25/06/2011 by lizit.

When I set up this blog, it was to support my DPhil studies. I knew that the process I was engaging with would be a journey. What I didn’t know was what the nature of the journey would turn out to be, but I knew the destination I had in mind was what my husband refers to as a “Big D”. I still have some way to go - all being well, I will submit my thesis towards the middle of next academic year - but a tweet has led me to reflect a little on the journey so far, with its various twists and turns. Rather than being a reflective essay, this had turned into more a narrative description of the this happened, then this, but so be it.

Jeffrey Keefer simply asked: “No CoP space in your research? Wonder why that may be the case….” Given that at one point, I had expected CoP, or communities of practice to be fairly centre stage, I also wondered why.

The seeds of my DPhil journey were almost certainly planted over a period of time and without my conscious awareness. If I think back about 6 years, my focus was probably on retirement preparation. Apart from a small tutoring contract with the Open University, I had given up my paid employment to sort out appropriate support for my son’s special educational needs. I was not really thinking of returning to work in any real sense, when the OU advertised consultancy posts with the Information, Advice and Guidance team of the Sussex Learning Network. Although I hadn’t worked directly in that area, I had relevant experience and the pay was attractive, so I put in an application and somewhat to my surprise was appointed. A few months later, consultancies also became available on the Sussex Learning Network e-learning team, and it was suggested I apply. This was a difficult decision, as it would mean moving to a situation of being in virtually full-time employment, but I grasped the nettle and again was appointed.

Becoming an elearning consultant was a turning point. Whereas, I was content to stay with the technology I had learned over the previous ten years, I was now introduced to the world of blogs and wikis and 3-D virtual worlds and social media more generally and found myself relating to people who were engaged in research in this area and had colleagues who were talking of doctoral study. I gently encouraged them, got involved in various projects, but was very clear that a research degree was not for me - it was for younger people. I got further OU contracts involving me in various research projects and found I was enjoying myself. In particular, I was enjoying being able to use skills from years ago, which I had considered I would never have the opportunity to use other than in voluntary capacities, but which I was using and which were being recognised by colleagues - perhaps retirement, endless cups of tea and making lace was not my only potential destination.

I still don’t really know how it happened! One of the areas I began to work in through the elearning consultancy was 3-D virtual worlds. I initiated a project with a colleague at the University of Sussex and one day found myself asking her whether there might be a doctorate in the work we were doing. At that point, my doctoral journey started as she responded positively to my query and a few months later, I found myself a registered student with the intention of doing some comparative work around learning in 3-D virtual environments and learning in the physical world. I can honestly say that doing a PhD was never part of my life plan, and was very surprised to find myself in that place, and although I am now very comfortable with what I am doing, I am still more than a little surprised to find how good the fit is.

Despite best intentions, the planned research didn’t quite work out, but my focus at the end of my first year as a research student was still firmly on learning in 3-D worlds. I was beginning to explore aspects of informal learning and the development of a sense of community. This fitted very much with my experience as a community development worker nearly forty years ago and an ongoing interest in how communities form and develop and how people learn in community. As the research design developed, it was clearly moving well beyond the bounds of Informatics, and my supervisor invited a colleague in the Sociology faculty to a consultation to assist in enabling me to determine the way forward. That meeting proved another turning point. Essentially, the message I took away was that the ideas I was exploring were interesting, but I was looking at a broad area and such work was best undertaken through the narrow lens of a domain I knew well.

Following that meeting, I rapidly re-scoped my research objectives. 3-D virtual worlds were no longer an appropriate domain, for what I wanted to explore as there was an area I knew far better, was much closer to my heart and where the ideas I was interested in were far more relevant. The focus of my research shifted to learning amongst professionals and other carers in the autistic spectrum domain. The central issue focused on learning and why it was that the learning of some professionals was privileged over that of parents and other carers. Policy in this area emphasised partnership, but the system was acknowledged to be adversarial. Was there any evidence of a community of practice embracing professionals from different disciplines? Why were parents included or excluded from this CoP?

So, to return to Jeffrey’s question, my research at that point did have CoP as a central theme.

