The mother of a boy with autism wants to change the way parents of children with suspected special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) are treated when their children are out of school.
In a petition to Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi, Susan Liverman says parents of children who have not yet been diagnosed are particularly vulnerable to fines or the threat of one unless they get their children back into education.
What are the experiences of parents whose children do not go to school?
Ms Liverman, from Corby, Northamptonshire, started the petition after her nine-year-old son Arthur was unable to go to school due to extreme anxiety and panic attacks.
“Last year Arthur had an autistic breakdown, we didn’t know at the time it was an autistic breakdown because he hadn’t been diagnosed with autism,” she says.
“He has now been diagnosed with autism and is recovering from that breakdown.
“I felt that the treatment we had and continue to have just wasn’t fit for purpose and had put more pressure on us as a family.”
Although the school marked his absences as approved, she said she was told by local authority “it was going to be difficult” if she couldn’t provide proof of illness.
Ms Liverman says Arthur’s case was then classified as an urgent referral but “he wasn’t seen for months”.
“One system has been pressuring us to ask for evidence and another system said we cannot see you for months even though you are an urgent case. We fell through the cracks,” she says.
She received a diagnosis from her doctor and was able to get private counseling, “but other families aren’t so lucky,” she adds.
“There’s a crisis, every SEND parent is going to have a negative story to tell,” she says.
Maddie Roberts, from Sandy, Bedfordshire, says she was unable to get her now nine-year-old son Harleigh to school when he began to suffer from anxiety.
“The idea of going to school and then trying to comply with so many requirements and rules, the hustle and bustle, the amount of children, he just couldn’t do it,” she says.
“It was mentioned to me by the school that because they couldn’t see a medical or justifiable reason for him not being in school, they marked his presence as unauthorized, so we knew that would add up to a fine very quickly would .”
She says the possibility of a fine puts “so much pressure” on parents.
It can take six months to a year to do an assessment that can then lead to a SEND diagnosis, she says.
Ms Roberts adds: “When you have nowhere to go, you’re just lost, you feel like you’re failing as a parent.”
Central Bedfordshire Council told the BBC: “Council has a legal duty to fine parents who do not send their children to school and have no good reason.
“When a child has special educational needs but is yet to be diagnosed, it can mean they fall into a gray area of not going to school but not yet having a valid reason. In these cases, we listen to the views of parents and other professionals and use our discretion not to penalize the parents.”
The Department of Education (DfE) said: “We expect schools and local authorities to work with families to discuss the reasons for a child’s absence and jointly agree on an action plan so that the right support can be provided to help them to return fully -time tracking.
“As usual, attendance funds are available to parents, which can be used by schools and local authorities to improve attendance, but only as a last resort and when there is no valid reason for the child’s absence.”
North Northamptonshire Council has also been asked for an opinion.
Sandy’s Holly Bascom is pursuing an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis for her son Sami, 14, after he stopped going to school.
“It’s been going on since he was younger, but his problems have gone unnoticed,” she says.
“Now it’s become a more structured way of parenting, he’s struggling to keep up with the class, his emotional maturity has faltered.”
She says her son would tell her he was ill, but “I know he’s not ill, it’s very difficult then because he would be desperate, he would get upset and I know there’s something else going on goes.
“His mental health deteriorated to the point where he just couldn’t get out of bed,” she says.
In December, she received a wrongful absence fine, which she describes as “devastating.”
Ms Bascom says: “I would love nothing more for him than getting up in the morning, having breakfast and going to school with a smile on my face and in a uniform.
“All it did was make Sami feel guilty [and] made everything in our house really awful.
“I felt really isolated. It’s embarrassing. The whole thing is negative. It’s completely pointless.”
She has not paid the fine and is preparing for a court case.
“It makes you feel like a total failure as a parent when the kids go through something like that,” she adds.
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