What did we think of the SEND Strategy Consultation?
Brian Leveson • November 8, 2021
This 'consultation' was clearly NOT a genuine attempt to engage with SEND families in Haringey but a less than glorified tick-box exercise that insults all of us
Let's pretend for a moment that this is a genuine attempt to engage with parents and find out our opinions about the draft SEND strategy.
It starts off well with Haringey SEND stating that their stated aims for the consultation are:
We would like to:
- clarify if the priorities are clear to you
- find out what priorities are the most and least important to you
- understand what you like about the strategy
- understand in what ways the strategy could be improved
- understand if there is anything missing from the strategy that should be included
- understand what impact you think the strategy will have on you, your children, family and our wider community and partnerships
We've invited 6 imaginary friends for their opinions on this consultation
There is only ONE way to engage which is via the survey
The first question does not seem to address any of the stated stated aims of the consultation
The survey question merely asks for the survey respondee to agree or otherwise with the SEND departments stated priority number one. Nothing about
- clarify if the priorities are clear to you
- find out what priorities are the most and least important to you
- understand what you like about the strategy
- understand in what ways the strategy could be improved
- understand if there is anything missing from the strategy that should be included
- understand what impact you think the strategy will have on you, your children, family and our wider community and partnerships
Nor does the second question
The third question is identical to the first two
Clearly they are making minimal effort here with this survey, and you should be insulted
You are having a laugh mate
And finally, the stick we will use to beat parents with. "Yeah, but that is not what parents said was a priority..." (Not individualised, person centred care then?)
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.
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?
Letters from Labour Grandees and survey results from Haringey Council show people who opposed LTNs are women, elderly and disabled. Yet Peray Ahmet has described anti-LTN people as homophobic, islamophobic, sexist, racist and xenophobic.
