Staying Sane in Law
Staying Sane in Law with Annmarie Carvalho, the lawyers' therapist. Each episode, Annmarie meets a leader in the legal profession and the therapists who work with them, to talk about balancing high-pressure careers with the ups and downs of everyday life.
Staying Sane in Law
The SEND Specialist: Education Lawyer Lenka Wall on parenting and representing children with special educational needs
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In this show, Annmarie Carvalho - the Lawyers' Therapist - is joined by Lenka Wall, a specialist education lawyer at Russel Cooke. Lenka has a wealth of lived experience as the parent of a child with special educational needs and neurodiversity, and along with Annmarie and producer Andrew (who are both parents of neurodiverse kids), they share the highs and lows of parenting and the challenges of dealing with schools, reasonable adjustments and the need for support. If you would like to know more about the TCC support group for lawyers with neurodiverse children, contact: support@carvalhotherapy.com
Hello, I'm Amory Carvallier, the lawyer's therapist and CEO of TCC, the Legal Therapy Coaching and Training Agency. Welcome to Stay Insane in Law, the show where every episode I'm in conversation with a key person in the legal profession talking about the gritty realities of life in the law. Today I am thrilled that we have Lenka Wall of Russell Cook solicitors joining us. Lenka, welcome to Stay Insane in Law. Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here today.
SPEAKER_00It's a pleasure for me, Lenka, because you've got great audio and you've come equipped with uh some awesome uh headphones and a microphone. So I'm just gonna say, yeah, you can come back. You can definitely come back.
SPEAKER_01This is what Andrew's into. He's into headphones, he's into tech. That's he's into his swoop squirrel costume, which we might let onto later on. Lenka, you have the most fascinating job. Okay. You are an education lawyer at Russell Cook, as I said, in London. Uh, you've been at the firm for six years, haven't qualified in 2015. And you have a really powerful combination, which is the professional experience in what is, as I say, a really fascinating area of law, um, and also the lived experience as a sen parent yourself. And I'm super impressed because you also speak fluent, Slovak, and Czech. So me and Andrew feel massively intimidated right now.
SPEAKER_00Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_01Now, I I wanted to ask you first of all about kind of what your job is like day to day, because I think it's one of those areas of law that so many people are interested in, and it's it's very topical as well. So just to tell our listeners a little bit, you know, as I understand it, you secure EHC plans and school and college placements and education and therapy packages for children. You also uh involved in disability discrimination actions on behalf of children and parents and where there's been a failure to make reasonable adjustments. And you also do a lot of your own advocacy, which I think is one of those things that a lot of solicitors get the real heebie jeebies about. Um, but can you tell us a bit about the average day for you in your work? What's it like doing your job? Okay, so I think I'd start by saying there is no average day.
SPEAKER_02So it just really depends. So kind of, I have weeks when I have hearings and meetings, and I like the vast majority of a day and then a week is just spent talking to people. So that they can be kind of very interaction heavy. But I've got periods which are very paperwork heavy. So for instance, if I'm doing a so-called working document for a tribunal appeal, so propose amendments to an EHC plan based on expert reports. I mean, that is a five-plus-hour job. So I could have a day where I'm just doing that the entire day and answering a few emails, and then, you know, the same day in a week's time, I could be in a tribunal hearing all day. So it is incredibly varied. But um the kind of common themes are a lot of emails, writing and answering a lot of emails, um, fair bit of drafting, um, a fair bit of client contact, and then a few times a year I will prepare for and represent my clients in in tribunal hearings.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that that representation, does it give you the the heebie jeebies, or are you quite used to it now? Both. Actually. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, it it evolved over the years. So I I still do feel nervous and anxious before hearing, but just just a lot less nowadays, to be honest. And it really just very much depends on the case as well. So yeah, sometimes it's absolutely fine. Sometimes I am a bit on edge.
SPEAKER_01I wanted to ask you as well about your um personal experience as well, because you know, one of the reasons we were really thrilled when you said yes to coming on the show is both Andrew and I come at this from a kind of lived experience perspective as well. So one of Andrew's sons has ADHD, uh, one of my sons is autistic with ADHD and dyslexia. And, you know, I I also support lots of lawyers who are parents of CEN children as well and neurodivergent children. And it is a journey to use a euphemism. It is a journey, it really is. And I was I was watching um a really great podcast the other day, actually called Autistic Dads. And the guy who uh was speaking was talking about isolation, and that's one of the biggest things I think about of how isolating it can feel when you're on that journey, you realize okay, there's something a bit different going on, all of the investigations, trying to get the right support, trying to deal with it emotionally yourself as well. You know, I think it can be, you know, it can feel like a grieving process, um, quite honestly, in terms of what you expected it to be like. And and and often it it is just harder than it is having a neurotypical child. Would you mind telling us a little bit about your experience?
