EHCPs, Systemic Pressure and the Cost to Families: A Trauma-Informed, Neuro-Affirming Exploration.
- louisehenderson307
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
A lived‑experience exploration of the EHCP crisis in England - delays, refusals, tribunal statistics and the emotional impact on Neurodivergent families. Includes 2024 data, trauma‑informed insights, and systemic analysis The EHCP Crisis and Its Human Impact
The recent TES analysis on whether EHCPs are “driving the SEND crisis” has reignited a conversation many families, educators and practitioners have been trying to navigate for years. The TES article highlights growing demand, stretched school budgets and an education system struggling to keep pace with the level of support children require. Beyond the headlines and political debates lies a quieter truth one that plays out in homes, classrooms and local authority offices every day.
EHCPs were designed to be a protective mechanism: a legal framework ensuring that children and young people with additional needs receive support that is personalised, meaningful, and enforceable. Yet, in practice, families often find themselves working through layers of bureaucracy, lengthy waits, inconsistent decision-making and inaccessible pathways.
What was created as a system of rights has, for many, become a system of endurance.
At What the Stigma?! I explore the parts of the conversation that often remain unspoken - the emotional, practical, and relational impact of navigating support systems that were never designed with Neurodivergent families in mind.
The System Behind the Strain
The TES article highlights several key pressure points within the current landscape:
Mainstream provision is overstretched, leading to inconsistent early support.
Schools often rely on EHCPs to secure resources, not because children’s needs have changed but because funding structures have.
Local authority variation means access depends heavily on postcode, resulting in significant inequities.
Long waits for assessment and intervention intersect with rising levels of unmet need, leaving children without timely support.
Taken together, this creates a system where an EHCP becomes one of the few guaranteed routes to meaningful support but obtaining one can be a challenging, emotionally draining pursuit for many families.
This is not about blaming professionals. It’s about acknowledging that the structure itself is buckling under the weight of demand and families are often the ones absorbing the impact.
Lived Experience: Inside the Process
As a late-identified autistic woman raising two autistic children the experiences described in the TES report feel painfully familiar. We spent months, sometimes years, trying to secure even the most basic support in mainstream school. Staff often cared deeply but the system they worked within meant needs were overlooked, minimised or lost in a cycle of “waiting and seeing” in the Plan, Review Do process.
While we waited for assessments and interventions the queues grew longer, the forms multiplied and administrative delays pushed everything further out of reach. Once my child finally reached a diagnostic pathway we were told that being “on a waiting list” meant they couldn’t access other support services. In the end and through sheer desperation we applied for an EHCP. Not because it was an “ambitious plan” or to try to take advantage of the system but because it was the only remaining way to try and access what had already been identified as essential support. When that was rejected for reasons that didn’t align with the legal framework we found ourselves preparing for tribunal while our child’s wellbeing deteriorated to the point they could no longer engage with education at all.
This isn’t a rare story.
It’s an increasingly common one and it raises important questions about systemic accessibility, equity and the human cost of a system under strain.
Data and Trends: Why EHCPs Have Become Crucial
The pressures described in the recent analysis of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are not new but recent data makes clear how widespread and urgent the problem has become. What should be a route to support for children with additional needs has in many cases become a barrier.
According to the most recent Department for Education statistics as of 2024 there are over 434,354 pupils with an EHCP in England representing roughly 4.8% of all pupils, up from 4.3% in 2023. However, while new EHCP issuances have risen so have requests for assessment and refusals. In 2023 the number of initial EHCP assessment requests rose to 138,242 but 33,141 of those requests were rejected the highest number of refusals since 2018. Even when assessments are carried out delays are common. It is now estimated that only about 50% of EHCPs are issued within the statutory 20-week window meaning half of children wait longer than legally intended.
The burden on families seeking to challenge these decisions is rising rapidly. In 2023–24, there were approximately 21,000 registered SEN appeals a 55% increase compared with the previous year. Of these appeals, 27% were against refusal to assess; 59% were about the content or provision specified in EHC plans. Significantly once a case reaches tribunal, families almost always succeed: recent statistics show that 98% of decisions at tribunal were found in favour of the appellant, up from 96% in prior years.
