Pros and Cons of CSPs

Ellenor:

What are the pros and cons of having a CSP?

Mark:

Okay, so some of the cons are, I think, just acknowledging that it can take a lot of time and emotional energy to go through the process of asking to be assessed for one, and if your child is going to be assessed for one, then going along to those meetings and having those discussions, we know people can have very limited and a lot of pressure on their time and already have a bunch of meetings that they need to go to so we know it’s another one to go along to. Also it doesn’t necessarily change your child’s rights to get support. So with or without a csp, your child has a right to get extra help with their learning if they need it, for whatever reasons. So it doesn’t change that. It’s not a kind of magic fix in terms of getting new or different support in place. So those are two downsides, I suppose.

The pros are it’s the only educational support plan in Scotland that is a legal document, a legal plan. So it adds a level of accountability. It means that the support written into a CSP must be provided. And if it’s not for whatever reasons, or if the plan isn’t accurate, there’s more you can do about it. So parents and carers or young people themselves can appeal take things to the tribunal, which is an independent body. They’re separate to school, they’re separate to local authority, and they have the power to kind of change decisions around CSPs and what’s written in them. Another upside to having CSP is the flip side of the downside of having more meetings. But it means that a child with a CSP only gets one if there’s multiple people involved. So if there’s lots of support coming from school and other agencies. And a CSP means that at least once a year everyone gets around the same table to talk together and make sure that they’re working together as well as they can to get your child the support they need to benefit fully from their learning.