Richard Adams reports on the Send funding cliff edge affecting children and their development

Violet in north London is six years old and loves butterflies and moths. She’s autistic with speech and language difficulties and even before she started nursery, her mother, Tamara, began pursuing extra support from her local authority. Years later, the process of obtaining an educational health care plan has become an emotional and financial ordeal for the family.

The Guardian’s education editor, Richard Adams, explains to Hannah Moore that a decade of underfunding has left local authorities under great strain, encouraging an adversarial dynamic between parents seeking educational support for their children and the councils that have to pay for it.