These figures shine a harsh light on reality: for many children, without an EHCP they have little chance of accessing the support they need. For others, even when they qualify, the delays, refusals, and appeals process turns support into a lottery — with no guarantee and often at great emotional and financial cost.
Early Intervention Is Missing
The rise in EHCP applications, tribunal appeals and support delays also reflects a failure of early support and intervention across mainstream education. What should be universal, preventative support is increasingly absent. As mainstream SEN support shrinks many parents are left with no choice but to chase statutory support just for basic inclusion, consistency and stability.
This dynamic results in: Children missing out on early support (therapies, adjusted teaching, sensory accommodations) meaning their needs intensify before any formal plan is put in place. Increased likelihood of crisis, escalating anxiety, school refusal and mental health decline
Families stretched to breaking point: advocating, attending appointments, meetings, tribunals, coping with waiting lists often while managing employment, family life and daily caring responsibilities.
In other words: the system forces families into the most resource intensive, adversarial route just to access what should have been early support.
Systemic Strain: Delays, Refusals, and Blockages
Part of the problem lies with under resourced local authorities, overworked staff and bureaucracy that isn’t built for holistic, neurodiversity affirming support.
Some key issues:
Many EHCP requests are refused even when indicators of need are present possibly due to tightened threshold criteria under financial pressure.
SENCOs (Special Educational Needs Coordinators) and other professionals are often overwhelmed: high caseloads, limited time, lack of training and shrinking budgets. As a result needs aren’t always properly identified or supported.
Administrative delays, missing paperwork or insufficient documentation are common causes for refusal meaning children are penalised for systemic inefficiency rather than lack of need.
In our case several EHCPs were rejected for reasons that didn't align with the framework...The Ranges!
The appeal and tribunal system, while often successful for families, places emotional and financial burdens on parents and carers; advocacy becomes a time-consuming, draining process, especially for those without resources, social capital or legal support.
There is a lack of accountability on schools who do not provide consistent support inline with statutory guidance, who fail to provide access to early intervention or make timely referrals for early intervention. Like in our case this can contribute towards the numbers of EHCP application being made.
In some cases there can be a lack of accountability for Local Authority's who do not adhere to the SEND Cop and Statutory guidance prior to reaching Tribunal process. This contributes towards the number of EHCPs reaching Tribunal stage and is backed up with data around the success rates for Families.
The Hidden Toll: Counselling & Wellbeing Perspective
When support is delayed, denied or conditional the impact on children and families can run deep:
Chronic uncertainty and instability can lead to anxiety, low mood, and disruption of routine, factors especially harmful for Neurodivergent children.
Parental burnout: constant advocacy, emotional labour and system navigation can exhaust even the most resilient carers.
Child distress and disengagement: repeated rejections, unmet needs or shifting support can damage trust in school, self-esteem, mental health and sometimes leading to school avoidance or social withdrawal.
Family trauma: the feeling of battling for recognition, being dismissed or “fighting the system” undermines the sense of security children (and parents) deserve.
Therapeutically, it’s essential to acknowledge that for many families it is the system itself causing distress.
Trauma-Informed, Neuro-Affirming View
From a trauma-informed perspective it’s important to recognise that:
Repeated assessments,
Having to “prove need”
Being blamed, disbelieved or dismissed,
Long waits with no support,
Constant advocacy under pressure,
Escalation to appeals or tribunals,
ALL contribute to cumulative stress and trauma for both children and families.
Neuro-affirming practice reminds us that:
Children’s distress is a communication of unmet need not a personal failing.
Systems should adapt to individuals not the other way around.
Advocacy is not “pushy parenting” it is a response to unmet obligations.
ALL families deserve support without having to be in crisis to receive it.
Coping & Survival Strategies for Families
These strategies aren’t about “fixing” the situation they’re about accessing support while the system catches up;
Build Your Advocacy Network
Consider linking with: SENDIASS, local SEND/Neurodivergent or parent-carer organisations, advocacy charities, peer-led groups.
No one should have to navigate EHCPs alone.
Preserve Emotional Energy
Choose where your limited energy goes: identify “non-negotiables” and let go of what isn’t essential.
