An Open Letter to our Ofsted Inspectors from SEND The Right Message
 (700 members/Southend’s largest and most diverse group of SEND parents)

SOUTHEND AREA SEND INSPECTION REVISIT 5-7 May 2021
                                                                                                                      Thursday 4th May 2021
 
Dear Inspectors
 
For what seems an eternity we have been silenced in Southend in large numbers as our children suffered failures.
 
We aren’t able to meet with you for the usual parent session this revisit. 
 
There does not appear to be an online alternative available.
 
We don’t have the benefit of a connection with:-
 
A)    Our council portfolio holder for Children and Learning.
B)    HealthWatch
C)    Parent Carer Forum
 
This concerns us because we feel as if will have no voice at all.
 
We would like to tell you what we have experienced these past years and what the impact upon our children and wider families/community has been….
 
A poll asking whether services had significantly improved since 2018 unanimously said “no.”
 
From morgues to police stations and hospitals,  from serious Child in Need meetings to dark, hopeless homes where no services ever trod, to our broken generation of SEND children…..
 
And so, we take this opportunity nevertheless, to address (ignoring many other “gaps” and issues that perennially fail us in local services) the key issues identified at the last inspection (report: Autumn 2018):-
 
 
-    Implementation of SEND Reforms
-    Joint working
-    Leaders holding each other to account
-    Joint working
-    No co-production
-    No 16-25
-    Poor and unfit Local Offer website
-    Work in schools/Schools not challenging the LA to improve
-    No health for those with hidden disabilities
-    Little evidence of social care and health outcomes or involvement
-    No safeguarding those out of school
-    YP with SEND not receiving high quality support
-    Children out of school not
-    Serious incidents and a death
-    Schools not being trained to identify SEND and SEND needs.  Not being trained by LA.
-    No way to assess the plight of SEND children without plans
-    Breaching the 20 week timeframe
-    Access to Ed Psychs
-    Long waits for paediatricians and no post diagnostic support
-    DMO (designated medical Officer) role not covered and officer not accountable
-    Children with multiple disabilities ricocheting round different departments not being supported by any
-    SEND children not progressing
 
 
1.     Strategic Plan
2.     The views of Children and YP
3.     The collation of evidence to prove outcomes
4.     Collating evidence regarding the wellbeing of children and YP
5.     Reducing part time timetables
6.     Poor post 16 outcomes and overly optimistic self assessment from services
7.     Poor post 16 pathway to adult services
8.     Pretty much no healthcare post 16
 
 
-    WRITTEN STATEMENT OF ACTION
 
 
-    Leaders to ensure priorities, accountabilities and joint commissioning to improve services
-    Co produce a compliant Local Offer that meets needs of children and families
-    Make EHCP plans meaningful by working together with partners
-    Accountability
-    No strategy for ensuring children are in a good setting meeting their needs
 
 
As parents of SEND children in this LA we ask 2 questions:-
 
1.     Is it the case that you are returning almost 3 years after the previous inspection merely to see whether a piece of paper (the WSOA) has been written out clearly which addresses brief plans (on paper only) but nothing more?  No actual changes?
2.     We ask why we can not address the inspectors as is the usual custom (either publicly in a hired hall or online) in order to convey the impact of failures.
 
 
 
 
Finally, we make the following statement:-
 
We can categorically state that, in our detailed experience having spent 2 years in a team supporting these families full time and also supporting our own children, that all weaknesses above (and many more) persist and have worsened.  A small number of token gestures have been speedily made without co-production which would appear to address some issues but are woefully inadequate in proportion to need.  A drop in an ocean.
 
As a direct result, there has been a huge and widespread impact upon children and families in Southend LA which has become very tragically evident, most notably in an explosion of (unsupported) mental illness in the many who have been denied all support of which the police are sadly regularly considered to be the best and most understanding service.
 
Therefore, we respectfully request that you hear us and that you acknowledge what has happened down here before, during and after COVID and take decisive steps to safeguard a generation of SEND children in Southend LA before there are any more preventable deaths or serious incidents.
 
We live in Southend burdened by an oppressive culture of failure which encourages parent/child blame and educational/medical and social care neglect on a scale we can’t blame “the cuts” alone for.
 
This is a by-product of a dangerous lack of ability, will, implementation and progress in a small backwater where services have been trapped in a dead end rut for so long that there can be no progress without change.
 
 
JULIA (Caro) Hopper
On behalf of Southend SEND The Right Message
 
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“We will be standing with, “SEND The Right Message” and their 700 members today because our concerns are deep. We don’t want to see any more precious lives lost and we recognise the connection between young SEND children being failed and entering the merciless mental health system. They are the most vulnerable and failed patients of all. All so very well represented among the victims of failure in my own campaign for a Full Statutory Public Inquiry into Essex wide mental health services.”
 
MRS MELANIE LEAHY
 
 www.curementalhealth.co.uk #matthewscampaign