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely, yeah. So, oh goodness me, I don't even know where to start because everything you said, every point just resonates so much. So, so yeah, so I I have a 15-year-old daughter with um a diagnosis of autism and ADHD. Um, so I mean, the the first kind of interesting bit for me was that I already started practicing special educational needs before her needs can't kind of became apparent. So I had this element of am I just projecting things onto my child because this is what I do at work? So that that was that was like first out in my mind. Am I like thinking now somebody like categorizing all of her behaviors as special educational needs um because because of what I do, but no, it wasn't it wasn't the case. But yeah, so so she um so yeah, she received the ADHD diagnosis um in year five, um and or year four, that's bad of me not to remember, but it was one of those two. Um and that one that one was pretty obvious. Um, the autism diagnosis was was a lot more tricky because despite kind of what I do and all the expert reports that I read, I couldn't see it for a long time. So um, but yeah, it it it's there now. I mean, and also she kind of presented very differently as a much younger child to kind of the way she presented as a tween. So so that's been that in itself was was was a was a journey. And the kind of the needs when they started shining through a lot more, that also coincided with COVID and and lockdowns. And it was like, so which one is it now? You know, where what is this presentation? Where's it coming from? Um so it absolutely has been such a journey uh in so many ways, you know, but but you know, it's it's it's there now, the diagnoses are there, they they are absolutely, you know, they are accurate. Um, they have allowed us to get her support. It they've really helped her to just understand herself better and just stop thinking that something's profoundly wrong. She she kind of now understands that there is a very good explanation for why she thinks in a different way and feels certain things in a different way. And, you know, s you know, sensory stimuli are processed in her brain in a different way to other young people. Now, um as a parent, isolating do you know? I I actually haven't found it hugely isolating in the sense that because of what I do, I know there's so many parents, you know, in the same position. And I do have friends with who have children with special educational needs. So isolation hasn't been a huge kind of topic for me. But and I I will just forever remember this completely bizarre situation at the start of the year six, um, when when my daughter had already had the ADHD diagnosis um that was on her, that was on a kind of you know, individual education plan at school, and staff were meant to know about this and and you know, implement various bits of support at the time. And also she was experiencing um terrible problems with her sleep at the time, as is very common, um, taking, you know, ages to fall asleep and then sleeping sometimes three, four hours before going to school, then being completely exhausted, for then sleeping lessons and so on. I mean, ultimately, um, we we obviously got told that she's got delayed um sleep phase syndrome, which was no surprise at all. And after a lot of fight, she was prescribed melatonin. But anyway, so at the start of the year six, um, so there's this ADHD, and then I send up, I was trying to get the melatonin prescribed and also referred her to a sleep clinic because the problems were so severe. So I emailed the school at the start of the year saying, okay, so this is what's happening with her sleep. I went to the GP, I need XYZ from you to help me go back to the GP to get this referral and to get um melatonin prescribed. And about two weeks later, I get like called into an urgent meeting with the two class teachers at the time with with her two class teachers. Um, and they go, Oh, you've got very, very serious concerns about your daughter and and and so on. So we've noticed she struggles to focus and she's sleepy at school. And I'm like, Are you for real? Haven't I just told you this like in my email two weeks ago? Um and they're like, What's going on at home? And I'm like, seriously, nothing's going on at home. Would you mind just going away and reading her the HD report and the email I send you about her sleep difficulties? And then we can perhaps reconvene. You know, I didn't quite say that, but that was in my mind. So, so it's this aspect, you know, this like presumption that if your child is showing difficulty struggles, the starting position, default position in many people's minds that this is something that you're doing as a parent. It's so harmful and actually insulting.
