Archive for health
June 30, 2008 at 9:46 am
· Filed under child, communication, deaf, education, health, services, social care ·Tagged dcsf, funding, school, special educational needs, statement
The DCSF report Special Educational Needs in England: January 2008 has stated that the numbers of children with statements of special educational needs has fallen across schools in England. However, at the same time, children with special educational needs who are not being put forward for statements has risen (see the Guardian article for more information on this). This, to me, could indicate that there are now a larger number of children who are potentially not getting all of the support that they need in school.
Lord Adonis instead suggests that the number of statements is falling because more and more funding is being given directly to schools. This could be really helpful to families where children are in schools who are experienced or well supported in delegating this funding to the various types of support, but some schools may not be in the best position to decide how funding should be spent, especially if there is a lack of specialist support at the school.
This links in with my last post on involving parents. If funding is being given directly to schools to decide how to spend it, it is a great opportunity to work closely with parents (who are, after all, experts on their children) to ensure that their children are supported.
On the other hand, an ATL article has argued that schools are often not receiving the funding they need to be able to support pupils with special educational needs adequately. These mixed messages are confusing. Do you have any views on how this should work, or any experience of allocating funds under the various circumstances?
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June 18, 2008 at 9:43 am
· Filed under child, communication, deaf, education, health, services, social care ·Tagged education, funding, parent, school, special educational needs, statement
A new document has been published by CentreForum and Policy Exchange which suggests that parents should be at the centre of decisions when planning support for children with special educational needs (SEN).
Learning the Hard Way: A strategy for special educational needs outlines suggestions for improving support for children with SEN. It outlines many interesting ideas, including addressing the imbalance between mainstream and special schools, giving parents more choice when choosing the most appropriate school for their children, and raising numbers of specialist teachers in schools.
However, the paper has been criticised by Every Disabled Child Matters for focussing too much on parental preference, and not enough on the children themselves. You can read the full article outlining these criticisms here.
NDCS places the child at the heart of decision making (click here to read about the vision and values of NDCS), so I can understand these criticisms on one level, but also think that giving parents more choice and empowering them to make decisions about support for their child is a positive step in the right direction. What do you think?
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May 7, 2008 at 9:57 am
· Filed under education, health, services, social care, work ·Tagged child, children, joint up working, multi, practice, professional, research, services
Research in Practice have conducted some research into multi-professional working. Their article Multi-professional working: distinct professional identities in multi-professional teams looks at multi-professional working largely in the context of Childrens’ services, and their work with particular groups of children and young people.
The article looks at recent and current trends and practices in developing and delivering joined up working, and identifies some of the main characteristics of the ‘new professional practice’ including:
*a focus on young people and children as whole people and not focussing on specific needs, and
*an understanding of what other practitioners are able to offer a responsive package of protection built around the child or young person.
From the point of view of working at NDCS within my team, I can only see these as good characteristics to emerge and be developed over time. Focussing our work on the child and family, to benefit the child, is where we are heading (if you want to read more about NDCS’s mission, vision and values, go to the ndcs website).
However, joint up working is not always straight forward. The Research in Practice article highlights some of the barriers to successful multi-professional working, but also identifies enabling factors, and effective management of multi-agency working. I think this could be a really useful article for many charities, organisations and services to have a look at and see how the suggestions in it sit alongside their current practices. We all know that working together should ultimately benefit our beneficiaries and service users, but it also has to work for us.
If you get the chance to read this article, let me know what you think by leaving a comment here.
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May 7, 2008 at 8:36 am
· Filed under child, communication, deaf, education, health, services, social care ·Tagged deaf, ndcs, child, speech, language, therapy, speech and language therapy, bercow review, bercow, services, postcode lottery
Late last year, the Bercow Review consulted with professionals and parents of children who receive speech and language therapy support. The findings were, it could be said, slightly predictable. For years at NDCS we have been hearing from parents who have been struggling to get speech and language therapy services for their deaf children, or have have had experiences where therapists do not meet their childs needs.
This is not to say that speech and language therapists are not doing a good job, there are many wonderful therapists, and indeed, in a recent parent survey we heard about many therapists who were doing a fantastic job with the deaf children they worked with. The issues seem to be caused by a lack of investment (at national and local level), problems with recruiting, training therapists in specialist areas (such as working with deaf children), retaining staff, and encouraging people to train as speech and language therapists in the first place.
I recently read a blog which summed up some of the findings of the Bercow Review here. You can also read the interim report on the DCSF website. It makes for interesting reading, and the full report is expected to be available around July 2008.
Speech and language therapy is not the only service where the ‘postcode lottery’ has been highlighted before. If you have any thoughts on the matter, it would be great if you could leave a comment.
