Why Choose The SEND Friend?

Choosing someone to support you with your child’s SEND journey is a big decision. You may be sharing years of history, sensitive information, professional reports and correspondence, and trusting that person to understand the issues, identify what matters and represent your child’s needs appropriately.

I therefore think it is important that families understand not only what services I offer, but how I work, the experience and knowledge behind that work, and the professional standards I set for myself.

I am a SEND advocate. I am not a solicitor or lawyer, and I believe it is important to be completely transparent about that. My expertise is specialist rather than general: it comes from extensive practical experience supporting families through the SEND system, alongside specialist SEND law training and continued professional development.

I am highly familiar with the legislation, statutory guidance and legal framework underpinning SEND support for children and young people, and my work is informed by these wherever relevant. My professional focus is SEND, and I have deliberately developed my knowledge and experience within this specialist area. I do not claim to have extensive legal knowledge outside of SEND law.

I became a SEND advocate because, before I ever supported other families, I had to learn how to navigate the SEND system for my own children. I found myself learning the law, understanding the statutory processes, reading professional reports, challenging decisions and working out how to secure the support my own children needed.

It turned out I was quite good at remembering the law, applying it to real situations and identifying when something simply did not add up. Despite previously having absolutely no desire to enter the world of law, I found that I was actually a pretty good advocate. Over time, that knowledge, experience, hyperfocus and slightly unexpected skill developed into the work I do today.

My personal experience of SEND is also incredibly varied. I have a child attending a specialist school for children with severe learning difficulties, another in an enhanced autism provision, children with SEND attending mainstream schools, and nieces whose education has involved alternative provision and EOTIS. Between my own family and the families I support professionally, I have seen just how differently SEND can look from one child to another and how different the right educational provision can be.

That personal experience remains an important part of my practice. I genuinely understand what it can feel like to be the parent at the centre of all of this — to be worried about your child, frustrated by systems that are not working as they should, overwhelmed by paperwork, trying to understand what should happen next, or simply reaching the point where you are completely overwhelmed by it all and need to hand some of it over to somebody else.

I also understand how important it is for that support to be affordable. In an ideal world, you would not have to pay somebody to help you secure the education and support your child needs. But when families do reach the point where they need or want someone else to take some of that work on, I want professional advocacy to be as accessible as I can reasonably make it.

My lived experience also means that when I read about your child, I will often recognise aspects of their presentation or experiences from my own children, my wider family or families I have previously supported. That never means assuming two children are the same. Quite the opposite: one of the biggest things my own experience has taught me is just how individual SEND is. But lived experience can help me recognise issues, ask the right questions and understand the practical reality behind what is written on paper.

There is another side to that lived experience which I think it is equally important to be upfront about. I am still a SEND parent myself, with significant caring responsibilities. The SEND Friend is therefore not a conventional 9–5 office, and I cannot always offer appointments as quickly or as flexibly as somebody working without those responsibilities might be able to.

Often, communication will need to happen through WhatsApp messages or voice notes rather than a scheduled telephone call. I frequently work at night and may message clients in the evening or late at night, although I never expect a response outside of the hours that suit you. My availability for calls can sometimes be limited. I appreciate that this way of working will not suit everybody, and I would much rather be honest about that from the outset than promise a level of availability I cannot provide.

What I can promise is that when I accept your work, I take that commitment seriously. Your work will be completed — even if that sometimes means I am working on it at 2am — and it will receive the time, attention and care it requires. I will always aim to complete my work to the highest professional standard I can provide.

SEND cases are rarely as simple as one document or one decision. Often, understanding what is happening requires looking at the wider picture: an EHCP alongside professional reports, assessments, school records, correspondence, previous decisions and the history of what has happened over time.

I am comfortable working with complex cases and large volumes of documentation. I take the time to understand the history, identify the important evidence, spot inconsistencies or gaps, and establish what further evidence may be needed.

My work extends across a broad range of SEND issues. I have experience with EHC Needs Assessment requests, complex EHCP drafting and review, Annual Reviews, securing provision, placement disputes, independent and specialist placements, EOTAS and EOTIS, Section 19 alternative education duties, children and young people who are unable to access school, EBSA, Local Authority delays and failures, complaints, SEND Tribunal appeals and Tribunal Working Documents.

I also regularly work on cases where the issue is not neatly contained within one process. Sometimes the real task is working through years of evidence and correspondence, identifying what has happened, separating the important issues from the noise, establishing what the law and evidence actually require, and deciding what needs to happen next.

For me, good advocacy is not simply about arguing with a school or Local Authority. It is about understanding the SEND framework, carefully analysing the available evidence, asking the right questions, identifying where something has gone wrong and presenting a clear, focused and evidence-based case for what needs to change.

