Rucksacks representing every Warwickshire child 'failed' by local SEND services will be left on the steps outside Warwickshire County Council on Monday morning.

The demonstration at Shire Hall in Warwick will coincide with the SEND inspection led by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) next week.

Organised by SEND Crisis Warwickshire, the demonstration will consist of parents who have been lobbying Warwickshire County Council for more funding, better provision and fairer treatment for local children who have SEND.

The group has also sent a report to Ofsted which shares a number of local family's stories and highlights what they perceive as key structural problems within WCC's services.

In particular these include:

- Inadequate parental choice.

- Inadequate provision.

- Lack of resources.

- The crisis relating to waiting lists for diagnosis.

Parents have raised specific concerns over the county's new inclusion programme.

A group spokesperson said: "This has led to a lack of parental choice, with many children being forced into mainstream provision when they need specialist provision.

"This comes amidst a backdrop of lack of adequate placements and more and more pressure being put upon teachers to work miracles with improper resources."

Demonstrators will gather outside Shire Hall between 9.30am and 10am on Monday 12 July to show their feelings.

Case in point

One Kenilworth parent we spoke to told us that her son, who is unable to attend a mainstream school, had been making use of alternative provision for two years prior to the new programme.

However, once the plan was introduced his time at his placement became limited and he was forced back into mainstream school, causing him further problems.

"For kids who have been failed for years down the line, the idea is just not going to work," she said, "you have got to think outside the box for those children."

She told us that she was frustrated with the lack of communication from the council on a case by case basis, and that a blanket policy was detrimental to the children.

"Meetings go on with people within the local authority, but they don't involve the parents and they don't listen to the child," she added.

"This could be really avoided if local authorities included families and communicated with then effectively. Money comes into it a lot, but I honestly think that if they started to listen to the families then they could save themselves a lot of money."

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