Our Battles with the Local Authority, EHCP Appeals and Tribunals & Our Recent Breakthrough

It’s been a while since my last post, but if you’re raising a child with a disability, you already know the drill: the constant advocacy and daily support for your family often leave little room for much else. However, I have some incredible news to share. L is now 7 years old, and 9 months ago, she found her voice. After starting with spelling boards when she was 5, at six and a half, she started openly communicating her thoughts, feelings, and needs. First on a letterboard, then transitioned to a keyboard and now she can even type directly on her iPad. It has been a long process, for both her and us but it has been a total game-changer for our family, and I can't wait to dive deeper into that journey in my next blog.

This post is about our gruelling, years-long battles with the Local Authority (LA) over L’s EHCP and school placement. When L was diagnosed at age two, the idea of an Education, Health and Care Plan sounded like a dream—a document designed to secure her support until the age of 25. I had no idea it would actually be a catalyst for constant conflict and battle.

The SEND system is broken, and our first experience with the Tribunal process was proof. What began as a hopeful journey to secure L’s EHCP and school, which started at the age of 2, turned into a strenuous 2 year legal battle. Despite evidence that ABA was reducing L's distress and helping her learn, the LA prioritized costs over her needs, pushing for an unsuitable nursery placement. Despite all the evidence showing early intervention is key for children like L, to ensure they need less support when they are older, and this could in future actually save money for all involved. 

To get the support she deserved, we had to fund our own experts and legal team in this process. In a move that was as ridiculous as it was cruel, the LA sent high-level legal counsel (QCs) to the hearing, forced us to present our case on the day, and then conceded on the spot. They depleted our family’s savings and public funds for a result they could have been agreed to months prior. Sadly, speaking to the global SEND community, I know our story isn't unique—and incredibly, this was only our first time in court. I do know that last year a staggering 99% of families won their tribunals. This shows that the needs are there and the system is just denying the support and getting away with it when they can. It was a complete waste of resources and an exhausting introduction to a system that often feels designed to fail the children it is meant to protect. Because this process took so long, we had to change the support that L needed to get during the hearing as she was 5 and needed to start school that September. The reason LAs do this is to not fund provisions until it is absolutely needed, or court ordered, as the minimum time it now takes to get a hearing is 18 months.

In September 2023, L started at an ASD base unit within a primary school. Her plan included ABA, BCBA weekly visits, and 1:1 TA support, with weekly Speech & Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy. We had fought for this in tribunal. However, we quickly realised the unit lacked staff trained for autistic children, let alone L’s complex needs. Her 1:1 had no relevant experience, and the LA’s own BCBA warned that the plan would fail if the Teaching Assistant (TA) wasn't trained to implement her ABA plan daily.

Six months in, life became unbearable. L’s behaviour spiralled: long, agonizing meltdowns returned, sleep vanished for all of us, and she began poo-smearing and biting others. While the school was willing to help, they needed the LA’s funding. We called an emergency annual review that March. Though everything was agreed upon during the meeting, the resulting EHCP was a betrayal: the LA cut her Speech and Language (SLT) hours, removed Occupational Therapy (OT) entirely, and refused TA training—ignoring their own BCBA’s recommendations.

This triggered our second 18-month tribunal process. Exhausted and with no funds left for lawyers, I took the case on myself alongside my full-time job. I gathered the evidence and professional reports proving that structure and support were the key to L’s success. The list of school incidents L had was evidence in itself. By the following September, the school—to their credit—began training the TA and implementing strategies anyway. L’s problem behaviours started to decrease due to this. 

During this time, I began flexi-work, received online training in ‘CtS’ and after school I spent about 30–45 minutes daily to teach her communication through spelling. She was engaging with the sessions, and I was teaching her and everything seemed to be stabilizing; we just needed the LA to restore the SLT and OT hours for school. Instead, at the tribunal in May 2025, the LA made a shock decision: L would be removed from her current school and sent back to her previous specialist school, it had been 2 years since she was there. We didn't understand it—we only wanted that move if the support at her current school was refused. We had worked long and hard with the SEN head to make the local school suitable for L.  We felt trapped and were forced to comply to the LAs decision. 

