I know I've been rubbish at updating and blogging, it's been hard to keep up as my day job has taken over.

I'm not sure what the last education update was, but we had an annual review July 2023 and an agreed EOTAS package that included a learning support worker. This is a new position and Charlie gets up to 32hours a week for 39 weeks a year. We are incredibly fortunate that the LSW is fully flexible and can work over the full 52 weeks a year, therefore she covers 24hrs a week over around 48 weeks a year. Having some weeks off in school holidays for her own family.

In October our tutor left. Charlie has no tutor from the half term after October holidays up until 1 week before Easter holidays. It took that long to sort out! I was getting increasingly frustrated about it. Communication is still very poor. I've not received a single email back from the caseworker since last August. It's exhausting.

The speech and language therapy is going really well! And Charlie's full education package is 31.5hrs per week and that includes LSW, tutor and speech and language therapist sessions. And if I'm honest that's enough. He won't be able to manage any more and on some occasions he doesn't manage those hours each week as the sleep pattern affects his learning so much.

But the good news, the team around Charlie is solid! He enjoys the company of all the professionals that work with him and he massively engages while with them. They all work together between themselves so and all have the same outcome to support Charlie's learning and development.

There are gaps, of course there are. But right now it's the best it's ever been and I am so so thankful for a team around Charlie that wants to help him achieve his learning outcomes. We are due our final EOTAS payment in the next couple of weeks and then there will be an annual review, probably in July and I imagine we won't have any changes to the actual staff on the package but we will have some some changes to the elements in the package there are things that haven't worked and so there is no point in keeping them in the plan.

The administration of the EOTAS package is incredibly time consuming and falls on me. I have to source, cost and budget the plan the only thing the LA does is speech and language therapy and the tutor that's it! The rest of it falls to me, all the invoicing and payments for the LSW, all the expenses, activities, sports, languages and day trips they are all my responsibility to organise and it's big work! It actually takes quite a bit of time, and I don't get paid for it… I really should do!!

But I do it for my boy, because that's what's right and that's what I would do a million times over.

I will try and write more! I am so sorry this part of my life has been so lacking.

Georgina