Advocating for your child: top tips for working with professionals
Trying to get help for your child can feel worrying and frustrating. Working out which professionals and services to contact, and then getting to see them, can be very difficult.
It’s natural to think about trying to get help as a battle or a fight. But for the best chance of success, it’s best to try to work with everyone you meet, to build their understanding of your child. Approaching professionals as human beings working within imperfect systems, and finding ways to build shared understandings, will help you to get the support your child needs.
This guide explores practical principles and gentle strategies to help you advocate clearly, effectively, and with respect for your child, for yourself, and for the professionals you work with.
Five relationship principles
These principles are helpful for thinking through what kinds of communication may be most likely to get the outcomes you want. They don’t guarantee success but they offer a structure for calm, collaborative communication and can reduce unnecessary conflict.
1. Have I been clear?
Clarity is often undervalued, but it’s one of the most powerful tools we have. Ask yourself: will someone come away from a conversation with me knowing exactly what I want, and why I think it will help?
For example: “I’d like my child to manage a full day at school without feeling overwhelmed. I believe giving them five minutes of low-stimulation rest time each hour could help reduce distress and support better focus.”
Being this specific helps professionals visualise what success might look like and how they can help achieve it.
2. Is what I’m asking for reasonable?
It’s completely valid to want the very best for your child, but when working within stretched systems, it’s important to consider what is reasonable.
If you’re asking for your child to have the classroom to themselves five minutes every hour, and for the rest of the class to move elsewhere, it may not be realistic. A quieter space nearby might be a more workable solution.
Think of it like this, if the EHCP is designed to get your child from A to B, and a Skoda will do it safely and effectively, that’s what will be funded, even if you’d prefer a Mercedes. This “reasonable adjustment” principle underpins much of the law.
3. Am I asking the right person?
Sometimes things don’t move forward because a professional doesn’t have the authority or responsibility to act. Often, professionals want to help and won’t immediately say when something is outside their remit. It’s okay to gently ask: “Is this something you’re able to approve, or is there someone else I should speak to?” Clarifying roles helps avoid frustration on both sides.
4. Are the necessary resources available?
Think about whether the thing you’re asking for is even possible within the resources that are available.
For example, if you want access to a particular type of equipment for your child, that involves building work, and the school is in a historic building, so can’t install it, then it might not be reasonable to ask for that specific setting.
Understanding the resource constraints of a school or service doesn’t mean you stop advocating, it helps you frame requests in a way that’s more likely to succeed or go somewhere else to get your child’s needs met.
5. Do the professionals have the right skills?
Even when people want to help, they might not have the knowledge or training to do what’s needed, especially around complex or less widely understood needs, such as the PDA profile.
Sharing helpful resources or suggesting training can be useful, so long as it’s done with care and respect for time constraints. For example: “We’ve found this approach really helpful at home, would it be useful if I shared it with you?”
Once you’ve worked your way through all of these: being clear, being reasonable, asking the right person, checking for resources, and understanding skill gaps, it’s only then, if things still aren’t progressing, that it’s fair to ask whether someone is choosing not to help. Working through this framework helps reduce blame and gives you a solid platform for moving forward.
Understanding the pressures professionals face
It’s also important to understand the pressures that professionals themselves may be under. This doesn’t mean excusing poor behaviour, but it helps us make sense of why the system doesn’t always respond the way we’d hope.
Professionals in education, health, and social care have been working through over a decade of austerity. Many teams are under-resourced, stretched for time, and facing high staff turnover. Morale can be low. And with constant policy changes and workload demands, training is not always up to date.
Respecting time, being specific in requests, and offering support rather than challenge can make all the difference. It shows you understand the system you’re working within, and that you’re someone who is easy to work with.
Focus on needs, not diagnosis
When you’re in the thick of advocating for your child, especially when you believe PDA is a key part of their profile, it’s easy to feel like you also have to fight to get people to believe in PDA. But it’s important to remember that you’re there to advocate for your child’s needs, and in the UK, that’s what the law says matters.
Support is based on need, not on whether a specific diagnosis is recognised. This is particularly relevant for PDA, which can still be misunderstood or not formally acknowledged by some professionals. But that does not mean your child’s struggles are invisible or that help can be denied.
You don’t have to “prove” PDA in order to get adjustments. If something supports your child to struggle less, then there is a legal and ethical expectation that it should be considered regardless of the diagnostic label attached.
This can be freeing. It means you can focus on what actually helps, instead of defending whether something should or shouldn’t be in a diagnostic manual. Professionals do not have to recognise PDA as a distinct condition in order to meet your child’s needs. What matters most is what helps your child, not whether a particular label is accepted.
Staying anchored in your child’s lived experience keeps the conversation focused, collaborative, and harder to dismiss.
This centres the discussion on what really matters: what helps your child thrive.
Introducing yourself and sharing your story
Your first interaction with a new professional is important. Many parents are exhausted from repeating their story, especially when past experiences have been difficult. But a long, unstructured retelling can feel overwhelming to someone new and it might unintentionally trigger defensiveness.
