First of all thankyou for clicking on this petition it means the absolute world to me! Let me tell you a little about me and my family and our story.

My name is Gemma and I have four boys, one of which has additional needs.

Alfie was 6 when he started having problems at school, for example not wanting to attend , anxiety attacks, poor performance in and out of class and a whole host of difficult behaviours that eventually resulted in many hospital admissions and full time exclusion from his mainstream school.

Unfortunately there was not the steps taken in Alfie's mainstream school to secure a preventative place to ease Alfie in to an alternative provision and also no EHCP plan at that time, so Alfie was put into a pupil referral unit which soon became apparent was not at all suitable for him , this has lead on to so many problems for me and my family for example not being able to go out to full time work as we have been basically on call for the last 3 years as Alfie could be sent home within 10 minutes of arriving at school, worst of all this has had a detrimental affect on Alfie's mental wellbeing as he is not in the nurturing environment he needs and has led to Alfie trying to take his own life once while at home and on a number of occasions tried to physically harm himself at school !

Alfie received his EHCP plan in November of 2021 and due to Calderdale not having there own SEMH school has not been able to be moved from his placement at the pupil referral unit as Calderdale only has the option to send all children's plans for consultation to privately run schools that surround Calderdale, and these schools can say yes or no to our children's plans without any explanation at all. The majority of the responses for Alfie's consultations were that he didn't fit in to there cohort , as a parent to hear this is soul destroying.

Calderdale is the only place in the whole of England that dose not have there own SEMH school and i believe this is wrong on many levels as our kids need one urgently 

my key points for this argument are as follows

Calderdale has a higher proportion of young people with EHCP plans being educated in mainstream schools due to the lack of our own SEMH school and therefore Calderdale rely on expensive private provisions for our children. 

A large number of Calderdale children have to travel well out of area due to lack of our own provisions ,which sometimes leads to travel for young children of up to an hour and a half every morning and again on an evening.

The number of Calderdale children with with plans has risen by 21 percent in the last 2 years.

Requests for assessments have increased from 15 to 20 per month early 2020 to 25 to 30 IN 2021/2022.

Yorkshire is amongst the highest places in the UK for suicide.

My final statement of what I want to change 

I believe that by building a school for some of our most vulnerable children in Calderdale  we would be helping to give them the nurturing caring affordable education and also easing the pressure on all of the parents fighting in Calderdale at this moment in time just trying to get what there children are legally entitled too A SAFE SECURE NURTURING EDUCATION , I believe the money that would eventually be saved by not paying the extortionate prices that the private schools are charging to educate our children on EHCP plans could go towards our underfunded children's mental health service , but I think that is another fight altogether.

thank you so much for reading my petition and please please share and make sure you sign it as our kids need you! I will just leave you with this thought.

MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS AND EARLY INTERVENTION IS ALWAYS KEY!