School Placements and Parental Rights
July 15, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A 12-year-old autistic boy, Ben Haslam will be without a school by the end of the week and could be taken into care—into custody—by the Local Education Authority (LEA) in Bedfordshire, UK. The Haslams tried to get Ben into one school; the LEA protested; the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDIST) ruled in favor of Ben’s parents; the LEA then said they would take Ben into care and place him in a local school which is cheaper. While Ben has been doing very well at his current placement—-a newscast shows a big change in Ben since he’s been attending school there—-it’s not clear if the school the LEA wants him to attend is right for him.
We’ve been down this road with our son, Charlie, finding ourselves in extreme dispute with our “local authorities”—a New Jersey school district—over what we knew was an appropriate school for him. But having your child removed from you and then placed in a school that someone else deems not so much “appropriate” but as having the right price tag—–hardly an educationally sound way to make decisions for a child who very, very much needs the school setting best suited to his needs.
And to be with his family.
More at Left Brain/Right Brain and Whitterer on Autism.
Frightening. Very frightening.
I was reading the Economist while at the ASA in Orlando. Seems they are cutting the “approved list” of treatments for many things via the NHS and PHS system. The downside of “centralized” care is someone makes decisions for you.
The Autism Society (UK) has some wonderful information on how poor services are, especially for adults and teens with autism. Treatment is expensive and if they don’t think it will offer a “significant” return on investment, you’re out of luck.
Personally, I complain about insurance, but I know I’m lucky enough to be able to afford whatever I might need. Beats having NHS-like civil servants limiting my choices.
Maybe my brain is not processing correctly, but it appears that you wrote that they are *taking* the child away from his parents? Scary. (I hope my brain is *not* working right). A similar thing happened in the case of Nate Tseglin in Orange County, California.
The word is that the LEA is taking the child into “care”—-Whitterer on Autism referred to this as “custody,” and Left Brain/Right Brain describes it as meaning that the LEA “would have control of where the child was schooled.” The parents have spent all of their savings fighting to have Ben placed in the right school; they now have to pay both their own legal fees and those of the LEA (that was said on the newscast).
Having some “other authority” ordering one to send a child to a placement —- I still remember sitting in the office of the special education director of the town we used to live in when words to the effect of
“I’m not trying to shove the [name of public placement] shown your throat”
were said.
‘Taking into care’ means that the child will be placed under the care of the local authority. It is Social Services who performs this function.
What would’ve happened is that the LEA would’ve reported the case to Social Services who would then have physically removed the child from his parents and placed him into either a local care home or a residential setting for special needs kids. Social Services would have the duty of care over his day-to-day life. the LEA duty of care over his educational needs.
Just typing the words makes my stomach revolve. These people – who put finance above lives must be sub-human.
This sort of thing terrifies me. I don’t think anyone should have that strong of an input of schooling. Only parents should be able to make those decisions.
When i was fighting to get my son into a specialist boarding school, i was offered the local special needs care home, which would mean he could still attend the SLD school that he was already in. The school that could not cope with him and would either tie him down or ring me up to collect him early.
Thankfully i won my battle.
But i do find this case very frightening if Ben does end up in the care of the LA, with no specialist provision, which he obviously needs.
What will happen to Ben and all the other Bens behind him.