Legislation and Strategic Support

Legislation

CALLING ALL DISABLED PEOPLE AND ALLIES

Watch and Listen to Tara Flood (above)on the ‘Reverse the bias Towards Segregation Campaign’ march in June 2011

This video (above)chronicles the event on WEDNESDAY JUNE 29th 2011 featuring the ‘Reverse the bias Towards Segregation Campaign’

More coverage of the event from Demotix.com here

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Academies - check what we are offering __________________________________________

Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act brings together nine separate pieces of legislation into one single Act simplifying the law and strengthening it in important ways to help tackle discrimination and inequality.

Use this link to look at the legislation.

A useful link for this subject can be found at the Government Equalities Office

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DfE: Children with Special Educational Needs 2010: an analysis

DCATCH

‘Disabled children and their families should have access to the full range of childcare options that are open to other families.’

Ten year strategy for childcare: guidance for local authorities
Sure Start 2005

DCATCH contributes to improving the range and quality of childcare arrangements for all families and to work on social justice, by giving disabled
children, young people and their families the same opportunities as other people.

The Childcare Act (2006) imposes a duty on local authorities to secure provision of childcare sufficient to meet the requirements of all parents in their area who wish to take up, or remain in work, or to undertake education or training that may lead to work. Section 6 specifically requires local authorities to secure childcare provision for disabled children up to the age of 18. In this context, childcare must be ‘sufficient’ in terms of the number of places, affordability, and appropriateness. In keeping with other activity, local authorities are advised to undertake development work in partnership with people who use the services that are provided. A duty to improve information for families with disabled children about childcare options available in their area and about financial help is also embedded within new duties to provide information, advice and assistance set out in the Childcare Act.

Childcare is identified as a ‘vital service’ for the families of disabled children and young people in Aiming High for Disabled Children (2007) and within the Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) programme, which sets out to improve the lives of all disabled children and young people. DCATCH is therefore both part of ‘mainstream’ expansion and development of the childcare sector and a core contributor to the transformation of services for disabled children and young people. As a consequence, sustainable initiatives to improve childcare services for disabled children need both to be embedded within broader strategies to improve services for all families and children, and carefully targeted.

Download the full document here>>>

CALLING ALL DISABLED PEOPLE AND ALLIES

David Cameron has acted on his threat to “Reverse the bias towards inclusion” for disabled children and other children who need extra help at school.  The Governments green paper ‘Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability” is based entirely on the medical model of disability and will push back all the progress for which disabled people have struggled over the last 20 years.  These proposals include:

• Creating many more special school places
• Removing the right of children to a legally enforceable ‘Statement of Special Educational Needs’
• Re-introducing the infamous caveats in the law which allow local authorities to forcibly segregate disabled children
• Allow many more schools to opt out of local authority control (and centralised services which support inclusion)
• Put parents in control of their children’s financial resources until they are 25 years old

This is in the context of a massive cut back in the rights and resources being made available to disabled people and all the poor and disadvantaged families who constitute the group most vulnerable to these proposals, including changes to Housing Benefit, Income Support, DLA, Personal Budgets, rights to legal aid, Sure Start Schemes, Youth Work and so on.

WE MUST FIGHT BACK
PLEASE COME TO THE EVENT ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 29th, AND DEMONSTRATE OUR RESISTANCE TO THESE PROPOSALS
Meet at 11AM, on WESTMINSTER BRIDGE in front of St Thomas’s Hospital.

Disabled people and our allies are organising the ‘Reverse the bias Towards Segregation Campaign’ and we need as much help as we can get otherwise yet another generation of disabled children will have their life chances severely compromised and young people in general will have their stated wish to be educated in inclusive schools where they can learn about real people be denied. June the 29th is the last day of the public consultation of these proposals made in the green paper.

For more details contact info@allfie.org.uk   or
rlrieser@gmail.com  or mich@michathome.wanadoo.co.uk or phone Allfie on 0207 737 6030 leaving your contact details.

