\n<\/p>\n
Harvey Hind has just turned five. He can count to a thousand. He can recite the alphabet \u2013 forwards and backwards \u2013 and he loves Play-Doh and cars.<\/p>\n
The youngest of three children, Harvey is deafblind. He is severely sight impaired and uses bilateral cochlear implants as he is profoundly deaf.<\/p>\n
Like so many other families, Harvey\u2019s parents have had to fight tooth and nail to secure the educational support he needs. Now they\u2019re worried he could lose out again because of government plans to overhaul the special educational needs system in England.<\/p>\n
The family, who live in Clitheroe, Lancashire, waited more than a year for an education, health and care plan (EHCP) \u2013 a legally binding document that details the extra support to which Harvey is entitled \u2013 when it should take no longer than 20 weeks.<\/p>\n
The start of his educational journey was far from ideal as a result. Harvey was given a place in a busy mainstream nursery where, despite the best efforts of excellent staff, he simply could not cope. \u201cIt was heartbreaking,\u201d said his mother, Kimberly Hind, 35.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Kimberly and Harvey.<\/span> Photograph: Family handout<\/p>\n \u201cHe was anxiety-ridden. It was distressing and extremely challenging on every level. He stopped eating, sleeping, listening, talking \u2026 everything. He just became this little boy that we didn\u2019t recognise.\u201d<\/p>\n He became so upset that for three months he didn\u2019t go to nursery at all and his mother had to give up her job managing a primary school kitchen to focus on him. In September, he started at a special school for deaf children and is thriving.<\/p>\n His mother agrees the current system needs reform. \u201cYes, we need change, absolutely because it is not working how it is.\u201d She is worried, however, that the government\u2019s changes, due to be unveiled imminently, will involve funding cuts that could affect Harvey.<\/p>\n <\/span>Harvey is thriving at the special school for deaf children he now attends.<\/span> Photograph: Family handout<\/p>\n \u201cI fear they will have the power to take back what we\u2019ve fought so hard for in the first place if there\u2019s cuts to funding,\u201d she told the Guardian.<\/p>\n \u201cHarvey does receive a lot of funding now that we fought for because he needs it. If they strip any of that back, he will suffer again.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we going to go backwards? The barriers we\u2019ve spent so long breaking down, are they going to rebuild them again? All the struggles we\u2019ve been through \u2013 I just don\u2019t know if we could get through that again.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t feel confident at all about how the education system might change for disabled children \u2013 and this is from actual experience, it\u2019s not just an opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can change anything by law but the local authorities still won\u2019t follow it. They don\u2019t have the staff, the funding or the training.\u201d<\/p>\n Happily settled in his new school, Harvey is like a different child. It\u2019s a long journey for a small boy \u2013 an hour and a half each way \u2013 but he\u2019s in a class of five instead of a big group. \u201cWhen he wakes up in the morning the first thing he says to me is \u2018Mr Jones\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s his class teacher,\u201d said his mother.<\/p>\n \u201cHe runs out the door to his school taxi and comes back home extremely happy. He\u2019s come on so well cognitively, too. Everyone says he\u2019s very bright, especially with maths.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the ordeal Harvey went through, when he was missing out on specialist provision, has had lasting effects. He loves adults and he loves his brothers but he\u2019s still frightened of other children and won\u2019t interact with them.<\/p>\n \u201cI think those early years of education are so important and if disabled children with complex needs miss out on them it has an impact for a very, very long time, if not for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Harvey Hind has just turned five. He can count to a thousand. He can recite the alphabet \u2013 forwards and backwards \u2013 and he loves Play-Doh and cars. The youngest of three children, Harvey is deafblind. He is severely sight impaired and uses bilateral cochlear implants as he is profoundly deaf. Like so many other<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1018,2456,3156,9590,4558,2972,1015,1014,1017,1116,808],"class_list":{"0":"post-43121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-educational","9":"tag-englands","10":"tag-familys","11":"tag-fought","12":"tag-hard","13":"tag-looms","14":"tag-overhaul","15":"tag-send","16":"tag-special","17":"tag-weve","18":"tag-worry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}