I did not start as a consultant. I started as a mum who needed one.

My daughter has special educational needs. I am a single parent. When it became clear that school was becoming unsustainable for her, I did what most parents do: I asked for help.

What followed was years of complexity, delay, and quiet discouragement that I was not prepared for. The local authority was not unkind. But they were not proactive, transparent, or clear. Vital requests were missed. Deadlines were issued without any guidance on what evidence was actually needed to meet them. When I asked for clarity, I was referred to external services that, while well-meaning, could not give me the specific, legally grounded support my daughter's case required.

At school, the situation was no different. SENCOs are under extraordinary pressure. Teachers are overloaded. The school was doing its best, but getting an Educational Psychologist, a SCERTS assessment, a SCERTS follow-up, and an Occupational Psychologist all coordinated within the timeframes the EHCP process requires is genuinely difficult when staff are stretched and funding is short. It takes years. Meanwhile, your child's needs are not waiting.

I felt the pressure of cost concerns being raised in ways that seemed to weigh the budget against my daughter's needs. I watched requests go unanswered. I was not told what the legal threshold was, what evidence would satisfy it, or what my rights were if the local authority fell short. I was given information, but not understanding.

Despite everything, I secured the EHCP. Not because the process worked smoothly. Because I persisted, educated myself, organised the evidence, understood the law well enough to use it, and refused to accept vague or inadequate responses.

I also went through the appeals process. I know what it is to sit with a bundle of hundreds of pages, trying to identify which document matters, what the legal argument is, how to structure the grounds, what a hearing actually looks like, and how to prepare a parent statement that carries weight. I did this while working, managing a household, and supporting a child who needed me present, not buried in paperwork.

Barristers and solicitors are excellent. They are also expensive in a way that most families cannot sustain. And beyond the cost, there is something else: they do not know your child. They receive the papers, they apply the law, and they represent you. But the intimate longitudinal knowledge of what your child's day actually costs them, what the school actually said in that meeting three years ago, what the pattern looks like across terms, that knowledge lives with you.

Avenlight exists because I looked back at every stage of that process and thought: I needed someone who had done this, who understood both the emotional reality and the legal framework, who could hold the complexity so I did not have to hold it alone.

That is what we do. We work alongside parents who are at any stage of the EHCP process, from first application to Tribunal, and we bring the knowledge, structure, and calm that the system does not provide.

You are not failing. The process is hard. You deserve proper support.