The Lamb Inquiry

The Lamb Inquiry was established as part of the Government’s response to the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee Report Special Educational Needs: Assessment and Funding. The Lamb Inquiry, under the chairmanship of Brian Lamb, the Chair of the Special Educational Consortium, investigated a range of ways in which parental confidence in the SEN assessment process might be improved.

To advise him, Brian Lamb brought together a diverse group of expert advisers and a broader reference group of professionals and parents. These two groups represented extensive networks and brought a wide range of experience to the process of evidence gathering.

The Lamb Inquiry was asked to:

• consider a range of ways in which parental confidence in the SEN assessment process might be increased;

• commission and evaluate innovative projects in these areas;

• draw on the evidence of other work currently commissioned by the Department;

• take into account the evidence of the submissions to the two Select Committee Reports in 2006 and 2007.

The Inquiry started its work in March 2008 and reported in June 2008 on the commissioning of innovative projects and initial areas of focus for the Inquiry. The projects ran for the school year September 2008 to July 2009. The report was published December 2009 with reccomedations published in Feb 2010.

Read the full report here>>>

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities received its 20th ratification on 3 April 2008 triggering the entry into force of the Convention and its Optional Protocol 30 days later. This marks a major milestone in the effort to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity. Read more here....

It is essential for the UK to ratify this- we have signed but NOT ratified ... start lobbying now!

Print a copy of this letter from the Alliance for Inclusive Education and send it to Gordon Brown at No. 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA.

Watch and listen to Richard Rieser describing the Convention its implications online here.

Contact: r.rieser@btinternet.com for a copy his new book Implementing Inclusive Education: A Commonwealth Perspective.

The Convention marks a "paradigm shift" in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as "objects" of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as "subjects" with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.

The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.

Children and Young People Act 2008

The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 is the Government’s flagship new law to improve outcomes for children and young people who are looked after by the state, or who are at risk of needing to be looked after. This includes many disabled children.

Find out more here.

This was an extremely important Green Paper setting out the future direction of services working around children. and here is a link to a copy of the act.

Click here for the Every Child Matters Video Link

Children Act 2004

Because the Laming Inquiry and Every Child Matters made an unassailable case for delivering radical improvement in opportunities and outcomes for children.   They showed that:

• the effects of disadvantage are felt early and often have lasting consequences;
• the gaps in outcomes between socio-economic groups is widening;
• disadvantaged and 'at risk' young people are lagging behind their peers;
• services are often not working together as well as they need to;
• there is too much focus on cure rather than prevention; and
• safeguarding children and child protection are too seldom considered to be " everybody's business"
  

The Children Act 2004 provides the legislative spine for the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme, which will power the local and national changes to the system of children's services that are need to deliver:

• improved outcomes for children and young people;
• a focus on opportunities for all and narrowing gaps;
• support for parents, carers and families;
• a shift to prevention, early identification and intervention;
• integrated and personalised services;
• better safeguards for children and young people.

What is the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme?

Every Child Matters: Change for Children is a programme to deliver changes to the whole system of children's services - locally and nationally.   It provides a national framework of expectations and accountability in which 150 Local Authority-led change programmes will operate, each designed to address local priorities for children, young people and families.

The policies that have been developed to support this programme embody the Government's principles of personalisation, diversity in provision, workforce reform, freedom and autonomy for the front line, and effective partnership working.   Key Documents that relate to this legislation can be found at this link.

Full Print out (Word Doc) of Training Opportunities linked to the Children Act 2004

Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001

Full text of this law to end discrimination

The New SEN Code of Practice 2001

This revised Code links to the 1996 education Act and informs practice across England and Wales.

Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 (Scotland)

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2004. The Act is the first major revision of special educational needs legislation since the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. It is the culmination of considerable debate, from the Riddell Advisory Committee reviewing provision for children with severe low incidence disabilities (1999) to the Inquiry into Special Needs Education undertaken by the Scottish Parliament's Education, Culture and Sport Committee (2001). During 2001, the Scottish Executive consulted on changes to the system (Assessing Our Children’s Educational Needs. The Way Forward?) and published its response in turn in 2002. A consultation on a draft Bill was held early in 2003.