I am confident in the areas in which I work, including complex cases. I am comfortable challenging decisions, identifying failures to follow statutory processes, working with extensive professional evidence, negotiating with Local Authorities and supporting families through SEND Tribunal proceedings.

But being confident in my work also means being confident enough to recognise its limits.

I am not legally qualified and do not present myself as having expertise across wider areas of law. If I believe your situation requires specialist legal advice, a particular professional assessment, or expertise that I cannot appropriately provide, I will tell you.

Where I can appropriately support one aspect of a case but another requires different expertise, I will be clear about that too. If at any stage I do not believe I am the right person to support or continue supporting your case, I will say so rather than work beyond my professional scope.

Equally, if I believe you do not need to pay for professional advocacy to deal with the issue you have brought to me, I will tell you. Where appropriate, I may instead point you towards free information, resources or services that I believe will give you what you need without you having to spend your money.

SEND advocacy is currently an unregulated area. This is something I feel extremely strongly about, because a lack of formal regulation does not mean families should have to accept a lack of professional standards.

There are excellent advocates doing extremely valuable work. There are also people who move from navigating SEND for their own family into providing paid advocacy without necessarily appreciating the responsibility that comes with taking on somebody else’s case. Personal experience can be an incredibly valuable foundation — it is where my own journey began — but personal experience alone is not enough.

An EHCP is a legal document. Decisions made during the EHCP process can affect a child’s education for years, and mistakes are not always quick or easy to put right. Tribunal proceedings, complaints and other routes of redress can take considerable time, particularly with current backlogs. That is why I believe anyone accepting payment to advise or advocate for families should take the responsibility seriously, understand the limits of their knowledge and be willing to say when something is outside their competence.

Every poor experience with an advocate also makes it harder for those of us who are genuinely trying to provide a professional, responsible and trustworthy service in an unregulated field.

My intention is to be an ethical, responsible and trustworthy advocate. For me, that means not taking on work that falls outside my knowledge or professional scope, maintaining confidentiality, recognising and avoiding conflicts of interest — including not taking on cases involving children or young people who attend the same setting as my own children — being honest about what I can and cannot do, and always acting with integrity.

I hold professional indemnity insurance and take my professional responsibilities seriously. I will not accept work simply because someone is willing to pay me to do it. The interests of the child or young person, and providing families with honest and appropriate support, will always come before securing paid work.

I am very conscious that families should not have to fight for their child to receive the support they are entitled to, let alone feel that they have to pay someone to help them do it. Unfortunately, I also know that many families reach a point where they want or need additional support navigating the SEND system.

I know there are advocates who charge less than I do, and I also know there are advocates and professionals who charge substantially more. I try to keep my fees as fair and accessible as possible, while also recognising the value of my time, knowledge, experience and the work involved in providing a professional service.

Some pieces of work may look relatively simple from the outside but involve many hours of reading, cross-referencing evidence, researching, drafting and checking before the finished work reaches you. My fees reflect the work involved, not simply the length of the final document or the time spent speaking with you.

Where I can offer a fixed price, I do, so that you know what something will cost before committing to it. Where a case is more complex or the amount of work cannot reasonably be predicted in advance, I will discuss the likely scope and cost with you before work begins.

I will also never recommend a paid service simply because one is available. If I believe you can reasonably deal with something yourself, or that a free service or resource is likely to give you the support you need, I will tell you.

I believe families deserve fair pricing, transparency and choice. At the same time, I recognise the value of the specialist service I provide, and I believe it is reasonable for my fees to reflect that.

Every day is a school day, and the SEND landscape is constantly evolving — often for the better, although sometimes not.

I continue to learn, undertake training and keep my knowledge up to date because I believe that anyone supporting families through SEND should be willing to keep learning too. No advocate can know everything, and I do not believe professionalism means pretending otherwise.

For me, it means knowing my area well, continuing to develop my knowledge, recognising when I need to research something further, and knowing when another professional needs to be involved.

I am also aware of the ongoing discussion about potential changes to the SEND system, its legal framework and the legislation underpinning it. I am mindful of those developments, but until changes are actually confirmed and implemented, I continue to focus my time, energy and education on the law and statutory framework as they exist now. Families need advice based on the system they are navigating today, rather than speculation about what it may look like in the future.

Ultimately, I want families who choose The SEND Friend to know what they can expect from me: careful and thorough work, honest advice, respect for confidentiality, clear professional boundaries, fair and transparent fees, and advocacy that remains focused on the individual child or young person at the centre of the case — even if our communication happens primarily through WhatsApp messages, amidst the chaos of SEND parenting and a collection of slightly uncoordinated voice notes. 

My working process might not look particularly corporate, but the standard of the finished work is professional. I promise, it all comes together in the end, and you’d never know.