SPEAKER_00I have the opposite experience when my son was at primary school because I I saw his teachers, and a number of times I said, Look, is are they supposed to be like this? I've never had a baby before, so I've never had a child before. I don't know what to expect, but he's often jumping off things and doing, you know, what seems to be nutty stuff. And he seems to be very sort of oppositional and and disobedient. And, you know, uh, I'm not sure if it seems quite what I was expecting because I wasn't like that as a kid, etc. etc. And you sort of fumble through. And they responded to me like I was some sort of Victorian dad who was, you know, wanting to make sure my kids were seen and not heard. And it wasn't that at all, but there was a real lack of understanding between the you know where I was coming from. And and the thing is, then of course, you get this terrible wave of guilt, don't you? Because then you get the diagnosis and you think, oh God, all those times I've been angry over refusing to, you know, do your homework and all those sorts of things. And actually, that was the wrong approach because in fact there was something else there, and I felt terrible. So I think up until the diagnosis came, I felt like I was probably the worst dad in the world. And you know, I was trying to be the best dad. And it was you're going through all this stuff, you just you want the teachers to know more about where you're coming from, and they just don't.
SPEAKER_01But God, that's so often the case, though, isn't it? And this is why it's so powerful for you to do the job that you do, Linker, because you're coming at this having had these struggles. And, you know, as as you've both said, you know, the struggles that I had around autistic meltdowns and trying to say to the school, you know, this is what we're dealing with at home. This is real, really hard. This has changed our lives and the lives of our other two children hugely. And getting this, and you know, I won't go into detail, but getting this kind of yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and then they experienced one of them with our boy. And then actually, the teacher afterward, you know, she sort of looked slightly ashen-faced, and she was like, it was that feeling of okay, now you understand what I've been trying to say. But I think, as Andrew said, it I think it's so tricky as a parent because it it's not just our guilt, is it? The guilt's been kind of implanted to us but into us by society because wherever you go, particularly if you have a child who manifests the neurodivergence in quite an out there way, as my boy does. You know, he's not a big masker. He's kind of out there. So you are judged every day by people, and you will have people come up to you and sort of assume it's bad behavior and assume it's a lack of discipline. And so inevitably we internalize that, don't we? And we think, oh, I should be, you know, being disciplined with them about this. And yet we know about pathological demand avoidance, and we know actually these kind of traditional disciplinary approaches don't work. And yet, society's kind of saying to us at the same time, well, you should be controlling your children. And, you know, there's still that element there, isn't there? The people that you deal with, the parents that you deal with, it's it's highly emotive work, isn't it? I mean, how do you deal with that? How do you process that?
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness. You know, with difficulty still all these years down the line. I mean, I I sometimes get incredibly upset. Um, so yeah, I mean, I I I really do kind of feel for them. I I don't I really don't yet the skill of kind of separating emotions at work and emotions at home, or even trying not to be too emotional at work. It's it's very undeveloped in me. And I don't know, I I don't think it's going to change anymore. Um I I just, you know, I do really, really feel for my clients. I, you know, I do share the upsets and the frustrations and so on. So how do I deal with it? Well, it just just foces it, as anything else.
SPEAKER_01Like it's such it's such an interesting conversation, though, because there are some lawyers that we speak to where they do they dissociate from the emotion of what they're working with and they've learned to do that, or perhaps it was something that innately an ability they had in them anyway, a slight separation emotionally from the work. Whereas other lawyers, as as you say, really honestly, and I was always like this as a family and divorce lawyer, you know, I never I was often told I was too sensitive, you know, as too attached to the clients, too involved. But I honestly don't know, you know, which one is right in inverted commas if either of them, because if I think about who I would want to go and see if I was instructing a lawyer in relation to my son, I would want that lawyer to give a damn, actually. I would want them to be affected, I would want them to care. And also, again, we spoke to Mark Evans, the president of the Law Society, um, about this a couple of days ago, about the meaning of work. You know, a lot of lawyers, we know about the problems with mental health in the profession. We know about the struggles around well-being. But I think a lot of those struggles arise when people lose a sense of meaning in what they do. They can't remember why they're doing what they're doing. Um, so they suffer this thing called moral injury, where they're like, I'm not really sure why, what's the purpose of this? Whereas for you, you know exactly why you're doing what you're doing. Do you do you think that your role is in providing emotional support as well as legal support? Do you think inevitably?
SPEAKER_02Do you know I I the simple answer is no, because I'm not trained to provide emotional support. And I would be very worried that if I try to do that, I'm going outside expertise and I may actually cause harm. So no, we you know, I need to be very, very careful. But obviously, I am very sympathetic and very empathetic and patient and and and so on and so on, but I don't want to stray into something I have not been trained to do. And I think there is a difference between being properly understanding, as I said, you know, a patient and and so on, but just not then trying to do someone else's job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and presumably often sort of recommending to parents, or indeed sometimes they will already be receiving outside help, therapeutic support to help them manage. So, Lenka, what are the top three things that you think need to change about the SENS system in this country?