However, as I began to interview people and to think about the theoretical context, and to refine further my research question, I was forced to accept that no matter how interesting CoPs were, there was a more fundamental question, which was why was the SEN system so adversarial anyway. Rather than looking for examples of co-operative practice, and there are many, it seemed that much of what I read and much of what participants told me used militaristic language to describe relationships within the system. Somewhat surprisingly, I could find little in the literature by way of explanation for why this might be the case. There appeared to be tacit acceptance that the system was adversarial. Even the Green Paper on SEN published 3 months ago, presents the adversarial nature of the system as a reason for change, but does not offer any suggestions as to how the proposed changes will alter this.

So thus far, my journey as taken me from positioning myself outside academic research, to tentative first steps in exploring learning in 3-D virtual worlds, to debates about the nature of learning and informal learning, to communities of practice, to why the SEN system is broke. On the way, I have learned about theories I had never heard of before, I have begun to understand things I would previously dismissed, I have questioned myself and my presuppositions, and I have begun to understand the relevance of theory to practical situations and the interplay of research and policy development. I have met and engaged with lots of interesting people and have begun to realise that what I have to say is probably no less worthy that what anybody else has to contribute to various debates.

Communities of practice are central to my thinking, and being part of a community of practice supports my research, but I have somewhat reluctantly had to accept that communities of practice, at this point in time, are not central to my research interests.

The journey continues.

Posted in community of practice, voice, lace, research ideas, reflections, learning | Print | 3 Comments »

29/04/2011 by lizit.

I facilitate a drop-in group for parents of children with SENs. Most of the parents who attend have children who have high functioning autism or Aspergers amongst their diagnoses.

Even though my research focuses on those who care for and support children and young people with diagnoses of Aspergers and HFA, I decided that it would be inappropriate to include this group in my research, apart from making personal requests to some specific individuals to interview them. My role in the group is to offer support and share from my own experiences and there was a clear conflict of interests between hearing confidential information in a support role and using such information in my research role. Further, if I had asked the consent of group users to use knowledge gained in the setting in my research, it may well at best influenced the operation of the group and at worst led to some parents deciding not to use the group because they could not rely on their circumstances being kept cinfidential.

However, from time to time I find myself in a conversation when I just wish I hadn’t made that decision. One such was a conversation this week. There were two parents with primary age sons, both with diagnoses of Aspergers and ADHD, and the discussion was about their concerns about aspects of their sons’ behaviours which were a cause for concern. As they spoke of some of their young sons’ aggressive acts, fascination with their bodies, and threats of violence to the point of murder, I was so reminded of my experiences with my son when he was much younger. Like them, I had been concerned by the cold and calculating way he had spoken of killing, and, like them, I was terrified that I might have a psychopathic killer as a son. I had forgotten those thoughts and feelings, but as I participated in this conversation, I remembered some of those dark times, and was so thankful that my son, now adult, is so different from what I feared he might be. Although nobody can guarantee how any child will develop, it brought some reassurance to these women that my son was now OK. But for me there was the dilemma of how do I include some of this content in my discussion of the struggles parents face in raising young people with ASDs.

Posted in boundaries, Aspergers/HFA, ethics | Print | 1 Comment »

24/04/2011 by lizit.

Following on from the Identity memo 1, I want to explore another area which is important to my research and which also has a long root in my life, namely my interest in disability and related areas.

I suppose my first conscious interest in disability was in 1966, when as a 16 year old I went on a working holiday to a Leonard Cheshire Home and met people who had quite severe impairments for the first time. At the time, I can remember being impressed by the ethos of the establishment - the concept of family and not referring to disabled people as residents or patients. It made enough of an impression on me, that I returned the following year and began to look at possible career options that might involve working with disabled people.

However, my awareness of health and illness goes much further back than that. Before her marriage, my mother had been a nurse and she retained an active interest in her profession, acting as secretary to the local branch of the Royal College of Nursing. She had done both mental and general nurse training, but her interest was in mental health and she would speak of her experiences and about how difficult it had been to enter her chosen profession - she encountered a lot of opposition from her family because of the low status nurses were perceived as having in the early 1930s when she commenced her training.

I would guess that my mother’s stories had quite a lot to do with me choosing to join the Junior Red Cross and undertake basic training in first aid, home nursing and child care.