Report on Implementation of Act: November 2007

Assessments and statements

CSIE link for Assessments and statements: summary | Procedures for assessments and statements

Press Releases

Help Promote Inclusion

Use this opportunity for the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education to remind the DCSF of the imperative for inclusive education.

Download Inclusion: A Call for Action here

House of Commons Inquiry into Special Educational needs: June 2006

Pdf File here

Inclusion Policy: exactly who is confused?
Inclusive Solutions Press Release re this Report July 2006

Inclusion truly means that children and young people belong in local communities, are welcomed and actively participate in local mainstream schools whatever their difference.

This is what many, many parents, carers, educationalists, disabled adults, pupils and others work daily to make a reality.

SENDA 2001, SEN Code of Practice 2001 and the 2004 SEN Strategy unmistakeably state that the 'proportion of pupils educated in special schools should fall over time' and there should be 'reduced reliance on statements'. The Committee suggests that this approach is mistaken, but is it? We believe the government set this direction and should hold to the courage of its own policy maker's convictions that this was the correct direction to be heading in.

What is needed is not the rethinking of this direction, a rewriting of policy, procedure and legislation but a fuller embracing of an inclusive vision for the future. It is much too late to turn the clock back as suggested in this report! We now know that for every impairment conceivable there is a child who is being included somewhere in the UK. How can it be right that this cannot happen for all across the UK without the postcode lottery so well described in this report?

Imagine if the £1.81 billion reportedly spent on maintained, independent and non maintained special schools was added to the £2 billion spent in mainstream schools on meeting special needs. This almost doubling of the pot might just sweep away resourcing concerns and comments such as in this report that ' SEN remains under funded, particularly in mainstream schools'.

The time is right to be clear in our vision for 2020, if not sooner, that we are working towards a future that does not rely on separate special schools and settings for disabled, socially disadvantaged and excluded pupils. In such a future all the energies of educationalists, collaborating agencies, parents and communities would combine to ensure that a pupil's support needs were met with the right resources and with a healthy flexibility and creativity from those involved! The question should no longer be 'should they be here, but rather, how can we figure out how to best include them?

• Yes we want better training for all staff from initial training on.
• Yes we want to end reliance on statements for resourcing and accountabilities
• Yes we want safeguards for resourcing for pupils
• Yes we want an end to the domination of the standards agenda
• Yes we want an end to exclusions

Yes we really want to listen to young people, who in this report are the only ones to mention the crucial issue of building friendships when being included. This is surely as key to an individual's life opportunities than changes in attainment scores that according to OFSTED, cited in this report, are as likely to take place in any setting with the right preconditions.

James: 'if I was born 20 years ago I might not have had the opportunity to go to a mainstream school. I wouldn't have the friends I've got now, so things have got a lot better, but we have a long way to go.'

The conditions for friendship must involve being seen regularly by your peers, in ordinary local situations and having opportunities to interact freely, to do stuff together without adult involvement.

How can providing a broad continuum of flexible provision including high quality special schools ... .be in the spirit of the Disability Discrimination Act. Surely it is discriminatory to be excluded, or to be placed in an alternative special school when a mainstream school is not prepared to, or is unsuccessful in making reasonable adjustments that would allow you to be present?

We can do better at making our mainstream schools more flexible and inclusive. This is where we should invest and gradually relocate all our SEN resources. Now is not the time to turn the clock back and to start building new special schools and units. We need to invest in:

• Peer support
• Parent collaboration
• Person centred planning and delivery
• Creative problem solving
• High quality trained staff
• Excellent differentiation and diversification of the curriculum
• Buildings that have flexible arrangements and spaces
• Grouping around pupils' passions and interests rather than 'abilities'

We need to have courageous vision, just as Martin Luther King did when he pronounced:

'I have a dream....'

