Mother's Year-Long Fight for Deafblind Son's Education Highlights Systemic Failures
A mother from North West England has revealed the distressing ordeal her deafblind son endured in a mainstream nursery while she battled for over a year to secure essential specialist support. Kimberly Hind told disability charity Sense that she remains deeply sceptical about whether proposed reforms to the special educational needs system will create meaningful change for families like hers.
"Horrific" Nursery Experience Leaves Lasting Trauma
Ms Hind described how her five-year-old son Harvey, who has very limited vision and uses bilateral cochlear implants to hear, was placed in an inappropriate mainstream setting while she fought to obtain an Education, Health and Care Plan for him. The experience proved devastating for the young child, who developed severe anxiety and began exhibiting distressing behaviours he had never shown before.
"I couldn't physically make him go in because he was so anxious," Ms Hind explained. "He'd make himself sick and try and harm himself - he'd never done that before. And at nursery, he was pulling off the external part of his cochlear implants for the whole day. Normally he loves his implants but I think he was so overwhelmed he didn't want to hear anything."
Systemic Delays and Broken Promises
The family's struggle highlights fundamental problems within the current SEND support framework. Harvey lost his specialist preschool place while waiting more than a year for his EHCP - far exceeding the legal 20-week deadline. Ms Hind expressed profound concerns that even with proposed reforms, systemic issues would prevent real improvement.
"You can change anything by law but the local authorities still won't follow it," she warned. "They don't have the staff, the funding or the training. I'm nervous there might even be funding cuts. It is very worrying."
Transformation Through Specialist Provision
Now settled in a special school with a small class of just five children, Harvey has undergone a remarkable transformation. His mother reports that he wakes up excited to see his teacher, happily boards his school taxi, and returns home beaming with happiness. Educators have noted his particular aptitude for mathematics, describing him as exceptionally bright.
However, the trauma from his earlier experiences persists. "He loves adults and he loves his brothers but he's still frightened of other children and won't interact with them," Ms Hind revealed, highlighting the lasting psychological impact of being placed in an unsuitable educational environment.
Research Reveals Widespread Parental Anxiety
These concerns emerge alongside new research from Sense showing that half of parents with disabled children possessing complex needs fear that SEND reforms might actually reduce their already limited support. The study, conducted by Censuswide in November, surveyed 1,000 UK parents and carers of disabled children with complex needs.
The findings paint a troubling picture of the current system:
- 48% described the process of securing SEND support as stressful
- 22% reported their child's school was not delivering legally binding EHCP support
- 40% had been forced to reduce working hours due to inadequate support
- 35% had left employment altogether to care for their child
Parents consistently reported experiencing long delays, inconsistent decision-making, and adversarial processes when attempting to access appropriate support for their children.
Government Reforms Under Scrutiny
The government has pledged to unveil comprehensive plans to overhaul the SEND system within weeks, promising to address the very issues highlighted in Sense's research. Ministers have committed to engaging more effectively with parents and tackling the systemic problems that have left families like the Hinds struggling for basic educational support.
Yet as Kimberly Hind's experience demonstrates, legislative changes alone may prove insufficient without adequate funding, staffing, and training to implement them effectively. Her son's journey from trauma in mainstream provision to thriving in specialist education serves as both a cautionary tale and a testament to what appropriate support can achieve when finally secured.