I can’t claim that I thought much about disability again until about 1980 when I was working for a local authority as voluntary organisations liaison officer. I was involved in the planning of our response to 1981 - International Year of Disabled People - which led to two specific projects - developing an access guide for the borough together with the head OT and involvement in establishing a local disability association. I also got involved in setting up a parent support group. At a personal level, the spin off from this was taking a postgraduate Masters degree and doing a research project on local disability associations and the implications of them being run by and for disabled people or by able-bodied for disabled. This linked to the thinking of the Wolfenden Report on the future of voluntary organisations and the role of intermediary bodies and to the changes within the disability movement more generally that recognised that disability was not an obstacle to being able to run organisations, engage in social and political action, etc. I can remember being shocked by some of the attitudes I heard expressed by people then responsible for the voluntary/charity organisations and also being impressed by what I saw disabled people doing.

My next career move was to leading a multi-disciplinary social services team with a focus on disability and older people. As described in identity memo 1, a key element of my work there was enabling our ‘clients’ to have as much control as possible over the services made available to them.

Moves followed into voluntary organisation management and motherhood. It was as my son began to develop that disability became a much more personal concern. It was very clear that my son was exhibiting different behaviour from other children of his age, and though I put some of this down to the effect of living in Germany and being between cultures, concern was also expressed by the Kindergarten he attended. I was subjected to a very difficult discussion with the Kindergarten staff when I was effectively told that it was probable my son would never live independently and would probably not be able to attend a normal school. To say this was done clumsily and without warning is an understatement. The fact that the conversation took place in German made it all the more difficult - was I really understanding what I was being told.

Following initial assessments with a German paediatrician, we learned we were returning to the UK. My hope was that my son’s behaviour would settle once he no longer had to cope with two languages and different cultural expectations. The reality was that very soon his school were making referrals to the school nurse and we ended up with CAMHS and the start of the long journey to finding out what lay behind my son’s differences and getting appropriate support for him. That journey also led me, together with others, to set up a parent support group and convinced me that it was essential for parents to be adequately informed and supported so that they could obtain the support their children not only needed, but had a right to.

I could unpick those personal experiences a great deal more - the attitudes of the different professionals I encountered, the lack of knowledge some professionals had of the support infrastructures, the journey to getting a statement for a very able and intelligent child who just was not coping in school, the encounters with mental health services and the failures of services to address needs appropriately. Elsewhere I have documented the roller coaster of emotions I experienced and the details of that journey.

Now I am able to step back a little. My son is now an adult and is doing very well. But I am still actively involved in parent support groups and my personal experiences are very much the driver for my research. Sometimes I feel I am too close to what I am researching and too influenced by my own experience. At other times, I recognise that even when going through the worst of times with my son, I was operating both as parent and professional and maintaining a level of professionalism and objectivity which I did not feel.

A further aspect of disability is now impinging on my life and consciousness. My own health and fitness has deteriorated, to some extent because of my failure to care for myself appropriately, and I am having to recognise there are things I cannot do that I might want to do, but my energy levels are inadequate.

So throughout my life, I haven’t been very distant from issues of health, illness, mental health, disability, and SEN.

Posted in parenting, SEN, biography, empowerment, reflections | Print | No Comments »

24/04/2011 by lizit.

A recent blog of eLiz Hartnett’s caught my eye. In it she reproduces a diagram that she had seen at a recent conference and uses the diagram to reflect on the focus of her thesis and where it sits within her discipline.

I have been aware that one of the things I am tussling with is just where does my research fit, and looking at eLiz’s blog helped me to realise that part of my difficulty is the interdisciplinary nature of what I am doing and not being sure who I am addressing, or, in a disciplinary sense, where my focus is. Although, I am no closer to sorting that out, my attempt at diagramming did clarify some of the reasons why I am struggling.

My research focuses on a sub-set of the SEN system and I am using that sub-set to explore the metaphor of struggle and fight which occurs frequently in the language used in academic literature, policy documents and conversation. Drawing clarified that not only is struggle prevalent in a whole range of different ways in the system, but it is also prevalent in the theoretical framework. Maybe it is no wonder that I have problems sorting out where I am looking and where I belong!