Select Committee report ignores 20 years of good inclusive practice in education

Alliance for Inclusive Education Press Release:

Disabled people are concerned that good inclusive practice in education developed over 20 years has, once again,   been ignored in favour of the moral panic about the closure of segregated 'special' schools.  

The Alliance for Inclusive Education and BCODP broadly welcome the Education & Skills Select Committee report, particularly with regard to the call to review the existing and overly bureaucratic statementing process, better training for teachers, and a focus on pupil-centred planning.   We also agree with the report regarding the confusing and unclear messages, which the government has given over the last 10 years and which have obstructed the development of a deeper understanding of the values and principles of inclusion.

We are not denying that many schools still have a very long way to go in meeting all children's educational and social needs.   However, this report has effectively ignored the very real and positive experiences of the many disabled young people who have had the opportunity to learn alongside their non-disabled peers in mainstream schools.   These schools are successfully delivering inclusion on a daily basis to a diverse pupil community.

It is a fact that those of us working in the inclusion movement, many of whom have had first-hand experience of special schools as pupils,   had to fight very hard to have our voices heard, during the evidence gathering process, and we think that the resulting report focuses on the negative experiences of parents.   The Select Committee talks about 'effective partnership with parents and communities' but, this must take into account the forthcoming public sector duty to promote equality for disabled people, and properly involve disabled children and young people in decision-making.   How else will we as a society achieve the government's bold target of true equality for disabled people by 2025?

Tara Flood, Director at the Alliance:

" We are very disappointed that the Select Committee has failed to highlight the many many good examples of early years centres, schools and FE colleges that are sucessfully including all learners, and in particular those with SEN labels "

Simone Aspis, BCODP:

"We are disappointed that the Select Committee have not made concrete recommendations on how the educational legal and policy framework could be improved in order to promote disabled children's civil and human rights to inclusive schooling.   We think that a key recommendation of the expectation that each LEA should provide a continuum of educational provision including special school placements will undermine and adversely affect their ability to provide fully inclusive education for all"

Tara Flood, Director of Alliance for Inclusive Education - tara.flood@allfie.org.uk  

Simone Aspis, Campaigns & Parliamentary Officer, BCODP - simone@bcodp.org.uk  

Further reading: " Snapshots of Possibility" , shining examples of inclusive education.
Published by the Alliance for Inclusive Education

Responding to Warnock: Inclusion Works!

Heading for Inclusion

'Heading for Inclusion' is a group of Headteachers and senior school leaders dedicated to the ideals of a fully inclusive mainstream education system.

Headteachers and senior school leaders up and down the country are dismayed at the negative portrait that has been presented of inclusive education over the past weeks following Baroness Warnock's recent unfortunate comments.  We, of all people, are the first to admit that inclusion is not always easy; does not always provide quick fixes and needs to be properly funded.  Equally, we have daily experience of seeing how inclusion is powerfully changing the world for the next generation of young people - for the better.  Inclusion for us is ultimately about building a society in which all people are valued for who they are; where young people learn to throw away the prejudices with which we were brought up  and can work together to create a new 'inclusive' world.  Some of us are well on the way to modelling internationally renowned school environments which respond to the needs of each child - and develop them into the creative, intelligent, loving, thoughtful human beings that is their birthright.  Many of us are at various stages on the way.

Baroness Warnock is wrong when she says inclusion is not working.  We know that there are parents, children and indeed schools who are not completely happy with the current situation.  We need to remember, however, that the alternative Eugenic model of segregated education has failed many more children - through very low expectations, ghettoisation - and most seriously - an impaired ability of its receipients to engage in mainstream society when they leave.  Our system of segregated education must end! 

There are, of course, dedicated professionals with highly valuable skills in special schools.  As special schools close these people need to come and work in the new inclusive mainstream schools and bring their expertise to support all children.  There are numerous examples of mainstream schools adopting new practice to respond to the needs of a child with special needs and finding that many other children also benefit from the change.