SPEAKER_02So the first one um would be accountability. I I'll give a very specific example. Um so one of the things that I kind of find is a is a big issue and really needs addressing is accountability specifically within um tribunal appeals um concerning education, health, and care plans, where I often see a scenario that there is either poor or no engagement from the other side, which is, you know, in our cases the local authority um cases drag, um, you know, and and either local authorities lose because they have very poor cases from the start, um, but or they settle at the very last moment. Now, with the current time frames from registration to hearing, we are talking a year plus. Um, you know, these these cases run for such a long time. Parents of young people ultimately succeed at great, you know, they succeed but at great cost to them. So that will be not only financial, but also emotion, you know, all the uncertainty, anxiety, stress connected with that process. And then at the end of it, um, they basically can't get a cost back because in the tribunal, although there is um a provision for um making a cost application asking the tribunal to order the losing party to pay the winning party's costs, um, that discretion is very rarely exercised. So what this means is that there is just no accountability here for failing to properly engage with an appeal. So that that that for me is a huge problem because that means there's no incentive to to engage better and earlier and achieve a better resolution. And I don't want to generalize because there are a number of cases where legal authorities do engage constructively and we resolve them early. This is not across the board, but what I've just described has happened far too often. So that was a very long answer to your very long description of the first problem. Second, I think from my perspective is just the underfunding in the system. So, you know, the law's good, but unfortunately the funds are missing. So I just need to be more funded to to actually, you know, equip local authorities to properly comply with those legal duties. And third issue for me is some of the attitudes that I sometimes come across on the part of um some professionals that I come into contact. Um sometimes there's kind of this sense of not properly believing, you know, what the parents are saying and experiencing. I would say kind of a bit of distrust, um sometimes a real kind of lack of understanding. Sometimes lack of understanding of the law, but generally just I feel unwillingness to appreciate the challenges that my clients are and their children and younger people are going through. And and that can be kind of very upsetting emotionally, um, where it's you know, I think this should be obvious and there should be kind of some basic level of understanding and sympathy and so on. And sometimes it's missing, and that can be very upsetting. I mean, again, it's so broad, and and I've thought about it, and I thought, I mean, shall I just talk about kind of one thing that I find really, really weird and and that um just really doesn't sight with me? And this is this is far more with my parents in a hat on, actually, than a moya hat on. Um, and this is the um the discipline system in in in English menstrual secondary schools, like the the behavior policies and all the kind of points and merits and demerits where basically it feels like every breath your child takes in a secondary school is then somehow graded against this this these discipline policies and behavior policies. I know I'm being too dramatic, but you know, when you when you're kind of looking at the system and there's like demerit for shuffling in the seat, you know, for a child with sensory needs, who who needs that, you know, who needs that movement in order to be focused in order to focus. And it's uh it's just insane. You know, I I I I honestly find this A very difficult to comprehend and B just extremely harmful because it's the strictness and the level of control and oversight just doesn't resemble normal day to day life. Like you wouldn't encounter this anywhere else, I don't think, or in any other pro profession a little of a little like let's say in the army, for instance. So you know, my daughter found it extremely confusing. And she was for the first couple of years of secondary school when she was getting these demerits for the most ridiculous of things coming. Incidentally, the vast majority majority of which were actually, you know, they'd arise from her special educational needs anyway. She, I mean, she was incredibly upset about it. It's like, what am I doing wrong? And I'm like, you're not doing anything wrong. You're just being, you know, you're just being you. Um so yeah, this is like among there's so many things that I would change, but but this is the one that I actually keep ranting about probably the most kind of at home. It's like, what's this on this record again? You know, why is this being perceived as something negative negative that should be attracting some sort of a you know consequence? It's just it's just crazy. Um and she had a for her year nine was the toughest kind of in in very many ways. And you know, this was this was a you know, she was a neurodivergent child with diagnosed special educational needs going through a really tough time. And she kind of at the end of the year emerged. I I don't know how the figures in front of me, but let's say four times as many negative behaviour points as positive ones. I mean, what message does this send? You know, like not only there's a young person struggling across the board, but they're also being told by these numbers that they're just you know they're naughty basically. Uh anyway, you know, I could go on for such a long time. But this the the uh all the as I said, demerits, um, eventually them kind of leading on to isolation, exclusion, etc. Primarily in, you know, from my perspective in the mainstream secondary scores. I I I yeah, I I them get it. And and I I I feel it it's harmful, very, very harmful.
