Following our last blog `Every Child Matters?` we were so moved by all the messages of support we received from our wonderful TT followers, family and friends, along with the great suggestions on how to move things forward and offers of rallying support from many, and so we wanted to give you all this very important update.
Having hit a wall with the decision makers despite numerous calls, and faced with the option of, and I quote “if you don`t agree with it, accept the findings and then take us to court”, we set about frantically making calls to advice lines, parent support groups and of course to the incredible Denise Doms. (We have mentioned Denise a few times before, most recently in our `It was the Dawn of a new Era` blog).
Denise`s job has been to help guide us through the minefield of funding, provision, protocols and procedure in order to ensure Eddison can access mainstream Nursery and progress onto School with his peers. Denise has been a wonderful ambassador and champion for Eddison, as she is for all of the unique and wonderful children on her case list; and being one of the few people who immediately was able to grasp the nature of Eddison`s condition, like us she shared our frustration in the inadequacy of the provision being proposed for Eddison to transition into school next year.
Fortunately Denise has a wealth of experience in these processes, the law surrounding equality and care benchmarks and comparables, and so where our personal, emotive pleas for our sons educational future failed, she was able to rise up and armed with the aforementioned remove the emotion and question the judgement on a professional, `unbiased` level.
and………to cut a very long story short…….having cut out the middle managers and got to the `real` decision makers, a reconsideration of Eddison`s case was made (without us having to “take them to court”), and today we received in the post the final versions of Eddison`s Statement of Special Educational Needs.
I cannot tell you the joy in our hearts to read that Eddison has been allocated the required support for the full 33 hours of the school week along with funding to make the necessary adaptations to his preferred school!
To say it is a weight of our shoulders would be nothing short of an epic understatement; but for now we put aside that sheer frustration and anguish caused and move forward in the knowledge that whilst there will be many more challenges, headaches and upsets ahead as we start the real process of planning for this next step we are safe in the knowledge that for now his needs are legally protected and there is an agreed common ground that we can all move forward on.
After all, all we ever ask is that our bright, sociable, funny, inquiring little man is able to learn and be educated in safety just like all his friends, nothing more and certainly nothing less.
We send our unending thanks to Denise Doms who will always have a special place in our hearts for all she has done, past and present for us, and to everyone who helped us with messages of support and love over this very testing time. I cant tell you how much we appreciated it, and how it helped x x
Now its time to look forward to something else very exciting – only a few days till the clocks go back – all real cause for celebration indeed!!! x x x
teddington trust 