Celebrations at Bright Futures as £3,600 funding secured for tribunals

CELEBRATIONS ARE being held at a school in Grasscroft for children with autism after the community helped raise £3,600 to secure legal advice for upcoming tribunals for six of their pupils.

Zoe Thompson, Head of Development at the school and also a parent, set up a crowdfunding page with five other parents to raise the funds by May 3 so they can make their case at Special Educational Needs tribunals for six pupils.

A family photoshoot was held at the school, raising £700 which helped to take them over the finish-line of their initial target of £3,600.

Delighted Zoe said: “I want to say a great big THANK YOU to all our supporters. With your help, we have reached our initial funding target and I have already been able to access legal guidance to help the next tribunal case on Thursday 25 May.”

However, the hard work is not over yet as a stretch target of £6,000 now has to be met in 30 days to ensure legal advice can be accessed for the remaining tribunals.

A host of exciting fundraising events, including another photoshoot, are being organised and more details will follow soon.

Zoe added: “Please pledge again if you can. If not, don’t worry – you can still help by sharing our CrowdJustice page, letting people know why our campaign is important and asking them to pledge.

“After the success of the local BBC news coverage, Clare is determined to get us onto the This Morning sofa! We will let you know if she pulls that off.”

The tribunals are seeking to secure home-based social communication provision via the children’s Education Health and Care plans.

Research has shown that if parents can be supported to work in a particular ‘social communication’ way in the family environment, the severity of their children’s autism can be reduced.

Crowdfunding will pay for legal guidance from a solicitor and legal representation from a barristerand any surplus will pay for special expert reports that will help families to secure this social communication input in their children’s EHC Plans.

“If we win these cases, we will share our legal arguments so that other families can use them to secure similar social communication provision in the home.”

Find out more and make a donation on their CrowdJustice page online.