SPEAKER_01How do you decompress then from the work? I mean, you have you have two children yourself. Two children? Yeah, I've got two children, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, also got a little one, seven-year-old, yeah.
SPEAKER_01On the basis that you have any time to decompress. Like, how what do you do to stay so? Very little, very little. It's funny to stay insane.
SPEAKER_02One of the first things I said to my colleagues when you've invited me on your podcast was like, they've got the wrong person, it's called stain sane in law. I think we've passed that point. I don't think there's any way back. We passed that.
SPEAKER_01What's that saying, like the horse, the door, and the the locking the door after the horse is bolted? Something like that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, so so for me personally, so I I I am a very keen traveller and I don't travel anywhere near as much as I do. I probably want to do about 10 times more traveling than I can currently do, to be honest. But yeah, when I can, I I just love going away. So it's the kind of whole the immersion in the new, you know, the discovery, the kind of the sensory experience of being away, listening to different languages, you know, just going to a supermarket in a different country and seeing what they sell, you know, all the different foods. So yeah, I'm I'm just to be to be on the thief down, I'm I'm I'm such an adventurer and discoverer and traveller and a bit of a nomad. So which actually is like, well, where did you, you know, why are you a lawyer then? But um is it yeah, you may maybe when I retire I'll get my camper man and just like come back to England two weeks a year and just live on the road rest of the time. But anyway, um so yeah, so traveling is my is my biggest passion. I I just go whenever I have a bit of time and a bit of money to do it on a more kind of the day-to-day basis. Um I do yoga as you know, as much as I can. I've been doing um, you know, hod yoga in a studio, and that's heated to 40 degrees plus for coming up to actually my 20-year anniversary this year of doing that. So so I'm hugely passionate about that. But um, you know, I I will do any yoga. That that's my kind of preferred one, but I'll do anything. And to be honest, I'm I'm actually pondering for my next birthday to taking a day off and just going to the yoga studio and staying the whole day and just not leaving, just doing all the classes.
SPEAKER_01Actually, the three of us, we've laughed so much in this episode today. And and I think anything that makes you laugh, you know, any there's so much on Instagram, isn't there? Of like there was one the other day that I was laughing at, which was um someone who a dad who set to music was showing all of the sort of all of the things in his house that his kid had kind of damaged or destroyed. Not not through violent meltdowns, but through just like fiddling with stuff, you know, like that real sensory thing. I've got two of those, yes. Now I know all about it, yes. And you're like, how has this happened again? Like my son is like taking things apart. Oh yeah, it's re-heart the sink, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's like it does, you know, these things make you laugh, don't they? Solidarity, you know, solidarity. And I will I will give a shout out to our new TCC therapeutic support group for people in the legal profession who have neurodivergent children. Um, we're gonna be meeting once a month. And and the idea of that is, you know, to have solidarity an hour a month and to just talk about this stuff and laugh and cry and rage and all those sorts of things. I was going to say that sounds so amazing.
SPEAKER_02And can I please join?
SPEAKER_01Yes, please join us, Lenka. We would love to have you. Um, and maybe we'll do like an impromptu yoga session during it as well. We'll get we'll get into our bodies. Um, thank you so much, Lenka, for joining us today. It's been just an absolute joy. I feel so much solidarity. So much solidarity. Um, you can find Lenka at the Russell Cook website, um, and you can find me at our TCC website, carvalliotherapy.com, that's C-A-R-V-A-L-H-O, or my LinkedIn page at linkedin.com forward slash in forward slash forward slash Amarie Carvalho. Um you can also find at the website details of the therapeutic support group for parents of neurodivergent kids that I mentioned earlier. Um, check out the other episodes of the podcast at stainsaininlaw.bussprout.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Uh, just leaves me to say thank you so much, Lenka, for joining us today. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. I feel like we could talk for another five hours if we had the time.
SPEAKER_01We say this at the end of every episode, but actually it's even more pertinent today. You know, remember everybody, we are all a little bit wonky, including us three here today. So you are not on your own. And thanks for listening, everyone.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but Lenka, it's been it's been an absolute pleasure. And uh thank you. I'm feeling the solidarity too. Finally, I am normal. I feel like I've finally got through parent puberty at last.
SPEAKER_01You've gone through parent puberty. This is a great term, parent puberty.