Bristol Disabled Children’s Team
As a parent of Disabled children, there are a great many things I could say about Bristol’s Disabled Children’s Team, but I will stick to the spies and lies aspect of it.
The pernicious behaviour of this team, who work with some of the most vulnerable families in Bristol, should never have happened. Because there has been no independent investigation into the surveillance of Send families, there is nothing to stop it in the future.
Individuals involved from Disabled Children’s Team:
Ali Hiscox – City Wide Social Care Lead
Kate Markley – Manager for the Disabled Children’s Service
Sharron Reynolds – Inclusion Service Co-Ordinator, Social Care Hub
September 2021
The image above shows the Inclusion Service Co-Ordinator of the Social Care Hub, Sharron Reynolds joining Twitter. This coincides with Bristol City Council starting to monitor Send parents connected to Bristol Parent Carers. Reynolds’ account shows she is only following my account Chopsy Bristol and no one follows her. It’s a throwaway account. She has followed no one else since that point in time.
28 Feburary 2022 at 22.01pm
City Wide Social Care Lead, Ali Hiscox emails Kate Markley screenshots of my Tweets made two days previously (26 February 2022)
March 2022 at 09.17
Kate Markley forwards this to Vikki Jervis with: ‘We can’t work with this – I would like to call her out on her behaviour. Please can we make a plan.’
The meeting referred to in this chain was People Scrutiny Commission. I attended as a parent with the right to have my democratic view heard at the council meeting.
It is very difficult to sit through hours of meetings where council officers, in my opinion, mislead councillors on the services available. As someone who was living that very experience at that very point in time and hearing nonsense being told in an official capacity, it got a bit too much.
However, this was something that happened in my private life. And as the council are aware, Article 10 of the Human Rights Act protects a person’s right to hold their own opinions and to express them freely. This includes the right to express your views aloud.
08 March 2022 at 11.40am
Kate Markley emails: Vikki Jervis, Alison Hurley, Sara Payne, Sarah Parker and Stephanie Lynch with screenshots and message.
At the time:
Vikki Jervis – Principle Educational Psychologist
Alison Hurley – Director of Education
Sarah Parker – Interim Director of Children’s Services
Stephanie Lynch – SEND Engagement Development Manager
December 2022
I made a Stage 2 complaint about My son’s social care EHCP not being implemented. This included a complaint that Children’s Services were dishonest at his Sendist tribunal, that Children’s Services were not replying to my emails and that I was receiving a lower standard of service because of the council spying.
The complaints were regarding the work of Bristol City Council social care staff Kate Markley, Ali Hiscox and Sharron Reynolds.
25 April 2023
I received the final Stage 2 complaint response regarding the Disabled Children’s Team. The response to Social Care Stage 2 Complaint, paragraph 7.4.10 states: ‘Ms Reynolds stated that she did not view Ms Smith’s Twitter account but was informed by another family accessing the inclusion service that Ms Smith had made these comments on there.’
But this was entirely untrue having signed up to Twitter in September 2021, the time of the first era of spying.
Some of the context regarding Wecil is this. Someone from Wecil came to my home about the befriending service. I have redacted their name. As my child is autistic which huge anxiety, the person said to his face that he didn’t look like he would engage. It was done in an extremely unprofessional manner.
As Bristol City Council had told a tribunal judge in the hearing that it was all set up to go, it was difficult to pick out who was lying to whom. It should be said though that I received a document from Inclusion with several inaccessible universal offer activities ten minutes before the Sendist hearing, one of which was recommending a pub group for my 15 year old.
26 May 2023
Kate Markley cancelled my son’s social care provision as a direct result of the outcome of my social care complaint. This was accidentally confirmed to me by the 1-1 support worker. The 1-1 said he had been told not to work with my son anymore because the provision had been directly cancelled by someone within the team.
The family support worker told my son this to his face at the end of his session. An appalling method which contravened every piece of advice in his EHCP.
The family support worker told me that was the orders he was given. He would not divulge who said this, so I mentioned a couple of names before his awkward reaction at hearing Kate Markley gave the game away.
I don’t blame the family support worker, he was set up by the same people who wanted to come up with ‘a plan’.
My response to Social Care Stage 2 Complaint from Bristol City Council showed in paragraph 7.1.14 that the 1-1 family support worker was working with my son at the date of the complaint outcome on 24/04/2023. He was told not to work with my son anymore immediately on the outcome of the complaint.
12 September 2023 at 07:29am
I make a complaint to Bristol City Council regarding my son’s EHCP social care provision not being done. This included Kate Markley’s behavior. I had spent some months working with an advocate, the Executive Director of Education and Director of Education trying to resolve it, but it wasn’t possible so I made a complaint.
I was contacted by by someone else from within the Inclusion/Disabled Children’s Team, but frankly, having had contact with this person before, there is only so much factually inaccurate and ridiculousness one can deal with in a life time.
April 2025
My son has never had his social care provision since it was removed by Kate Markley. It is not possible as a family to work with social care practitioners who are deceptive and manipulative. The provision is still in his EHCP…
It is bizarre that Bristol City Council staff are unable to locate a policy document regarding workers ‘referencing’ the social media content of families. In 2025, it should actually exist and be easy to find.