During this time was when L started to openly communicate with her letter board and started to type on her keyboard as well. We put all our extra resources into this method of communication, as everything prior to this was not helping L’s communication progress. She would have intensive sessions every month in Cheshire with my husband and her CtS consultant. L was originally diagnosed with Autism and a severe intellectual disability. Later, we received a diagnosis of Speech Apraxia, and we now understand she lives with whole-body Apraxia alongside her ASD. It was this—not an intellectual deficit—that was preventing her from speaking. L is incredibly intelligent, learning and retaining information far beyond her age. Because her schools and professionals didn't presume she could learn, they weren't teaching her. We always knew L was 'in there,' but we just couldn’t find the right key to unlock her communication. Through this new method, L has shown us she was always present, always listening, and fully aware of everything around her. She was simply trapped, describing her experience as being in a 'silent prison.' I’ll dive deeper into this breakthrough in my next post, but it is the driving force behind our current battle with the LA.

When L moved back to her specialist ABA school, they initially embraced her communication method. My husband even spent time every week training her BCBA so she could use her spelling board and keyboard. It was a success; she began using it with her BCBA, and the school dedicated an hour each day to lessons using this method. Her BCBA had told us that academically L was far ahead of her peers at the school, and they would find it difficult to challenge her during class. For two months, L was successfully using her communication at school. L told us that her spelling sessions were the only part of the day she enjoyed; she repeatedly expressed that she didn't enjoy the rest of the curriculum, which was still focused on Early Years education. I also want to emphasise how expensive this school is, costing a staggering £94k for 39 weeks. When L previously attended it was £84k for 49 weeks. So the LA moved her from a provision that was far less expensive and working, to this specialist school out of our local community.

We decided that L needed to use her communication method  throughout the school day and not just for an hour with her BCBA and so we asked the school to have our CtS consultant train L’s 1:1 aide so she could communicate throughout the entire day. That's when the school began to refuse Ls communication method. Despite previously admitting they had no doubt the communication was truly L’s, they pulled back. Much like ABA is, letterboards and spelling are also seen as 'controversial.' Some of the so-called professionals still cling to outdated studies while ignoring the mountain of modern evidence proving how beneficial this is for non-speaking or minimally speaking autistic individuals. Of course there are some awful providers, but I’ll dive into this more in my next post. It’s still a reminder of how vital it is to research and ensure you have the right providers for your child. I do believe ABA played a key part in L’s early years learning, but then it stopped helping her progress her communication, hence why we turned to CtS.

What the school did next was, in my view, completely unethical and cruel: they declared that L could no longer use her spelling method at school and insisted that they could still meet her needs without this. Instead, they demanded she revert to using the picture-based app Proloquo2Go—even though that was no longer her way of communicating, and she was already spelling out profound thoughts and feelings. We were forced to call an emergency review and pull her out of school. Sending her somewhere that openly denies her the right to communicate after she had already spent years in a 'silent prison' was an injustice we couldn't accept. To make matters worse and even more unethical, the school issued an EHCP that completely ignored her intelligence and everything she had achieved during those two months with them, we had evidence of this as well. They claimed she was intellectually at the level of a two-year-old. The LA has made this incredibly difficult as well, saying the school can meet needs even though they have blocked her communication and we are now locked in our third battle to secure a proper school and provision for L. The LA is now going on about evidence based therapies, when in fact nothing they have ever offered L was evidence based, there are plenty of peer reviewed studies and now individuals who use L's communication method. And in reality L herself is presenting as evidence, as every professional she has met cannot deny the fact that L is communicating herself. 

We have been home schooling L since November of 2025, and are still in a battle to get a provision and placement for her where she has her fundamental right to communicate. It is extremely strenuous for our family and completely avoidable, but it  just goes to show how my daughter’s disability is really not understood by most professionals and is quite complex and even though most don’t have the experience in helping children like her progress in their communication, they think they have the right to make critical decisions about what is right for her.  

In my next post I will talk more about our journey with CtS and Ls incredible breakthrough, it is wonderful having conversations with L and seeing her converse with her siblings, our family and in our community.