One school, which included a child with Downs syndrome, taught all the children and staff Makaton only to find that many of the children were able to benefit from receiving information in that way.

In one school with provision for children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties the children repeatedly elected a child with an EBD statement to represent them on the school council because they knew he would not be afraid to put their views to the Headteacher.  When he first started at the school many children had been afraid of him.  Because of inclusion he put his temper and violence behind him and became a valued member of his society.

School Councils, circles of friends, peer counselling, circles of support are just some of the ways inclusion is improving the lives of children - every day.

Inclusion is  a radical agenda - we are talking about changing the whole of society.  Barones Warnock would do well to come and talk to Headteachers to see how wonderful those changes are proving to be.  We look forward to meeting with her.

nigelutton@btinternet.com
Chair of Heading for Inclusion 

Telephone 01420 84400 

Some of the folowing headteachers may be available for comment:

head@buckingham.w-sussex.sch.uk ; headteacher@cottingley.leeds.sch.uk ; sue.billingham@hiheathn.bham.sch.uk ; head@hillbrook.wandsworth.sch.uk ; brak10@blackburn.ac.uk headteacher@brookside.stockport.sch.uk ; office@davigdor.brighton-hove.sch.uk ; head@turvesgreen-pri.bham.sch.uk ; office@wbjs.com ; daviesr.gibbsgreen.lbhf@lgfl.net ; amy.white@bedford-pct.nhs.uk ; L.Gracey@blackburn.ac.uk ; diane.gunn@upton.kent.sch.uk ; headteacher@ripple.kent.sch.uk ; fao@jubilee.lambeth.sch.uk ; admin.cleves@pop3.newham.gov.uk ; garnet.bryant@sarisbury-inf.hants.sch.uk ; s.j.j.keefe@btinternet.com ; kenwardh@filshamvalley.e-sussex.sch.uk ; enquiries@hartleybrook.sheffield.sch.uk ; enquiries@hampsteadschool.org.uk ; jayne.lates@hallgreen-inf.bham.sch.uk ; l.manford@normandcroft.hammersmith-fulham.sch.uk ; fmheadteacher@hotmail.com ; janmillington@billesley.bham.sch.uk ; joan@sheringdale.org ; aphillips@cottesbrooke-inf.bham.sch.uk ; mouseholekat@beeb.net ; office@stmaryspri.worcs.sch.uk ; office.westborough@kirklees-schools.org.uk ; rsturgess2002@yahoo.co.uk ; vaggers@btopenworld.com ; office@franchefirst.worcs.sch.uk ; enquiry@newoscti.bham.sch.uk ; admin@ethelred-nursery.lambeth.sch.uk ; admin.langdon@pop3.newham.gov.uk

Policy Writing

LEAs , schools, early years settings and others who need to write policies in relation to emerging legislation will at times require support from external advisors and facilitators. This where we can help. We can also provide a training video on writing inclusion policies.

Phone 0115 9556045/9567305 to discuss.

Strategic Support

There is still a massive amount of serious strategic work needed at Government, LEA, and school levels if inclusion is to become a reality in the UK. This is made very clear in these HMI reports:

Inclusion the Impact of LEA Support and Outreach Services
HMI Report 2005 (pdf)

Special educational needs and disability: towards inclusive schools
HMI Report 2004 (pdf)

Main findings:
The government’s revised inclusion framework has contributed to a growing awareness of the benefits of inclusion, and response to it has led to some improvement in practice.

