Parents 'traumatised' by SEND system, says mum

Parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) were being traumatised by their dealings with the system, a mother has told the BBC.

Liz Chaplin, from Boreham, Essex, said trying to get help for her 18-year-old daughter, Ava, led to her having a nervous breakdown and needing therapy.

Ava, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and is blind, was only given a care package after Chaplin won a two-year legal battle with Essex County Council in 2023.

Tony Ball, the councillor in charge of the authority's SEND services, admitted her and Ava's experience was "unacceptable".

He said a £2.6m investment, announced on Tuesday, would improve the council's SEND operations across the board.

But Chaplin, whose daughter requires around-the-clock care, said many families were already traumatised by their experiences of seeking help.

"The stress and pressure of fighting for my child's basic rights broke me," she told Ball during a phone-in on BBC Essex.

"I spent months in therapy trying to recover from the damage to my mental health, caused by a system that appeared to prioritise cost-saving over the health and well-being of a profoundly disabled child," she added.

Chaplin said she had seen the pain felt by other parents at the group therapy sessions she attended.

"All the faces of the attendees looked like mine: broken women, so worn down from the constant fighting battles that we are mere costumes of the women we used to be," she said.

"Not because of the challenges our children face, but because of the system's abuse of us when we reached out for support."

A study assessing system-generated trauma was published by charity Cerebra and the University of Leeds in November.

It found that of 1,200 people surveyed, many who sought help for their disabled child's needs were experiencing "immense trauma".

SEND services in Essex are run by both the county council and three NHS integrated care boards.

Chaplin described battling them as "like being locked in an abusive relationship, but you can't walk away because your young person needs that service".

She said despite the high of winning the court case, Ava was still being treated by the same council team that "looked her in the eye and said the pain wasn't real".

"I'm still trapped with the people who abused us," the mother added.

Essex County Council was named the worst local authority in England for completing education, health and care plan (EHCP) assessments within the legal limit of 20 weeks in 2024.

It only saw 1% of children receive an EHCP within this target, but by March 2026 this had risen to about 20%.

Ball said he was "really sad" to hear of the Chaplin family's experience and described the SEND system as "broken".

He asked Chaplin to contact him directly and added: "The complexity of the system and what she's had to go through is unacceptable."

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