A professional hearing about eight failed past interactions may wonder whether you’re difficult to work with even if that’s an unfair and inaccurate conclusion. Instead, try preparing a short, written summary (no more than two sides of A4) with:
- What your child’s challenges are
- What’s been tried
- What has and hasn’t worked
- Specific, outcome-focused information
Keep it about methods, not people. This shows you’re constructive and focused on solutions not blame.
Communicating effectively
Effective communication builds good relationships. Respect for time and clarity shows you’re serious, thoughtful, and prepared. That means:
- Asking how professionals prefer to be contacted.
- Keeping emails short and focused.
- Using bullet points or headings when possible.
- Logging concerns so you have a clear record but summarising key patterns when raising them. For example: “In the last three weeks, my child has had the correct item in their bag only three times. This seems to be a recurring issue.”
Preparing for, attending, and debriefing after meetings
Before the meeting it can be helpful to:
- Find out who will be there and what their role is.
- Ask what the meeting is for.
- Write down the key things you want to say and any specific outcomes you’re hoping for.
Remember, you’re walking into the room with deep personal investment in a child you love. Professionals, by contrast, are paid to be there and may have had a very different morning. The system unfairly expects you to match their professionalism, even when you’re exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed.
Finding ways to ground yourself can help. You could try taking a walk, avoiding caffeine or talking to a friend. It can be helpful to remind yourself: This is just one meeting, and it will be over soon.
In the meeting:
It’s okay to be emotional-but try not to let emotion slip into blaming behaviour. Stick to facts, needs, and solutions. Ask for breaks if needed. And if you can, bring a calm, supportive advocate (a friend, family member or SENDIASS).
At the end of the meeting ask the professional to clarify and minute what actions will be taken, so that you can write them down and ask for minutes of the meeting to be sent to you asap.
After the meeting:
Arrange a debrief with someone you trust. Venting, shouting, swearing-it’s all valid, and getting it out can help you process. Then reflect: What went well? What do you need to follow up?
When things go wrong
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things go wrong. When they do, you may need to make a complaint (or an apology) and how they’re made affects the outcome. If, despite your best efforts, your child’s needs are not met – you may want to consider which of the below may be most appropriate:
- Seeking information and support from appropriate organisations and charities.
- Writing to your child’s school, health service, or social care to make a Formal Complaint (pointing out the errors that have been made and how things could be resolved).
- Contacting your local MP (who may be able to write a letter on your behalf).
- Writing to the SEND Department at the Local Authority.
- Appealing a decision (ie EHC Plans/Care Needs Assessments).
- Instructing legal professionals.
It’s helpful to keep complaints:
- Short and specific.
- Based on evidence.
- Focused on outcomes, not blame.
Be aware that complaints can trigger a rise in defensive behaviours, including in some case accusations of ‘FII’. This shouldn’t deter you from speaking up, but it does mean tone and structure really matter.
You may want to contact our Support Service for more information
Feeling unheard or blamed?
Explaining the experience of PDA can be very difficult. We can feel judged by family, friends and professionals, and changing their mindset can feel impossible.
In extreme cases, parents can be accused of ‘making it up’ or harming our children through poor parenting, or we might be accused of exaggerating their need for support in education. At this point, trust on both sides is lost, with our children stuck in the middle. Seek advice if you are worried about this. If a professional you are working with doesn’t seem to trust you it can be helpful to:
- Invite input from other people who understand your child. If you can, find someone who can help build understanding, perhaps another professional. A letter from a Teaching Assistant, meeting with a charity worker or someone else with expertise can make a real difference to a professional’s understanding of PDA.
- Own your expertise. You will be an expert in your own child, and can explain who they are and how they act. Unless you do the same job as the professional you are interacting with, it’s unlikely you know how to do their job. Owning that and using plain simple language to explain what you know without ‘diagnosing’ your child can be helpful.
- You might want to avoid talking about PDA specifically and focus more directly on what you’ve noticed about your child, and anything that helps them. If you keep a diary that’s even better, you can talk about change over time too. For example: “I’ve noticed that they get really stressed out and freeze when I tell them to do this. I’ve started leaving their things out in plain sight and that seems to be easier for them. I learnt about it on this site, I wondered if we could look at it together, to see if there is anything else that could help?”
- Support your child to express their needs to professionals directly. If your child’s old enough, help their voice to be heard independently of yours. This could be through conversations with trusted professionals voice notes, drawings/ emails or however they feel comfortable.
Final thoughts
Advocating for your child is hard. It’s emotional. And it’s often deeply unfair that so much is expected of you. But you are not alone, and you are not powerless.
By approaching professionals as potential allies, by being specific, strategic, and kind, and by knowing your rights and your child’s needs – you build a stronger foundation for getting the support your family deserves.
This is not about backing down. It’s about setting the stage for meaningful, sustainable change – for your child, and the people supporting them.
Training for parent carers
If you’re looking for ideas that actually help, our parent carer training could be for you. It’s built by people with lived experience, and is full of practical tips. Families tell us that after our training they better understand what is going on for their child, why they are struggling and what they can do to help. You can see all our training (free and paid for) here