I sense this is a diagram to come back to and work with some more, though I suspect it might be one of those diagrams that becomes increasingly confusing, before it becomes clearer.

Posted in SEN, struggle, systems | Print | 1 Comment »

18/04/2011 by lizit.

A colleague on #phdchat has drawn my attention to a chapter in Maxwell (2005) on conceptual frameworks. I found this an interesting, informative and challenging read, particularly enjoying the use of diagramming techniques to understand the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of a research project. This reflected some of my experience in refining my ideas and I will return to using mapping in the near future. As interesting, and in some ways more challenging, was the recognition of personal experience being an important part of a conceptual framework. Maxwell cites a number of writers including Reason (1989) and C. Wright Mills (1959) to support the view that life experience is valid. Reason’s introduction of the term “critical subjectivity” lends weight to the view that it is possible to be both subjective and objective.

Amongst the many suggestions made in the chapter is one of writing a note, or identity memo, reflecting on the development of ones own interest in the research topic, or aspects of the research topic. This seemed a helpful notion to me as a couple of aspects of my research are tapping areas which I have had a long term interest in. This posting reflects on the first of these, the whole area of what I have referred to as ‘ownership’ but which in academic speak seems to be ‘agency’ - but it may be that ownership is just a facet of agency - let’s see.

I am not sure whether my thinking about ‘ownership’ belongs initially to undergraduate days or first employment. My first degree was a combination of academic and professional education, leading to a degree in Applied Social Studies and a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work. There was a strong emphasis on psychodynamic psychology, which I realise now was focusing on ‘deficits’ in people with problems, rather than their strengths. I reacted quite strongly to this approach, being unable to reconcile it with the real world people were living and struggling in. Perhaps fortunately, one of my placements was more concerned with societal change than with changing individuals, and when I graduated, it was perhaps inevitable that I gravitated towards community development. It seemed to me that the basic tenets of community development - not doing things for people, but working together to achieve change - made more sense and also fitted better with my personal faith position as a Christian.

Through a series of community work posts, I became more increasingly convinced that it was important for people to both own their problems (wherever they came from) and also to own the means of tackling those problems and resolving them. I was influenced by the disability movement and the insistence that disabled people were not to be pitied but were perfectly able and capable of doing more or less anything given appropriate resources and removal of the attitudinal and physical barriers which restricted them. As a social services team leader in the early 1980s, I insisted on holding meetings bringing together people, who were our clients only because of age or impairment, and the service providers, from my own organisation and others, to agree together on appropriate ‘care packages’ - if somebody wanted to use the 3 hours a week home care service we could offer to get their house cleaned rather than their shopping done, that was their decision and right and we did not have the right to tell them what they needed. I did not see why professionals should make decisions for adults who were capable of making their own decisions if given the opportunity to do so.

Moving on, I held senior positions in 2 voluntary organisations. In one of those, the primary focus was on negotiating a contract for the provision of services - a notion which has become normal, but was then being trialled by a few local authorities with a few voluntary organisations. My concern was that this would lead to a commercialisation of the voluntary sector, removing some of its scope for innovation and challenge of the state, but also an awareness that underpinning the transfer of services from the state to the voluntary sector was an economic imperative to save money and I was not prepared to engage in fund-raising in order to do the work of the statutory sector. In the second organisation, the situation was more complex. It was a pan-London, church-based organisation with a network of projects throughout London. Funding was a mixture of local authority grants, money given by churches and a diocesan grant. Over the years, the projects had become more professional and local church groups were questioning why they should fund these activities, especially when they were unable to gain much information about what was being done in their name because of client confidentiality. Although the work was of high quality, it was removed from the churches with the unintended consequence that local churches neither owned the work nor felt any obligation to engage in social action themselves as they were already funding the projects to do this on their behalf. My view was that it was essential to return ‘ownership’ to the local churches and to enable them to identify what was appropriate social action in their areas, if necessary reconfiguring the professional projects. It was a very difficult time as it felt as though I was dismantling rather than building.

Time moved on. I became a mother and spent a few years living abroad. When I returned to the UK, I knew I could not realistically return to my previous career. I retrained, gained new interests, and developed an interest in educational technology. But my personal life was taking me in a different direction as it became clear my son had SEN. I was able to use my knowledge and skills to gain an understanding of the system and to ensure my son got the help and support necessary for him to achieve his potential - I owned the problem and exercised my agency. I knew other parents were not necessarily able to do this - they were effectively disabled - and became involved in voluntary initiatives to enable other parents to act.

