Hundreds of special needs campaigners call for reform outside Kent County Council
The local authority has been issued an improvement notice from the government and is now set to introduce new policies in a bid to make changes.
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00:00 We want send reform!
00:01 When do we want it?
00:02 Now!
00:03 Parents, carers, politicians calling for send reform.
00:08 They all want the same thing.
00:09 They want children with disabilities, educational rights.
00:12 They need a whole new reform.
00:14 It isn't good enough.
00:15 It isn't working right now.
00:16 The system is completely broken.
00:19 And yeah, it's time for change.
00:20 And the time is now.
00:22 Most of these here have children with special educational needs.
00:26 We all have autistic children that have been failed by KCC.
00:30 Yeah, so at the moment there aren't enough SEN school places for our children.
00:35 Our children are being forced into mainstream.
00:36 It's not good enough for the children at mainstream and for our children.
00:40 We don't want our children failed anymore.
00:42 And the same as these two.
00:44 My male, this is in secondary school in mainstream.
00:46 And he's just had to struggle the whole way through.
00:49 And now he's having to drop GCSEs.
00:51 They all have individual stories and we've been reporting some of those this week.
00:56 Often relating to education, health and care plans.
01:00 It's the most unfairest thing.
01:01 If children are not supported and helped now to become more independent,
01:07 they will find it more and more difficult as they grow older.
01:11 They will struggle as adults.
01:13 Amongst the protesters today was Claire Oliver from Whitstable.
01:18 Her teenage daughter Imogen was diagnosed with ASC amongst other special needs.
01:24 She should be in year 11, but she's been out of school for five years.
01:27 Having to go down the what's called the EOTAS route,
01:32 which basically means education other than in school because they don't have a suitable provision.
01:37 So that consists of 33 hours of a combination between 20 hours of academic learning,
01:45 10 hours of enrichment activities and then further hours of different types of therapy.
01:51 For Imogen, for example, she needs a speech and language therapist.
01:57 And at the moment she's not getting one hour of it.
01:59 Imogen didn't want to come on camera and her mum is a teacher.
02:04 But she says there's only so far that a mother can teach their daughter.
02:09 She is really, I mean, the impact that this is having on her is catastrophic.
02:15 We know we're veering down the catastrophic route at the moment.
02:18 Now the council told us in a statement, KCC prefers not to comment in individual cases.
02:25 However, when a tribunal instructs KCC to provide specific support to a child,
02:30 KCC complies with the tribunal's decision.
02:33 KCC provides individualised tuition when instructed by the tribunal.
02:38 If the parent decides after three months that the tuition is not appropriate,
02:42 KCC will try to identify an alternative provider.
02:45 In some cases, the solution is for the parent to request a personal budget,
02:49 which KCC may provide to cover a child's change in care and support costs.
02:55 Parents are able to make their own decision on how that budget is spent.
02:59 KCC, hear us now!
03:02 It's not the first time there has been a Send Reform protest.
03:06 One was held in London earlier this year and others are planned in coming weeks.
03:11 But the cries here today are directly to Kent County Council.
03:17 In 2019, Ofsted found a lack of communication at KCC.
03:22 And last November, they found improvements had not been made.
03:26 Parents say they are often still in the dark.
03:29 The communication between our caseworker and us was just abysmal.
03:32 There was no communication.
03:34 We never had emails returned.
03:36 At one time, it took them nine days to respond to an email or a phone call.
03:42 And that was our biggest thing.
03:43 Just tell us where we are in this process so that we can keep up with it.
03:48 But we just never knew where we were.
03:51 The council now have their accelerated progress plan
03:54 and they say they're working to improve communication.
03:58 I absolutely understand where they're coming from.
04:01 If parents don't hear from us, then of course they want to know what's going on.
04:05 Of course they'll get back in touch with us.
04:07 Of course they'll add to the workload in that sense.
04:10 I want to try and stem that right at the start.
04:12 We're starting an initiative of actually phoning out, calling parents during this month.
04:17 And I think that'll start to make a difference.
04:19 That'll start to show parents that they haven't been forgotten.
04:23 Their children haven't been lost in the system somewhere.
04:26 You should be ashamed of yourselves!
04:30 [Cheering]
04:34 While the protest has been happening outside County Hall today,
04:37 councillors have been meeting inside for the SEND sub-committee.
04:42 Voices here today were on full volume and they hope they made a noise within the council.
04:48 Gabriel Morris for KNTV in Maidstone.
04:50 (water splashing)