• The framework has had little effect as yet on the proportion of pupils with SEN in mainstream schools, or on the range of needs for which mainstream schools cater. There has been an increase in the numbers of pupils placed in pupil referral units and independent special schools.
• Most mainstream schools are now committed to meeting special needs. A few are happy to admit pupils with complex needs. The admission and retention of pupils with social and behavioural difficulties continue to test the inclusion policy.
• A minority of mainstream schools meet special needs very well, and others are becoming better at doing so. High expectations, effective whole-school planning seen through by committed managers, close attention on the part of skilled teachers and support staff, and rigorous evaluation remain the keys to effective practice.
• Taking all the steps needed to enable pupils with SEN to participate fully in the life of the school and achieve their potential remains a significant challenge for many schools. Expectations of achievement are often neither well enough defined nor pitched high enough. Progress in learning remains slower than it should be for a significant number of pupils.
• Few schools evaluate their provision for pupils with SEN systematically so that they can establish how effective the provision is and whether it represents value for money. The availability and use of data on outcomes for pupils with SEN continue to be limited.
• Not enough use is made by mainstream schools of the potential for adapting the curriculum and teaching methods so that pupils have suitable opportunities to improve key skills.
• The teaching seen of pupils with SEN was of varying quality, with a high proportion of lessons having shortcomings. Support by teaching assistants can be vital, but the organisation of it can mean that pupils have insufficient opportunity to develop their skills, understanding and independence.
• Despite the helpful contributions by the national strategies, the quality of work to improve the literacy of pupils with SEN remains inconsistent.
• Effective partnership work between mainstream schools and special schools on curriculum and teaching is the exception rather than the rule.
• Over half the schools visited had no disability access plans and, of those plans that did exist, the majority focused only on accommodation.

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Removing Barriers to Achievement 2004 (DFES)

We provide a range of training, visioning and consultation opportunities for LEAs and schools that link directly into supporting the Governments strategy for SEN.

Specialist Skills - Advanced Skills - Core Skills

Click here for training

Our Work: Design for Change

Strategies for increasing inclusive practice within your LEA.

Over the past three years ‘Inclusive Solutions’ has been working with Local Education Authorities across the UK with the aim of supporting the development of inclusive practice. This work has taken a variety of forms depending on the particular needs and priorities of the LEA at that time. We have co-designed with LEA managers a range of strategic approaches to create sustainable changes in practice at key places within SEN systems.

We are particularly keen to look at:

• Strategies that transform SEN resourcing systems in ways that allow rapid and flexible response to the needs of mainstream schools and also serve, where necessary, to reduce overall statementing rates
• Supporting the development of multi-disciplinary working (across LEA teams and across Health, Social Services and Education Departments)
• Parents’ voices – how to ensure equitable distribution of resources in the face of powerful lobbies for particular disability labels?
• Working within the tensions of a dual mainstream/special school system, transforming the special sector in support of inclusion
• Finding creative ways to provide ‘the therapies’
• Restructuring your support services in support of inclusion, the design and functioning of inclusion facilitation teams

Examples of our strategic work with LEAs and other organisations over the past two years include:-

Day Zero: Inclusion Day, May 2009 - 700 pupils and full staff team worked with usat Whitton School - a large Richmond high school.Great strategic work made possible by the imaginative Head of The Whitton Gateway (which is the borough centre for inclusion of students on the autistic spectrum) Sarah Bright and her Senior Management team. Extremely well received by all involved! 'The general feedback has been excellent and it is set to become an annual event in some form. Robert, who is visually impaired, said it was the very best day he has had at Whitton. We set up a Circle of Friends around him this morning, which also made he really happy.'

Abbie's MAP: Colin joined Marnie a Staffordshire EP to carry out a MAP with staff and family at the mainstream secondary school that Abbie wishes to go in September where her brother already attends. This was a strategically very important meeting for inclusive secondary education in Staffordshire.

Birmingham LEA: Establishing an LEA ‘Leaders for Inclusion’ group and providing training and facilitation on ‘Tools for Person-Centred Planning’. Working jointly with Chris Atkinson, Chief Educational Psychologist, Birmingham LEA, over a 10 month period, we have been supporting the development of a self-selected ‘community of practice’ within staff of Birmingham’s SEN support services. The longer term aim is for this cross-service group to support eachother in the wider development of inclusive practice across the LEA.