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April 29, 2008 at 9:10 am
· Filed under child, deaf, deaf friendly, education, health ·Tagged deaf, development, education, emotional, mainstream, school, social
I was reading our publication Deaf friendly schools recently, and was reminded of some very important issues, that are not always at the top of everyone’s list when thinking about including a deaf child in school life. Have a read of a section of it here:
The full inclusion of a deaf child in a mainstream school can only work if
the deaf child is comfortable with their own identity. A deaf child may
be the only deaf person in their mainstream school and as a result their
contact with other deaf children and deaf adults may be very limited.
If a deaf child speaks, it is very easy to forget their needs as a deaf
person. The child is expected to live in a hearing environment, yet they
cannot hear. They can grow up to feel different from their peers and
sometimes are not able to explain why. Once a child has accepted and
learnt to understand their deafness, this will allow them to learn more
effectively. However their ability to learn can also be affected by how
they are treated by others because of their deafness.
Peer groups
It is important that deaf children have plenty of opportunities to be
educated alongside a good-sized deaf peer group. A peer group can lift
feelings of isolation and frustration as pupils discuss their common
experiences that are not shared by hearing people. Where this is
impossible, schools should provide deaf children with opportunities to
meet with other deaf children.
Deaf role models
Using deaf role models can also help deaf pupils to understand their
feelings and resolve issues. In this way a child can build up a
relationship with someone who is deaf as well, and have the
opportunity to learn about what it is like to grow up in a hearing
environment while still being deaf. They would be able to ask
questions about being deaf, and develop strategies for becoming
independent and confident at communicating in unfamiliar
environments. Staff and pupils can be introduced to the idea that
deafness can be a positive attribute rather than a disabling condition.
Someone from a Deaf cultural background can bring valuable
information regarding deaf traditions, cultural values and the
structure of the Deaf Community.
Break, lunchtimes and after-school activities
Break times can be an isolating experience for a deaf child, and staff
should encourage good interaction with all children. Deaf students
may need encouragement to be involved in lunchtime and afterschool
activities. It is equally important that they are given space to
‘recover’ from concentrating throughout the day. If they tend to mix
more with their deaf friends for ease of communication, then let them
do so. It depends on each individual child and the level of their
confidence as to how well they mix socially. It’s a fine line between
encouraging friendships and forcing participation.
Always discuss an individual child’s needs with specialist staff, the
child themselves and their parents.
Remember that no two deaf children are the same!
NDCS provides a wide range of publications on education, health, technology, and communication amongst other subjects. You can download them or order them from the NDCS website.
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April 16, 2008 at 11:50 am
· Filed under child, deaf, deaf friendly, education, health, services, social care, work ·Tagged child, deaf, education, families, health, parent place, professional, schools
An important part of my job is working to help professionals that work with deaf children understand deafness, and its implications. It is incredible how many schools, therapists and health professionals are not clued up on deafness, when they work with deaf children on a regular basis! You can see some examples of this on the NDCS parents forum Parent Place .
That it why it is so important that there are balanced, informative and practical resources available to help them find out how they can do their best to provide deaf children and their families with the best service that they can.
Have you ever worked with professionals in encouraging them to improve their services? If so, how do you engage with them and encourage them to see a service users perspective? If you have any examples, ideas or thoughts, then let me know!
There are, of course, some fantastic professionals who provide deaf children and their families with an excellent service, we just want to see more of those…
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April 2, 2008 at 8:57 am
· Filed under child, deaf, education, general, health, services, social care, work ·Tagged deaf, ndcs, education, health, social care, child, professional
Hello there
This post will tell you a bit more about what we do in the Education, Health and Social Care team at NDCS. I mentioned before that we mainly work with professionals who work with deaf children, but we also work with some families too.
The team is made up of a small legal casework team, which helps families at tribunals, a team of reagional directors, who work all over England finding out about local provision for deaf children and their families and work with local services. We also have an audiology specialist, and an education development manager. We are involved in writing publications about childhood deafness, delivering training to professionals, presenting at conferences and events, carrying out research into things like educational attainment or service provision, and working with other organisations in the field.
I hope that has give you some more information about what we do in our team, in future posts I will focus on some of these things in a little more detail.
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April 2, 2008 at 8:19 am
· Filed under child, deaf, education, general, health, social care, work ·Tagged deaf, ndcs, children, education, health, social care, charity, organisation, national, society
Hello,
My name is Angela and I am a Projects Officer at the National Deaf Children’s Society (www.ndcs.org.uk).
I work in UK Services, in the Education, health and social care team. We work with professionals to make sure that they can provide deaf children with the best services possible, in schools and hospitals for example. We do loads of interesting work, which I will tell you about in upcoming posts. This blog will be updated regularly to tell you about what we do, and find out what you think.
So, if you are interested in the issues surrounding childhood deafness, then check back on this blog to find out what we are doing!
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