Memorandum from the Soldiers, Sailors,
Airmen and Families—Forces Help (SSAFA)
1. SSAFA Forces Help Community Health and
Social Services staff have long had close working relationships
with SCE staff at all levels. This includes teaching staff and
staff from the Educational Psychology and Child Guidance service.
2. From our observations, children generally
receive a good standard of Education whilst overseas in SCE schools;
smaller classes, one to one opportunities and well developed inclusion
programmes.
3. SSAFA Forces Help health services are
working with SCE to promote healthy schools initiatives.
4. There have been issues regarding the
autonomy of head teachers and their ability to refuse to accept
a child who has been assessed by other agencies (eg Social Work/Health)
as being able to have their needs met overseas. Difficulties occur
when a family know they are due a posting overseas, are proactive
and consult with the school who on the face of it cannot seem
to think why they can't take the child but then a decision is
made the family cannot go, or they arrive and get sent back home.
This is being challenged and more robust multi professional systems
are being introduced in order that decisions are made by a multi
agency group and fed back appropriately to families.
5. Extended school provision is not currently
available overseas. We understand that the Command is again seeking
parity funding after their first bid was unsuccessful.
6. The larger Commands ie Germany/North
West Europe and Cyprus provide a full range of services but this
is not the case in the smaller areas eg Lisbon/Nepal where there
is no SCE System and children are educated in local private schools.
Support services such as Clinical/Educational psychology, speech
and language therapy, child and adolescent mental health are limited.
Where referrals are made to local care providers there is often
no joint working with the school, as this is not common practice.
7. Children with Special Needs may experience
difficulties when transferring from home to overseas and vice
versa. Issues here are concerning waiting lists and Statement
of Educational Need. In summary, the impact of relocation on a
service family with Special Needs and Disability (SN&D) is
far more severe and complicated and requires considerable deliberation
and decision making compared to that required for a family with
no SN&D. Families often have to make very big decisions, often
ill-informed of support requirements needed for the child and
with little knowledge of the new area. The location of family
accommodation can be the major if not the critical and deciding
factor when considering relocation. The impact of acceptance of
offered/allocated service accommodation without being fully informed
of the availability of support provision for their child, may
well disadvantage the child from the outset and development may
be inhibited to some degree. The overall decision has to be well
balanced for the benefit of the family unit, whilst providing
the correct level of support for the child to develop.
9 May 2006
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