication with the Haringey SEND community and parents are anxious to spend monies without clear guidance. And there is upset that some people have been told to spend on what you like - even food, whilst others repeated requests for clarity (mine) have not been responded to
Dear Zina Etheridge,
I have been told by three different parents that the Haringey SEND department have relaxed their policy on Direct Payments / Personal Budgets for short breaks.
One parent challenged the department as to where this policy change was being communicated to the vulnerable Haringey SEND parent carer community. The parent was told parent carers need to look on the website because sending letters out to the some 500 parents who receive parent carers was not be practical.
I wish to note the following:
I look forward to your response
Regards
The Difficult Parent
I have been told by three different parents that the Haringey SEND department have relaxed their policy on Direct Payments / Personal Budgets for short breaks.
One parent challenged the department as to where this policy change was being communicated to the vulnerable Haringey SEND parent carer community. The parent was told parent carers need to look on the website because sending letters out to the some 500 parents who receive parent carers was not be practical.
I wish to note the following:
- There needs to be clarity and clear communication about this relaxation of policy to all parents.
- 500 or so parents have been written to twice about SEND Transport 'Annual Application', why is it not practical to write to a similar number of parents about direct payments.
- Please can you clearly show where this information is available on the Haringey website. A close examination of the website by myself and other parent carers has failed to find this policy relaxation.
- The unfairness of how this has been communicated on a person by person basis to very vulnerable people is an issue that needs to be explained.
I look forward to your response
Regards
The Difficult Parent
If you thought SEND was bad - the NHS is seemingly prepared to throw away money to private companies
About 3 or 4 times a year we get the euphemistic message 'Parents please note we have put a letter in your child's bag' - its a world away from how a child's death was handled in my child's first school
More of a trial by ordeal than a well organised clearly set out administrative process for moving the care of vulnerable young adults from Haringey's Children's Services to Adult Services. We have been failed at every stage of the process.
Never EVER get on the bus without a camera running if you need the priority wheelchair space
The reality of using a London Bus in the teeming rain on a Sunday afternoon is no joke when the parents of a paraplegic person in a wheelchair clash with the self-entitled buggy-pushing parents of toddlers.
At 3pm today I received some barefaced lies from Haringey Council Adult Social Care in response to a photograph I published online yesterday and the media interest it generated
Haringey SEND Transport are insisting that a 17 year old minibus with no air conditioning is a suitable vehicle to transport my paraplegic son in this heatwave. The appalling conditions inside the minibus inside the bus is something they knew about last summer, yet they have to date done nothing whatsoever provide a suitable minibus this year nor appropriately mitigate the temperatures inside the minibus.The conditions inside the minibus are so bad that they triggered multiple seizures during the heatwave as my son has epilepsy, which they SEND transport department know about and they also know that they are triggered by heat.It is not just son who is impacted: last year we know of one child who died on Haringey SEND Transport in the summer heatwave and another who had seizures.
I am simply asking a question - are we all absolutely certain that the road closure / travel restrictions (commonly know as LTNs) placed on some of the most severely disabled people who are wholly reliant on cars are absolutely necessary
Haringey's road closures exemptions policy for disabled people is not fit for purpose, unduly burdensome and intrusive - it's time to stand up against the pro-LTN lycra-clad cycling bullies
Is the argument for and against exemptions for disabled people in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods really a case of GOOD versus EVIL?