Use templates and written scripts to reduce cognitive load.
Keep a single folder for all key documents.
Small shifts can protect emotional capacity.
Create Moments of Regulation
Sensory breaks, stepping outside for 30 seconds, brief grounding exercises, slowing your breathing, taking supportive pauses during difficult meetings.
These moments don’t change the system but they help maintain internal steadiness during it.
Additional Strategies
Document everything clearly and keep a timeline, copies of reports, communications and professional observations. It can strengthen applications and appeals without exhausting emotional energy.
Build a support network early by link with other parents, local groups, charities.
Peer support can provide emotional validation, practical insight and collective strength.
Prioritise self-care and emotional regulation, implement daily or weekly practices (sensory breaks, rest, joint parent-child downtime) to protect mental health, particularly during waiting periods or appeals.
Advocate strategically with boundaries and recognise that you may only have so much energy.
Choose key battles and avoid internalising blame if systems fail.
Reflection Points: Opening Up the Conversation
Opening up this conversation means looking honestly at how systemic delays affect children’s wellbeing and sense of safety and questioning what “early intervention” can realistically mean when services are difficult to access.
It invites us to consider how schools and families can work together without the burden falling disproportionately on either side and to recognise how inequality shapes access to EHCPs across different communities.
It also asks us to imagine what a genuinely accessible, inclusive and neuro‑affirming education system might look like and to acknowledge how many children may be missing out on early support because mainstream SEN provision is under‑resourced.
Reflecting on what fair equitable support entails particularly for Neurodivergent children whose needs may not be immediately visible.
It highlights the importance of systems that do not force families into adversarial processes simply to secure basic rights.
At the heart of this is a recognition of the role that community, advocacy and solidarity play in driving meaningful change and supporting one another.
These questions don’t offer simple answers but naming them and discussing them openly is how stigma begins to lift and real transformation becomes possible.
Closing Thoughts: The Need for Systemic Change
The statistics are more than numbers they represent childhoods, family lives and futures. When EHCPs become a last resort lifeline instead of a safety net the system is failing at its core purpose. A truly inclusive, neuro-affirming education system would provide early flexible support so families don’t have to fight for basic rights. Until then, EHCPs will remain essential. But in the fight for support, families should not have to bear the emotional and economic cost alone.
Systemic change must be accompanied by empathy, transparency and resource based policies that uphold dignity and equity for every child, every family and every community.
Referencing and fact check.
TES article
TES. (2024) Are EHCPs driving the SEND crisis? TES.Available at: https://www.tes.com/magazine (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note: Supports the contextual claims about rising demand, stretched school budgets, and systemic strain.
Department for Education – EHCP statistics
Department for Education. (2024) Education, Health and Care Plans: England 2024.Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note:
434,354 pupils with EHCPs in 2024
4.8% of all pupils
138,242 assessment requests in 2023
33,141 refusals (highest since 2018)
~50% issued within 20 weeks
Department for Education – Special Educational Needs in England
Department for Education. (2024) Special educational needs in England: January 2024.Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note: Supports the broader context around rising SEN numbers, variation between local authorities, and the increasing reliance on statutory plans due to shrinking early support.
Ministry of Justice – SEND Tribunal statistics
Ministry of Justice. (2024) Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2024.Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunal-statistics (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note:
~21,000 SEN appeals in 2023–24
55% increase year‑on‑year
27% refusal‑to‑assess appeals
59% content‑of‑plan appeals
98% success rate for families
SEND Code of Practice (legal framework)
Department for Education & Department of Health. (2015) Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years.Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25 (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note: Supports your statements about the legal purpose of EHCPs, statutory timelines, and enforceable rights.
SENDIASS (advocacy support)
Council for Disabled Children. (2024) Information, Advice and Support Services (IASS).Available at: https://councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/information-advice-and-support-services-network (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note: Supports recommendations for advocacy networks and parent‑carer support.
National Network of Parent Carer Forums
National Network of Parent Carer Forums. (2024) About NNPCF. Available at: https://nnpcf.org.uk (Accessed: 21 December 2025).
Fact‑check note: Supports peer‑led support, community advocacy, and collective action.
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