More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
A mother has described the struggle to get her autistic son into a special needs school as new figures show the "massive shortage" of places in part of Kent.
Former GP health assistant Lyn Watson said she feels "quite lucky" to have been able to get her autistic son, James Tracey, into a special school near Deal.
Her comments come after Kent County Council published a report detailing the huge disparity in the number of school places allocated to children who have autism across the county.
There are fewer specialist school places for youngsters with autism in Ashford, Dover and Folkestone and Hythe than any other part of the county.
A total of 48 school places for autistic children have been authorised in the south of Kent this September compared to 413 in the west; 359 in the east and 183 in the north.
Ms Watson, of Clarendon Place, Dover, told how she had to fight with Kent County Council (KCC) for several months to persuade the local authority to change her son James' place of study from a state to a special school in 2015.
The 14-year-old teenager was diagnosed with autism when he was 11 after suffering from high level anxiety attacks and panic attacks during his short time at secondary school.
Ms Watson, 39, who lives with her partner James Hunt, 43, and four children, including James, Eva, 12, Thomas, six, and nine-month-old Ivy, described this as a "challenging" and "difficult" period due to the elongated KCC process which was hampered by council administrative failures and a shortage of special education institutions.
"It was difficult because I was given a contact within Kent County Council and I was chasing him because my son was suffering..." - Lyn Watson
She said: "There were only three schools in the whole of Kent catered to my son's needs, otherwise I would have had to home educate him."
Support for her eldest child's education was delayed after a contact from Kent County Council gave her the wrong number for a special school advisor who had already departed the council.
Ms Watson, who will be getting remarried next year, said: "It was difficult because I was given a contact within Kent County Council and I was chasing him because my son was suffering.
"He was self-harming and having panic attacks.
"I was given the number for someone who had left KCC. I didn't know at the time and was getting desperate and leaving answer messages.
"Eventually I rang another number to put a complaint in and talked to another person about it. I was bawling down the phone to them. It was very stressful."
Ms Watson persuaded Kent County Council to pay for her eldest son's special school education in November 2015 after conducting the rigorous process of choosing a school for her son.
The mum-of-four said: "Autism is such a broad spectrum and I do not like the idea of units attached to schools. I wanted him to study somewhere which suits him. There is a massive shortage of special schools in Kent."
As KCC, the education authority, attempts to cope with the growing demand for people with special needs, plans are in place to create an extra 643 school places for autistic children throughout Kent by 2023, including 182 in the south.
An extra 238 have been commissioned for east Kent, 183 in the west and 40 in the north, the report also says.
More than 160 autistic students will be catered for at the site of the former Walmer science college buildings near Dover.
Plans are also in place to open a new specialist resourced provision at schools in Ashford (Chilmington Green Primary School), Maidstone (East Borough Primary School), Thanet (Garlinge Primary School) and Dartford (Ebbsfleet Green) by 2020.
Around £11m has been allocated to Kent County Council in the last two years to improve school place allocation for autistic children, prioritising the south, by 2023.
The money has been allocated to the local authority as autism spectrum disorder continues to be the most prevalent and fastest growing need type across the county, according to the KCC report.
