Memorandum submitted by The Bridge for
Social Communication
1. INTRODUCTION
Current figures estimate that 1:100 of the population
have Autistic Spectrum Difficulties. For children—and others
whose social difficulties may arise from ADHD, ADD, Dyspraxia—there
is a high risk of bullying, exclusion and isolation.
Their relationships often suffer from the pressure
this puts on them and can even lead to family breakdown. Yet despite
the high risk, to date, no child accessing—the bridge- has
been excluded from school.
—the bridge—, is a Richmond-based
charity, set up in 2002 to help children and families with social
communication difficulties by providing a range of services. The
majority of the children are from mainstream schools and attached
units, although some of the older children now attend specialist
secondary provision. Through careful use of therapists' advice,
the children have fun while participating in activities aimed
at helping them to integrate more fully into society. While the
children have fun, parents meet in support groups. Our activities
include:
— Talking Group—five to seven
year olds develop social skills through games and play.
— Talking Group Drama—social
interaction and fun for children from seven to 13.
— Sport—introducing social skills
through team games, six to 13-year-olds.
— Activate—Occupational and Speech
and Language therapy for pairs of children socialising together,
for five to 13-year-olds.
— Inform—Parent/Professional
discussion evenings.
— Liase—Work with local and national
bodies to find innovative solutions to shortages in service provision
and increase best practice. This includes providing multi-disciplinary
teacher training for teaching staff where—the bridge—acts
as the co-ordinator on behalf of schools and health professionals.
Synopsis of Findings
(a) That SEN funding relates to education
and health yet services are funded separately with no apparent
relationship to individual statemented need in terms of incidence,
setting or outcomes for children in the longer term. This causes
serious problems for effective service delivery to promote good
outcomes for ASD children. Even the latest National Service Framework
guidelines may not be sufficiently clear in terms of how education
commissions health services to overcome current problems.
(b) That ASD is a newly emerging area of
need without the benefit of longer term planning for service delivery
in comparison to that for the visual or hearing impaired. There
is a case for special status to put services in place. This might
be done through the establishment of local, multi-professional/NGO
groups with commissioning and planning responsibilities as outlined
in the National Autism Plan for Children
(c) That parents should be recognised as
the fixed point for the child's care and provided with training
and support to enable them to work alongside professionals. Equally
all professionals need to have clear guidelines for multi-disciplinary
working and service delivery to make the most of health and education
budgets focussed around the child.
The information contained in this paper is the
result of consultation with members and users of services provided
by—the bridge—and NAS Richmond. It does not necessarily
reflect the opinions of the trustees of—the bridge—for
social communication.
2. PROVISION
FOR SEN PUPILS
IN "MAINSTREAM"
SCHOOLS: AVAILABILITY
OF RESOURCES
AND EXPERTISE;
DIFFERENT MODELS
OF PROVISION
* A mixed, flexible provision of SEN placements,
as envisaged by the Government, to encompass inclusion, specialist
units and special schools is also supported by parents canvassed
who need to see that individual need is considered and choice
is available to them. However when it comes to practice parents
in Richmond report the following:
(a) A perceived overarching indifference
to service users and lack of rigour/strategic planning in the
way decisions are made relating to SEN provision for the ASD community.
(b) That councillors have expressed publicly
their inability to accurately appraise SEN matters put in front
of them by officers and that there is a need for overview and
scrutiny of this area of public service. This request, backed
by parent groups, has been taken off the agenda for the education
and leisure committee.
(c) Poor communication with parent groups
in terms of planning, feeding back and problem solving on SEN
matters is leading to a reliance on SEN tribunal to negotiate
between parents and the LEA on many occasions.
(d) There is concern that the current allocation
of SEN resources, such as EP services, are made according to the
numbers of children claiming free school meals at a school. This
does not reflect the reality of SEN children in settings or delivery
of the statement.
