Please support our campaign to keep William at home, with his family, where he belongs. The link below will take you to a short video (2 minutes) explaining why we have launched this campaign.
If you believe that what is happening to William is wrong, please sign our petition below and forward a link to this campaign to everyone you know.
Click here to sign the petition.
We know that there are any number of campaigns calling on your time and sympathy and it can sometimes be hard to make an informed opinion about the rights and wrongs of complex situations. If you would like more information about this case, why we believe it is wrong and what we hope to achieve, please read on…
Why do we believe that it is wrong?
We are fighting our campaign on three fronts, that it is morally wrong, that it is needlessly expensive and also that it is unlawful. The moral, financial and legal arguments are summarised below:
Moral: We believe that the moral argument for keeping William at home is self-evident. No ‘normal’ child would be separated from their parents against their wishes unless there were child protection issues. We do not believe that having a mental disability justifies William being taken away from his home and the people who love him, if anything his disability is the very reason why he should remain with his family.
This is where we need your support! The more names that are on our petition, the greater our case for the moral argument to keep William at home. Signing up costs nothing, we simply need to gain numbers to support our moral argument.
Financial: William’s current school is Nexus, a special needs school in Tonbridge. They argue that they do not have the resource to cope with William’s needs. No school has a limitless amount of financial or human resource however we believe that there is a better way to resolve this.
Sending a child to a residential school is much more expensive than any provision at a day school because whatever resource is needed during the day is provided 24/7. William will not suddenly require less resource to look after just because he is further away therefore we believe that rather than move William to the resource it would be better to provide additional resource where he is.
This would actually cost the taxpayer less money since the resource would only be required during school hours.
Legal: We believe that what is happening to William is unlawful. Parents have a right to request any maintained school listed in section 38 (3) of the Children & Families Act 2014. The Local Authority can only refuse this request using one of three specific exceptions; either
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The attendance of the child or young person at the requested school or other institution would be incompatible with the efficient use of resources.Sending William to a residential school would be more expensive than increasing the provision at his current school so we do not believe that this exception can be applied.
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The attendance of the child or young person at the requested school or other institution would be incompatible with the provision of efficient education for others.
As William’s current school is a special needs school and many of the children there follow individual timetables, we do not believe that William’s attendance is detrimental to the provision of education for others.
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The school requested is unsuitable for the age, ability, aptitude or special educational needs of the child or young person concerned, or The school is unsuitable for special needs students.
Since Nexus is a special needs school we feel that, given the resource, they should be able to cope with an autistic child. Under the Equality Act they are required to make reasonable adaptations and we believe that such adaptations would negate the need to move him to another school.
These are the only grounds upon which Kent County Council can lawfully refuse to name Nexus as his ongoing placement. We do not believe that any of them can be applied in this instance.
Is this the whole story?
Some people may be wondering whether there is more to this story than meets the eye. There are sometimes good reasons to remove a child from their family for medical or social welfare/child protection reasons. We recognise that in some instances, home is not in the best interests of every child however that is certainly not applicable in this instance.
Like many disabled young people William’s welfare is overseen by three main agencies, social, health and educational.
Our social worker has worked with our family to help us obtain the social support that William needs. She is visits William at home and at school. There have never been any welfare issues or concerns regarding his home which is loving and stable.
William has been under the care of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for some time. He takes medication prescribed by a paediatrician to reduce his anxiety but apart from this routine medication he is lucky to have robust health. There is no specialist therapeutic treatment required nor any medical reason why he should be removed from his current setting.
The sole reason for removing him from his home is his school placement. The current school simply feels unable to cater for him. We do not believe that any child should be removed from their home against their parent’s wishes and against the best interests of the child for this reason alone, especially when it is the most expensive option.