“IPSEA offers free and independent legally based information, advice and support services to help get the right education for children and young people with all kinds of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The struggle facing thousands of families of children and young people with SEND can take years to resolve and often has a devastating effect on children and their families, so the advice and support IPSEA provides is vital."

When our son was diagnosed with Autism during his first year at school, we became increasingly aware that the mainstream school environment would be unable to cater for his needs.

And so started our fight to get him the education he not only was entitled to, but so desperately needed.  

The biggest hurdle was knowing where to start…what support were we entitled to?  What did he need? How do we battle against all the challenges we were facing to get him into the right school environment?

That’s where IPSEA came in…the information & support we received from the very first EHCP rejection letter, to appealing the decision to assess his needs, to ensuring that his final EHCP was specific & catered to his needs, the advice IPSEA provided, gave us the knowledge & confidence to appeal the school named in his EHCP and take the local authority to tribunal.

Having the legal knowledge to appeal our case, without having to spend thousands of pounds on solicitors fees meant that the case didn’t make it to tribunal & we successfully secured the best possible outcome for our son.

He is now in an independent specialist school and he is happy and thriving.

IPSEA gave us the knowledge & confidence to fight the battle, without this, our son may not be where his is today.

So any support that can be given, however small would be greatly appreciated to help IPSEA continue to offer the support they do to the endless amount of families out there who are going through, or are still to go through a similar fight that we did.

Cheers,

Rob