Bristol City Council Vulnerable Children Includes EHCP Needs Assessment Requests

Bristol City Council Vulnerable Children Entitled to School Place During Coronavirus Lock Down:

Bristol City Council is accepting children who are part of the Education Health and Care Needs Assessment process in Bristol as vulnerable children entitled to a school place.

The advice on the council’s school closure page says: ‘The only children that can come to school are: vulnerable children, children of identified critical workers. Vulnerable children are: Children who have a social worker, such as children in need, children who have a child protection plan and those who are looked after by the local authority. Children with education health and care (EHC) plans, and those children who have sent in a request for a EHCP needs assessment.’

This is in some conflict with government guidance states that ‘vulnerable children’ include children who have a social worker and children and young people up to the age of 25 with education, health and care (EHC) plans.’

It also says that those with an EHC plan should be ‘risk-assessed’ by their school or college in consultation with the local authority (LA) and parents, to decide whether they need to continue coming to school or college, or whether those needs can be met at home.

Guidance states that those who have not yet been issued and EHCP ‘will not’ automatically be classed within the ‘vulnerable children’ category, although the school and local authority have discretion to complete a risk assessment and offer support if needed.

Children with a parent or carer listed as a ‘critical worker’ should be considered for a school place where their job cannot be done from home. However, we have heard from several key worker parents in Bristol, some working within the NHS with the coronavirus, who have faced battles with schools so they are able to continue going to work.

Other parents have privately voiced their worries to us describing the selection process for EHCP school access as ‘arbitrary’ and ‘lacking consistency’.

A free telephone hotline has now launched in Bristol to provide support for people with a range of needs has now launched which will enable call handlers to direct people with specific needs to the right areas.

The We Are Bristol support phone number is open 08.30am – 5pm on: 0800 694 0184

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