For the first time in his life, 20-year-old James has made friends. He has been living and studying at a college which supports his complex learning disabilities, but his family worry the progress he has made over the past two years could be lost when funding dries up. His course at Coleg Elidyr in Carmarthenshire – which provides specialist education for young adults – comes to an end on 15 December. The Welsh government usually funds a maximum of two years education, and has said it could not comment on individual cases – but it has told the family it would not be making an exception in James’s case, and his parents are planning to challenge its decision in the courts.
James is autistic and has complex challenges, including high levels of anxiety and reading and numeracy levels equivalent to under five years of age. But he has come on in “leaps and bounds” at college, according to his family, making more progress in the past two years than at any stage. He has learned the concept of today, yesterday and tomorrow, says Lindsey. “Now he can understand if you say ‘we’re doing something tomorrow’ and he knows what that means and yesterday, he knows what that means, whereas before he didn’t understand that,” she said.
The family argue the skills he has learned need to be reinforced and that an educational psychologist and independent social worker have come to similar conclusions. His parents called the situation “heartbreaking” and said they faced a “cliff-edge situation” without an alternative plan in place if he had to leave the college. “He doesn’t know, because we can’t tell him because we don’t know what’s happening,” his dad Neil added.
Welsh government guidance said it generally funded specialist further education placements up to a maximum of two academic years, based on an agreed programme of study. But lawyers acting on behalf of the family said there was room to challenge decisions about funding for James, and they were applying for a judicial review. They said delays in rolling out the Additional Learning Needs Act left young people of James’s age without the ability to go to a tribunal if they disagreed with decisions about support.
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