Bury St Edmunds mum Nikki Graham says she is ‘always chasing’ Suffolk County Council over SEND services for two of her children

A Bury St Edmunds mum has said she will ‘never stop fighting’ for her children after detailing her frustrating experience of getting them the right support.

Nikki Graham spoke about the challenges of dealing with Suffolk County Council (SCC) over obtaining appropriate educational provision for her two children with additional needs, Annie and Dillon.

Nikki, who previously described her experiences with Suffolk SEND services as ‘nothing short of appalling’, said: “We are always in limbo and I’m always chasing someone for something.”

However, she said she cannot just stop complaining and ‘go away’ because ‘this is my child’s future’.

She said: “My children could become very disabled adults and unable to do anything or they could learn strategies and overcome their challenges and have a good future. I will never stop fighting.”

In past months, Nikki, a mum of three, has been through the tribunal process for Annie, four, and Dillon, seven. In the case of Annie, it was to not send her to a mainstream school and to instead name an appropriate setting, and in Dillon’s it was to obtain some provision he needed.

A SEND tribunal is an independent body that decides appeals against local authority (LA) decisions about the special educational needs (SEN) of children and young people.

Nikki said going through this process wasted the time of LA staff, and taxpayers’ money, adding: “If it had been done right first time, they could have been working with the backlog of other children.”

She also spoke of the anxiety experienced by Dillon due to not knowing what educational provision he would have in September 2024, as there was a delay with his annual review.

The annual review is the statutory process of looking at the needs, provision and outcomes specified in an EHC (education, health and care) plan, and deciding whether these need to change.

Nikki said there should have been an outcome in June, but she only received confirmation in August and the paperwork in October that Dillon was able to return to his alternative provision.

She also said the delay meant he started on two days with the provider (a week), rather than three, with the extra day only recently kicking in.

“Change is a big deal and he needs to know,” said Nikki. “In the summer holidays he started asking me ‘what’s happening in September?’ and all I could say was ‘I think it will be’, but he needs certainty.”

The county council’s response

Cllr Andrew Reid, cabinet member for education and SEND at SCC, said: “The timeliness of completing Education, Health and Care plans has been a top focus over the last year and it is clear from our figures that we are making progress.

“In October 2024 we were producing 24 per cent of EHCPs in 20 weeks compared to three per cent in October 2023. However, we recognise that we still have a long way to go, and our work to maintain momentum continues at pace.

“Like other local authorities, we are hindered by a national shortage of education psychologists. This has resulted in us not being able to keep up with a growing demand for psychological advice and information. ​

“To address this, we have recently invested £1.6 million to strengthen our recruitment and availability of education psychologists.

“This includes working with private psychologists – we currently have 100 on our books – and utilising assistant or trainee psychologists to help with plans when it is appropriate to do so. We have 27 education psychologists employed by Suffolk County Council, with four recruited in September.

“We also continue to recruit more SEND staff to help complete assessments and issue quality plans in a timely way – so far, we’ve welcomed over 60 new people, with a further 32 to come.”

He said it was widely publicised that SEND services operate within ‘a broken and crumbling’ national system, and added: “The funding we receive has not kept pace with demand, so the system is under enormous strain.

“We continue to lobby government on the need for urgent whole-system reform and investment and await this week’s budget.”