Horrible horrible horrible - you are just horrible

  • By Brian Leveson
  • •
  • 24 Apr, 2020
  • •

Well, Haringey! More pie-crust promises to get some guidance out about SEND children and access to hospital care; an apology for the 'apology' for the SEN Travel letter (but we aren't allowed to see it) and they will look to clarify the direct payments policy - they just are't prepared to go about it nicely and discuss the details with 'un-elected representative parents' (if anyone can find the bit in the SEND Code of Practice OR the terms of reference for the Haringey Co-production group that parents have to be elected, I would be MOST grateful - OTHERWISE) YOU WERE JUST BEING RUDE

The Assistant Director for SEND has a vision of what coproduction will look like moving forward - and he's the AD and it's his decision - so THERE!

On multiple occasions today were given a snapshot of coproduction moving forwards as envisaged by the Haringey SEND department. What concerns me about this is that ALL of these statements were made without even a DRAFT copy of the AMAZE report into parent carer coproduction in Haringey being published. We were told that:
  1. Parents would not be involved in 'technical conversations' about the management of the SEN Travel service for example around commissioning versus a dynamic purchasing system.
  2. Plans and a report has been produced following analysis of the SEN Travel engagement event - but parents were not involved in this analysis nor report writing - indeed parents were quite unceremoniously dumped from that process having put in weeks of unpaid work to meet a very tight deadline of your choosing and with very little cooperative behaviour from the local authority such as timely feedback ie when deadlines were agreed
  3. Another apology letter about the SEN Travel application form apology letter has been issued and as parents sitting on the coproduction group we asked if we could see the letter before it went out. We were told no. And that moving forward there will be proper elections of parents - but we were welcome to apply for that.

Another year, another assistant director, another set of pie-crust promises: WE WILL BE GOOD THIS TIME: OK! So, erm this is how you treated us in the past...

Pause for a moment and think about  how we were all treated at the SEN travel event after we did all the unpaid work : reading up on consultations and pulling together a framework; attending meetings at all hours of the day (which they refused to Skype and were scheduled to meet the travel needs of officers(!)) reviewing the borough plan, the DFE home to school guidance, the Haringey Involve SEN travel report, feedback from the previous local offer events and the Fairness Commission and recent outputs from various scrutiny panels to plan a framework for that consultation (as well as liaising with a parents and professionals) - work not done by the local authority :it is very clear that the local authority still do not value parents nor the time they put in.

But it is still ALL the parents fault that parents aren't attending meetings (is it?)

There were complaints by three of the professionals that the first 19 minutes of today's meeting were taken up with 'parents being combative about the meeting' (there was only one parent there at the time - you can guess who that was). In my view it took 19 minutes for the professionals to accept responsibility for only one family attending the meeting

  1. All recent meetings - coproduction and SEN Reforms have been cancelled
  2. No meeting minutes or papers were sent out in advance of the meeting - until 10 am this morning.
  3. Previously we have been told that it was not possible to have 'Skype' meetings as the system for remote meetings was only available to facilitate internal local authority meetings - and when I have attended remotely before, or other people such as AMAZE, it has been via speaker phone. There has never been any need for remote meetings when it was to meet the needs of parents.
  4. I do not know if many parent parents are familiar with the technology involved in remote meetings nor if appropriate training would have been helpful.

SO WHAT ABOUT AMAZE

It's not all about us - what about AMAZE - why weren't they there to feedback on their report?

You were going to set a deadline without speaking to them - until the un-elected representative parent stepped in and pointed out that AMAZE are parents of SEND children too.

And.. why didn't they attend (presumably it is also 'their fault'?)

This how you treat us:

You blame parents for the failings of YOUR OWN failings

  1. A SEND Improvement meeting for 10am today was cancelled THIS MONDAY
  2. No explanation or rationale was given for the cancellation
  3. No offer of TEAMS meetings moving forward was made
The most recent meeting I had with the SEND department, where I could not physically attend was farcical. I called at 4pm.  I emailed.  I called multiple numbers.  Eventually the (previous) Assistant Director called me at 4:20pm for a 4pm meeting.  