(e) Furthermore discussions about devolving
SEN budgets on similar lines to school heads is causing concern
about how effective this would be in solving problems as buying
power would be diluted. Some consider this to be a method of the
LEA trying to step aside from dealing with issues relating to
SEN inclusion.
(f) Currently special units in Richmond have
no allocation of Educational Psychology services made available
to them.
(g) That the sixth form college in Richmond
appears to have no training budget for ASD pupils or a clear,
college wide strategy on ASD inclusion despite having a number
of children on its roll.
(h) That children with above average intelligence
and an ASD diagnosis on school action plus are not given priority
at transition and hence their secondary placements could fail
causing mental anguish.
(i) That home-educated ASD children are not
able to access support services to help parents with curriculum
differentiation and delivery.
(j) That parents are not always treated as
partners in education.
(k) There are on-going problems relating
to the provision of therapy within schools at primary, secondary
levels and tertiary levels caused by the health/education divide
and current service commissioning priorities.
(l) That specialist, peripatetic ASD teachers
are not available in Richmond although there are teachers for
hearing and sight impaired children. This service is available
in other London boroughs. Richmond schools report benefits when
visiting professionals help with curriculum differentiation.
(m) That methods for multi-disciplinary working
and responsibility for delivering teaching programmes are not
always clearly outlined between the teaching staff, support staff
and health professionals. Consequently valuable information given
to a learning support assistant may not be followed through in
terms of programme delivery. Parents are often left out of this
planning and so unable to follow through work at home.
(n) That the primary concern of the LEA and
council appears to be budgetary control and not educational outcome.
3. RAISING STANDARDS
OF ACHIEVEMENT
FOR SEN PUPILS
Concern is reported about the following:
(a) The role of the SENCO as an administrator
and as an expert to help differentiate the curriculum for ASD
children is unrealistic in practice. Time and skills for this
role are often not available and so in reality the work is left
to Learning Support Assistants who are not sufficiently trained
to take on the responsibility, which should in fact be that of
the teacher.
(b) The division of responsibility between
the teacher and LSA. LSAs are reported as being used to do a range
of jobs around the class-room which are not related to the child's
needs and in other cases teaching-staff devolve responsibility
for the child to the LSA.
(c) The need for specialist, visiting teaching
staff who can provide differentiated programmes of work for ASD
children and problem solving experience. This role is established
in other London boroughs.
(d) Teachers need to be able to look beyond
the National Curriculum and read between the lines of the statement
to differentiate work, with the help of specialist advisors, and
deliver work to children that is 95% attainable and 5% stretch.
(e) Training as piloted by—the bridge—,
which provides input from speech and language, occupational therapy
and educational psychology on an annual basis to mainstream teaching
staff is providing a starting point for addressing these issues.
4. THE SYSTEM
OF STATEMENTS
OF NEED
FOR SEN PUPILS
("THE STATEMENTING
PROCESS")
(a) It is difficult for parents to police
the LEA's decisions against the rights of their child and to monitor
the preparation of a statement without legal advice. There is
a belief that this difficulty is being used to `dupe' parents
and save the LEA money. For example, despite case law and good
practice guidance, there appears to be an ongoing habit of putting
speech and language therapy into the health rather than educational
part of the statement. Even when this is changed after a request
from parents the provision is documented as broadly as possible
by the LEA, making it difficult for parents to have a document
that will enable them to access funds for the service when these
health professionals fail to meet the statemented needs of the
child because of staff shortages.
(b) The process takes too long and in the
meantime the child's education, social relationships and self-esteem
can be severely compromised.
5. THE ROLE
OF PARENTS
IN DECISIONS
ABOUT THEIR
CHILDREN'S
EDUCATION
(a) That parents should be acknowledged as
the central point of continuing care for their children and be
offered access to training and support services so that they can
work alongside professionals to deliver the best outcome for their
child. However, parents would find key-workers very helpful.
October 2005
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