LOOKING at the judge, I felt sick with nerves. How had it come to this?
I was a hard-working mum-of-four and here I was, listening to a barrister trying to tear me down.
Kate joined other parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities to protest outside Parliament for better services.[/caption]
Kate knew Annabelle had delayed development from when she was tiny but doctors dismissed her as a neurotic mum.[/caption]
My so-called crime? Wanting the best for my non-verbal disabled daughter.
For the last three hours, I had been putting my case to a SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) tribunal panel to reinstate speech and language therapy for Annabelle, ten.
Now an expensive lawyer representing my local council – who had taken 75 per cent of her support away after an annual review, without consulting us – was arguing against me.
And my worry turned to outrage when she told the court that I was wanting a “Rolls Royce service” for my girl.
It felt like a kick in the teeth comparing the small amount of essential support we were asking for to demanding a luxury car.
I believe there is a cruel calculated risk at play here.
Kate Skelton
How was it greedy to request just one hour a week of professional help so Annabelle have the chance to learn, communicate and reach her potential, like any other child?
Let’s be clear – I don’t want and have never wanted a Rolls Royce service for my child.
I’m not after a golden ticket or trying to ‘game’ the system – an accusation often made by politicians against families like mine.
I didn’t choose this fight but Annabelle was born with the ultra-rare genetic condition foxp1, which has resulted in multiple disabilities including autism, cerebral palsy, global development delay and ADHD.
I’ve been to a SEND tribunal not once but twice to get the help she needs.
We’d also gone to court in 2019 to fight the abysmal amount of speech therapy, physio and occupational therapy being offered by the council and NHS.
We won – with the court ruling she could have weekly hour-long sessions of one-to-one speech therapy.
But we’d had to hire an expensive lawyer to get us there and it cost £10,000, with the ruling only valid for a year.
Tribunals are a drawn-out, scary, exhausting and confusing process that comes at a huge cost – not just financially but also in terms of time and worry.
Yet every day across the country, desperate parents of disabled children are forced to fight their local authority in court to ensure that their son or daughter can go to school and learn.
Local authorities know that most families don’t have the time, energy or money for a court case – and I believe they count on this.
Kate Skelton
Tens of thousands of ordinary mums and dads are pitted against highly-trained barristers with years of training to fight their case before a panel made up of a tribunal judge and two lay members.
Councils waste a fortune in taxpayers’ money fighting these cases, which could be better used helping the SEND children involved.
Often, the original decision to deny or withdraw support services is already unlawful but parents have to go to court to get what is rightfully required.
Never again
After going through the first tribunal process, I had vowed never again.
But when Bromley Council cut Annabelle’s therapy by 75 per cent in 2023, after three years of threatening to do so, returning to court was our only course of action.
There was no compromise or proper explanation. We could only assume it was based on a lack of funding and resources rather than Annabelle’s best interests, which we knew was illegal.
Kate with Annabelle and her twin sons, Alex and Oliver, who are six.[/caption]
Any parent who could see their child struggling would fight the decision.
And this is increasingly the only way parents can hold official bodies accountable in the broken SEND system.
Complaining when they break the law gets your nowhere and every year, around 13,000 parents have to go down the tribunal route, a number that rose 29 per cent between 2020-21 and 2021-22.
Parents win 99 per cent of these cases, yet council keep on flouting the law by taking services away and wasting money with court battles.
I believe there is a cruel calculated risk at play here.
SEND parents are already broken and exhausted, worn out fighting a dysfunctional system and just trying to make it through the day.
Local authorities know that most families don’t have the time, energy or money for a court case – and I believe they count on this.
Even though the tribunal ultimately ruled in our favour and Annabelle’s speech therapy was restored, there were no winners.
Despite reducing costs by representing ourselves this time, we were still hundreds of pounds out of pocket.
We had to pay for an independent speech and language assessment and report to support our case, as well as for a speech therapist to attend the hearing.
We also suffered lost earnings, as I am self-employed and had to take time away from work to prepare the case.
I feel like I’ve been fighting from day one to get the care Annabelle needs in order to thrive.
Doctors missed her developmental delays, dismissing me as a neurotic mum until she was hospitalised at 11 months old with a respiratory infection.
Then I received damning diagnosis, telling me she was “catastrophically” disabled and may never walk or talk.
Help didn’t come
I naively assumed help would be on hand but faced waiting lists of two years to get basic therapies, scraping together cash to pay for private sessions.
I soon became my daughter’s speech therapist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and advocate, and it took a huge toll on my health, sanity and marriage.
We had to wait six months for speech therapy and then were only awarded six sessions a year, which was never going to have an impact.
The occupational therapy waiting list was two years.
It took four years before we finally got her genetic diagnosis – upon which we were promptly discharged by her geneticist.
Sadly my experience of battling for support is all too common.
Kate and her husband Phil don’t regret going to court twice to fight for Annabelle’s right to speech therapy – but say it shouldn’t be this way.[/caption]
The Skelton family have made financially and emotional sacrifices to challenge their local council and NHS over Annabelle’s care.[/caption]
Two weeks ago, I stood side by side with hundreds of other SEND parents as we protested outside parliament.
The Fight For Ordinary rally, organised by The Disabled Children’s Partnership, Let Us Learn Too and The SEND Sanctuary, was attended by more than 1,000 parents who have been failed and have spent years battling for their disabled child.
It was a powerful and emotional day.
I heard story after story of people at breaking point, with kids out of school due to a lack of specialist places or sitting on waiting lists for years for vital therapies.
Parents are worn out and fearful for the future, let down by a system that was supposed to support them, not make their lives even more stressful.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey joined us and spoke about his disabled son, while comedian Alistair Barrie shared his own experience of going to tribunal.
When you are a parent of a child with SEND you feel isolated and alone.
But at the rally I realised there are an army of us going through the same battle. It was both comforting and heartbreaking.
Now we are all anxiously waiting for the government’s white paper on SEND, which is soon to be published.
We have a once-in-a-generation chance to get it right for disabled kids.
A scathing report by the Commons Education Committee just days ago branded SEND provision as “broken” and “long past needing repair.”
It recommended the £6,000 funding per SEND pupil be adjusted annually in line with inflation.
Other proposals include requiring all new head teachers to gain a SEND specific qualification inside four years and increasing availability of specialist school places.
But will the government prioritise balancing the books of cash-strapped councils over the rights of the most vulnerable members of the next generation?
That is my fear.