Of course, they were very rude - and then this happened:

Cllr Brabazon was late for the meeting, so the previous AD and the current Head of SEND STOPPED TALKING TO ME - they proposed either sitting in silence OR calling me back at some unspecified time, once Cllr B arrived, to continue the meeting.

Of course, I had cleared my diary and arranged care for my paraplegic child for half an hour from 4pm.

Then they told me I was kicked off the analysis of the SEN Travel data 

This was the day before the event

So they had used and abused me for what they wanted and then discarded me

I hung up

To really move forwards YOU HAVE TO STOP BULLYING US

Whilst there have been some pie-crust promises of movements forward , the overall attitude and behaviour of bullying parents has not changed:

  1. belittling parents (Comments to us such as : you are not elected, so I am not sharing this letter with you), 
  2. blaming parents for not attending the meeting because all that has happened is it has moved from a meeting in a room  to a Microsoft 'Teams' meeting.  Therefore without taking responsibility for this decision being a poor decision - and arguing with the only parent present at that time - AND name-calling and shaming the parent as combative.
  3. and not valuing the time we put into the meeting through this behaviour,(Comments to us such as: you are being combative' and ' well we've spent 17 minutes discussing this now') and the 19 minutes is what it took to get the officers to accept and understand that they have a role to play if parents are not in attendance for a meeting. Although in the diary since November, for reasoned outlined above, no one would have thought that the meeting had a realistic chance of going ahead.
You really need to start valuing parents and understanding what valuing parents and their time that looks like. it looks like none of the above.

In co-production decisions are taken together.  It was like watching the biggest two bullies in the playground tell you have they had decided  this and that,  it was made clear to us that really our contribution was negligible, because there has been so many complaints - oh and the Assistant Director had decided that the Application form was unnecessary. (Not that is not in the policy - so, I would think about how, moving forward, we can ensure that policies follow guidance and policies are followed.  Because that does not come across as a satisfactory interpretation of coproduction OR good governance).

Are these more pie crust promises - easily made, easily broken

I understand that yet more promises were made today regarding developing guidance sick and disabled children being admitted to hospital; the another apology for the apology about SEN Travel application form and some thought will be given about communicating and clarifying the policy around Direct Payments.

However, with regard to the first point, getting SEN children into hospital safety during this time of Covid-19, (we are still not elected representatives of parents - so why did you listen to us? why hold the meeting at all? What are the terms of reference of this Coproduction group?!) how else would you have addressed this serious problem without discussing it with parents?

With the second point regarding the SEN Travel application form: the local authority we wrong were wrong in law and parents have suffered an injustice over many years, the local authority have refused to budge when we went about things 'the right way', if a threat of collective action regarding this is what is required to get the local authority to behave in a just and legal way, that is not a poor reflection on parents at all - and I would encourage anybody who feels that they have suffered an injustice, year after year, at the hands of the local authority, to take what ever action they thing necessary to get that injustice addressed and corrected.

And finally, with regard to clarifying the direct payments policy (and again we aren't elected, so why did you listen to us), care needs still need to be met and again it is another injustice that the local authority have not responded to questions raised in a timely way.

You blew it

Please be clear that not one of the non-parent so-called professionals nor the not in attendance parent attendees to this meeting have been elected either (except Cllr Brabazon) - so just wondering how this group will work moving forward if the Assistant Director for SEND in Haringey is going to disregard un-elected parents - and what gives him the power and authority to do that

It saddens me that what seemed to be a glimmer of a positive meeting ended so horribly with the horrible words of an autocrat who has already decided how parent carer engagement will look moving forwards.

You can only conclude that they were pie-crust promises - easily made and easily broken (you couldn't manage an hour and a half of 'better communication').

What SHOULD have happened is we SHOULD have considered how to SUPPORT these parents attending - rather than you guys JUST FIGHTING ALL THE TIME

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