After 3.5 years of being out of education, due to school phobia, trauma, complex SEMH difficulties and ASD/PDA we had managed to secure an independent mainstream placement my 11 year old son.

We instructed Adrian to support us when it became very clear that son’s EHCP was not fit for purpose. The provision was in there but it was a jumbled up, complicated mess, open to misinterpretation. Both school and I were really struggling to understand it and implement what was necessary, causing a huge amount of friction, distress for my son, stress for both school and we as parents, miscommunication and instability with my son’s placement.

 After initially agreeing to meet my son’s needs, his school were very close to pulling their offer of placement, due to the complexity of my son, the confusing nature of his EHCP and their uncertainty at being able to understand and deliver what was required to support him. This is when we got Adrian on board.

We had a lengthy fight with the LA for an independent mainstream setting, and I was confident that with the right interpretation of the provision, my son could overcome the barriers preventing him from reaching his potential and stay adequately supported within this mainstream environment. I wasn’t willing to let go of the battle to try our best as parents to give our son a chance. There was no other alternative placement suitable for him, which would leave him isolated and alone within a possible lengthy battle for an EOTAS package, which would have threatened his mental health, education and future.

Adrian expertly participated in weeks of complex negotiations between school, and us as parents, alongside also working with the Local Authority to keep them on board and inline, and did miraculous work with my son’s EHCP making it a workable, understandable and structured document protecting my son to ensure that it was not only able to meet every one of my son’s needs within the mainstream environment, but done also in a way that school were on board and happy with.

Using his wisdom, and vast knowledge and experience, he was able to successfully restore the relationship and trust between we as parents, and school, bringing us together on the same team in order to work more effectively, together in my son’s interests. This relationship was previously in a very precarious place. Without Adrian’s intervention it would have all broken down and my son’s long term success, wouldn’t have stood a chance. We are now five weeks into my son’s placement and because of the provision and relationship Adrian was able to successfully restore, to one of mutual respect and ‘in this together,’ with school, my son is thriving, happy, supported and already almost achieving a full day in school. I know we would be far from this place if it weren’t for Adrian’s work.

 But above all the technicalities of business, what stood out for me, as a broken parent, with a broken child in a very desperate place, was Adrian’s care, compassion, kindness, understanding and generosity of heart. Throughout the whole process, even in my worst moments of rage and sin my spirals of despair and pain, he remained un-judgemental, gracious, empathetic and such a supportive stabilising influence, helping me to gain a healthy perspective and doing all the necessary work to ensure that I processed and filtered all that emotion with him, in a safe space, so that it didn’t impact my rocky relationship with school or impede my decision making. There is no doubt that the work he did here rescued the process, my son’s school placement and future.

 I will always be grateful for the patience, kindness and mercy he showed to me in those dark moments. I know he has been gifted with this ability because of his own experiences of heartbreak, having to go through everything we as parents are going through now. He has taken his pain and his experiences, and turned them into wisdom and gold to offer to others, following that same perilous journey through life as he did, and this certainly comes out within his work and the outcomes he achieves. It makes all the difference when the person who is working for you, understands everything you feel and are experiencing, but who also is able to offer the logical and rational perspective necessary with his infallible understanding of how school’s operate, and how the law works, to get the job done.

 Adrian is one of the most authentic, generous and genuine professionals I have ever worked with, and I’m just so grateful I found him. And when my son is old enough to understand, Adrian will be one of those people I tell him who saved his life, his education, and his future.

 Thank you Adrian, we will be forever in your debt for my son’s whole life.