About the author
I'm Sarah Wood, founder and writer behind EHCP Expert. My son has severe dyslexia and ADHD, so SEND isn't something I became interested in because I decided to build a website about it. I've had to understand it because I'm his mum.
Over the years I've had to learn about his needs, the support and provisions available to him, what works for him in practice, and how to make sure he can access his education and demonstrate what he's actually capable of. And, as we all know, a diagnosis is only the beginning. Unfortunately, it's often the beginning of a much longer fight to get the right support in place.
Getting a diagnosis can feel like a huge milestone. Finally, there's an explanation for why your child is finding certain things so difficult. But then comes the next question: what are we actually going to do about it?
A diagnosis of ADHD, dyslexia or another special educational need doesn't automatically translate into the support a child needs at school. That's the bit I've had to learn. With my son, I've had to understand not just the labels, but what they mean for him in practice. Where does he struggle? What helps? What provisions and adjustments does he need? What allows him to access the same learning as everybody else, and to show what he actually knows rather than being held back by the things he finds difficult?
And then comes the harder part: making sure those provisions are understood, agreed and actually happen. You very quickly find yourself learning a whole new language. SEN support. Reasonable adjustments. Access arrangements. Provision. Outcomes. Evidence. Assess, plan, do, review. SENCOs. EHC needs assessments. EHCPs. Nobody really prepares you for how much of an advocate you may need to become for your own child.
One of the things I think parents need to understand early on is that an EHCP isn't the beginning of SEND support. There are provisions, adjustments and support that can be put in place without an EHCP. For us, understanding those provisions has been incredibly important.
It taught me to stop thinking only in terms of "my child has ADHD" or "my child is severely dyslexic". Those diagnoses matter, of course they do. But the really useful conversation is about need and provision. How does this affect him in the classroom? What does he find difficult? What support reduces that difficulty? What's already being provided, is it enough, is it actually happening, and most importantly, is it working?
That shift, from simply describing a diagnosis to understanding need, provision and outcome, completely changes the conversation. And it's just as important when you move into the EHCP process.
Because the deeper you get into SEND, the more complicated it becomes. Suddenly you're dealing with schools, SENCOs, local authorities, professional reports, legislation, statutory timescales, assessments, evidence and terminology you may never have encountered before. And you're usually trying to understand all of this at exactly the point when you're worried that your child isn't getting what they need. That's not a great time to discover you need a crash course in the SEND system.
I wanted EHCP Expert to make that system easier to understand. Not just to explain what an EHCP is, but to help parents understand the journey around it. What support should already be happening? When might an EHC needs assessment be appropriate, and who can ask for one? What evidence might you need? What happens after you make the request, and what are the timescales? What should an EHCP contain, and what does provision actually mean? What happens if the local authority refuses, and what can you challenge? And what happens once a plan is in place?
Because when it's your child, you don't really want a lesson in SEND terminology. You want to know what happens next.
One of the biggest things my own experience has taught me is that provision shouldn't just sound good on paper. It needs to mean something in the real world. What is actually going to happen? Who is going to provide it? How often, and for how long? What is it intended to help with? And how will anyone know whether it's working?
Those questions matter whether you're looking at the support a school is already providing or trying to understand what should be specified in an EHCP. It's very easy to get lost in the language of SEND. I keep trying to bring it back to the child: what does this particular child need in order to learn and thrive?
I know what it's like to read reports about your own child and try to work out what they actually mean for their education. I know what it's like to discuss provisions and adjustments, talk to school about support, and try to separate what sounds reassuring from what genuinely makes a difference. And I know the emotional side of advocating for your child.
This isn't an abstract discussion about educational policy when you're the parent. It's your child. You know what they're capable of. You see where they're struggling. You see the difference the right support can make. And sometimes you're trying to explain all of that while dealing with a system that can feel much bigger and more complicated than you are. That's the parent perspective I bring to EHCP Expert.
SEND information can have real consequences for families, so I don't want this site simply repeating something because another website said it. Where possible, we go back to the source. That means checking current government guidance, legislation and other authoritative SEND information when we're explaining rights, duties and statutory processes.
If there's a deadline, we check it. If the law says something must happen, we want to know exactly what it says. If something is guidance rather than a legal requirement, that distinction matters too. And if the answer depends on the individual circumstances of a child, we'll say that rather than pretending there is one answer for everybody. The aim isn't to make parents into SEND lawyers. It's to help you understand enough of the system to ask the right questions and make informed decisions about what you do next.
I work with AI every day through Creative Sauce AI, so yes, AI is part of how I research, organise and build these resources. But AI isn't treated as the authority on SEND. It can be extremely useful for working through complicated information, comparing documents, organising evidence, explaining terminology or helping turn a jumble of thoughts into something coherent.
What it shouldn't do is invent a legal right, a statutory deadline or a provision and present it as fact. For important information, the source still matters. That's particularly important on a site like this.
There is a point in many SEND journeys where you realise you're going to have to understand far more about the system than you ever expected. You start out as Mum or Dad. Before long, you're reading reports, keeping evidence, preparing for meetings, learning terminology, asking questions about provision and trying to understand what your child is entitled to. Sometimes you're doing all of that while also fighting to get somebody to recognise that the current support simply isn't enough.
I can't make that part disappear. But I can take some of what I've learned as a SEND parent, combine it with proper research, and make the system a little easier to understand for the next parent arriving at it. Because underneath the forms, meetings, assessments, plans, deadlines and acronyms is the thing that actually matters: what does this child need to be able to learn and thrive? That's the question I've learned to ask for my own son, and it's the question I want EHCP Expert to help other parents keep asking too.
Understanding the system isn't the end goal. Getting the right support for your child is.
Sarah Wood
Founder and writer, EHCP Expert
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