EHCPs, Systemic Pressure and the Cost to Families: A Trauma-Informed, Neuro-Affirming Exploration.
- louisehenderson307
- Dec 21, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 8
A Lived-Experience Exploration of the EHCP Crisis in England: Delays, Refusals, Tribunal Statistics, and the Emotional Impact on Neurodivergent Families
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. They provide 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. However, 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. The phrase "support services" is crucial for understanding the landscape of help available. In the end, 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, raising 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, and 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 include:
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 that do not provide consistent support in line 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 to the number of EHCP applications being made.
In some cases, there can be a lack of accountability for local authorities that do not adhere to the SEND Code and statutory guidance prior to reaching the tribunal process. This contributes to the number of EHCPs reaching the 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, and mental health, 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, and 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, and 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 linking with other parents, local groups, and 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. It invites us to consider how schools and families can work together without the burden falling disproportionately on either side. 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—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.
References 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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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