For more background on this work please feel free to contact Chris Atkinson at Chris_Atkinson@birmingham.gov.uk.

Oxfordshire LEA: Leading a series of visioning sessions over a six month period, towards the development of a shared understanding of ‘inclusion’ in the Oxfordshire context. The groups we worked with included: senior elected members of the County Council’s cross party working group on inclusion, senior LEA officers, teachers and others from Oxfordshire’s Early Years Service, Oxfordshire’s educational psychology team.

For more background on this work contact Simon Adams, Senior Education Officer simon.adams@oxfordshire.gov.uk.

Oxfordshire Children's Centres: Find our more about our visioning and problem solving work in Oxfordshire Children' Centres here>>>

Highland Region Education Department: providing ongoing training and consultation towards the development of enhanced inclusive practice and alternatives to exclusion across the region. With a particular emphasis on the use of Restorative Interventions instead of exclusion, this work is linked to the New Community Schools initiative in Highland region.

For more background on this work contact Peta Barber, Senior Educational Psychologist peta.barber@highland.gov.uk.

Southwark LEA Early Years Unit: Work ongoing over the past 2 years with the full range of early years providers within the Borough; maintained and non-maintained nurseries, playgroup managers, specialist childminders, LEA Early Years Officers, and parents of disabled children (via Southwark’s Parent Partnership Project). The aim of this work has been to build a deeper appreciation of inclusive values across early years provision and to enable providers to match their policies and practice to the Ofsted National Standards guidance on Special Needs and on Behaviour.

For more background on this work contact Fiona Phillips, Early Years training manager – fiona.phillips@southwark.gov.uk.

Knowsley LEA: over viewing and scoping LEA support services and structures with feedback on strengths and areas for development; support over the past 12 twelve months to establish 3 multi-agency BEST teams within the LEA including; direct training, facilitating team building days, support to clarify BEST team processes and procedures. Work with secondary SENCos on the inclusion of students with high level needs in Key Stages 3 and4.

For more information on this work contact Maxine Froggatt, Assistant Director – maxine.froggatt.de@knowsley.gov.uk.

Lewisham LEA: training inputs for primary and secondary SENCos and LEA support staff on including pupils with autism in mainstream settings.

Contact for this work is Denise Capon, Senior Educational Psychologist Denise.Capon@lewisham.gov.uk.

Connexions Cumbria / Barrow EAZ: Raising the Aspirations of Care Leavers: a visioning event to engage young people and their foster carers at an early age in goal setting, 'aiming higher’, and identifying the ‘roadblocks’ to their aspirations. To include follow up consultations with Connexions personal advisers.

Contact for this work is: Daniel Carter, Team Leader, Barrow Connexions Centre Daniel.Carter@connexionscumbria.co.uk.

Dumfries and Galloway LEA: Providing training inputs across the Region to Headteachers and support service staff on ‘Keys to Inclusion’ in preparation for the authority-wide adoption of Scotland’s accessibility strategy for pupils with SEN. Followed by work – ‘training the trainers’ - with local support service staff to enable them to provide ongoing developmental work on inclusive practice within the regions schools.

Contact for this work is: John McVie, SEN Manager, Dumfries and Galloway JohnMv@dumgal.gov.uk.

Casework

We have engaged in high profile casework supporting pupils inclusion in a range of LEAs including Lambeth, Nottinghamshire, Bolton, South lanarkshire and Cambridgeshire

Hartlepool Integrated Working and Information Sharing
Check out the work we are doing in Hartlepool 2006/07 to seriously engage people in working together with graphics, fun and participation across all their agencies and work force! We have already met with 500 of the workforce...

Further examples of our work can be found elsewhere on this website.

For a fuller discussion of any of the above initiatives or to explore possible joint work with inclusive solutions telephone Colin Newton (0115 9556045) or Derek Wilson (0115 9567305) or email on inclusive.solutions@ntlworld.com.

Training and Books