What if the SEND crisis is burning out the people it needs most?

Behind the SEND crisis are its people carrying an impossible moral weight?

As a parent of children with SEND, I want to believe that every professional involved in their education genuinely cares about their future.

Not just in a professional sense, but in a deeply human one. I want them to care like I do. To understand the enormity of what is at stake. I want them to truly “get it”. To be, in some essential way, “one of us”.

And many of them are.

SENCOs, local authority SEND teams, specialist teachers, support staff. These roles naturally attract people who want to make a difference in people’s lives. People who believe that children with additional needs deserve not just access, but opportunity. A real chance of a successful, independent future. That they have potential which they should have the chance of meeting.

I mean, it’s not like anyone’s drawn to work in the SEND system for the money or status, is it?

When caring becomes a liability

I speak to people who work across the SEND system all the time. Sometimes as a parent; other times as a peer; even as a friend.

And what I have noticed is this. Once they are inside the system, something corrosive starts to happen.

They quickly experience hard limitations placed on them. Limits of power. Limits of budget. Limits of resources and agency. Restrictions imposed by policy, thresholds, panels, and processes that are entirely non negotiable, deliberately out of reach.

They often know exactly what the right course of action is for a child. They can see it clearly. And yet, again and again, they are unable to deliver it.

Not because they don’t want to.
Not because they don’t understand.
But because they’re not allowed to.

Because someone, somewhere, says no. And that “no” is almost always driven by budget constraints imposed far away from the classroom, the family, or the child.

When you repeatedly try to help and repeatedly fail, it inevitably takes a toll on your mental health. At first it is a small nick in your armour. But if it happens often enough, the armour eventually falls apart.

There is an old analogy about being pecked to death by a duck. Slightly grim, but painfully accurate.

The risk is that the more you care, the more likely this constant collision with a “computer says no” system turns into visceral trauma. A lasting moral injury.

Who stays, and who leaves

Because of this, the people who care the most are most likely to be the ones who burnout first.

Carrying the stories of the children they couldn’t help. Replaying decisions that weren’t ever really theirs to make in the first place. They question the system. Absorb parents’ anger and grief, even when they share it.

Eventually, many of the best people leave.

Those who remain long term have often learned to care less. By developing emotional distance. Cynicism. Detachment. Not because they’re bad people, but because it is the only way to survive.

They stop being “one of us”.

And that is how the system quietly hollows itself out.

A personal lens

My sister is an outstanding SENCO. She is absolutely one of those people who get it. She is one of us.

She works insane hours. She never takes a sick day. She carries guilt at the idea of being absent for even one day, because she feels she would be abandoning the children who rely on her. And she can’t risk letting them down.

The system is lucky to have her.

But I often wonder whether she is lucky to have the system.

Her dedication comes at a personal cost. Emotional exhaustion. Constant pressure. Responsibility without the authority to truly resolve the problems in front of her.

This should not be normal. But sadly it is.

The downward spiral

This is the spiral I see.

Care deeply. Feel constant pressure. Experience moral injury. Burn out. Leave.

Or care less. Cope better. Stay longer. Push less hard for the support SEND children need.

Neither outcome serves our children or the staff who are carrying the weight of the system on their shoulders.

A system that rewards emotional detachment will never deliver the outcomes our children need.

The only way this cycle can be broken is by stopping the constant forcing of professionals to say no, instead giving them the resources and authority to deliver the support they signed up to provide. To let them make that meaningful difference that they crave.

Where the power actually sits

It is important to be clear about where responsibility lies.

Neither schools nor local authorities are the architects of this crisis. Across the country, councils are massively overspending on SEND while their overall budgets are continually being tightened. Teachers’ responsibilities are increasing while staffing levels decline. They are being asked to square an impossible circle.

The real power and control sits with central government.

There is growing expectation that Labour will soon publish a SEND white paper. Early rumours suggest it may focus on reforms to process and structure, but without significant additional funding.

If that is the case, it will not be enough.

This crisis is not caused by inefficiency at the margins. It is caused by chronic underfunding at the centre. The number of children identified with SEND has grown and will continue to grow, particularly as our education system increasingly prioritises sitting still and learning through mastery, skills that many neurodivergent mind find overwhelmingly challenging.

Tweaking around the edges will not fix a system that is fundamentally starved of the resources it needs to function.

Heads in the sand

SEND has become a political hot potato. Too expensive. Too complex. Too risky.

So the problem has been delayed and delayed. Heads placed firmly in the sand. Pretend it is not happening. Let someone else deal with it later.

But children are growing up now. Parents are breaking now. Staff are burning out now.

We cannot go on like this.

This is a scandal in the making. But it doesn’t have to be.

Someone needs to deal with it.
And it needs to happen urgently.