I am not anti-professional - I have been involved in professional employment of one sort or another most of my adult life. I am against professionals disabling others when they could be informing and enabling people to take control of their own lives and own their problems and difficulties so as to engage in action to become the people they want to be. I still remember the amazement expressed by a social worker on a holiday project when she saw ‘inadequate parents’ organising activities and taking responsibility for large groups of children. By focusing on the positives, the difficulties can be overcome, albeit with struggle.

So my perspectives on ownership/agency are a mixture of personal belief, gut feeling, work experience, observation…

Maxwell, J. A. 2005. Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach, Sage Publications, Inc.

Posted in biography, empowerment, concepts, ownership | Print | No Comments »

06/04/2011 by lizit.

Another #phdchat inspired posting.

Last month the UK government published a consultation document, or green paper, outlining a number of changes they are planning on making to the special education system. There are various reasons for wanting to change the system, including saving money, but the ones that interest me are about the system being too complex and too adversarial. Both of these seem to be accepted as facts without any real explanations why. So what I am doing is drawing pictures to try to understand the system and using these to find out why the system gets described as a battlefield.

As well as drawing pictures, I am talking to people who have been involved with the Special Needs system. These include parents of children on the autistic spectrum, teachers, support workers in schools, doctors and therapists. I am asking them to tell me their stories of how they have learned about the autism and about the SEN system.

Some parents tell stories of how helpful a specific teacher or doctor has been and how well their child is doing. Others talk about problems getting help for their child and some talk about their child being excluded from school and sometimes being out of school for a long time. The education and health workers talk about children they have worked with and learned from. They also talk about needs that are not met and very often have very little idea what happens in other parts of the system.

I agree with the government that the SEN system needs to be changed, but I am concerned about changes designed to fix a system if we don’t really know why it is broken to start off. I hope my research will help explain why the system is broke and will help in understanding whether the proposed changes will fix it, or may actually lead to more problems.

Posted in SEN, ASD, research ideas | Print | 12 Comments »

04/04/2011 by lizit.

Having read Martin Eve’s and Jennifer Jones’s blogs outlining where they are at the planned halfway stage of their PhDs, it struck me a progress check might be in order.

In theory, I’m now two and a half years into my DPhil journey, except the journey hasn’t been that straightforward. In October 2008, the plan was to do work around Second Life/Virtual Worlds and education. That continued to be the primary focus until the following May, when I had to rethink things somewhat as the initial plans had fallen through for reasons beyond my control. Initially, it was just a tweak, in that the focus stayed with virtual worlds/Second Life but instead of looking at formal learning, I began to look at informal learning and community building. That was a real option, until November 2009.

In November 2009, as I started exploring a different methodological approach, it became appropriate to look for some additional consultation on the way ahead. That consultation session proved a dramatic turning point, and although the previous 14 months was not completely irrelevant, my research moved away from virtual worlds to being located ‘in a domain that I knew well’. In some ways, that is the true start date of my DPhil, and one of the things I have had to do over the past few months is stop trying to incorporate stuff that is no longer relevant in my thesis - it’s not wasted, just not relevant to the subject in hand.

There is a sense of loss over changing direction and letting go of things. Two years ago I considered myself, and was considered by others, part of the virtual world research committee. I had co-authored a journal article and a book chapter and presented at several conferences and knew many of the people active in that research community. Sometimes, I think I was a fool not to stay with what I was doing, but most of the time, I know it was the only real option as I am involved and passionate about what I am now doing.

What have I achieved in since changing direction. If it is measured in terms of external outputs, very little so far, but then I have moved into a new discipline and it has taken time to get a sense of the academic and theoretical landscape that I now inhabit and to begin to form links with others working in the same area. I wouldn’t say I have a network that emulates that which I had previously, but I am getting there. I am also starting to feel more comfortable with the language and culture of the social sciences - somewhat different from informatics where I was previously located.

On the other hand, I have defined my research questions, gathered a lot of data, sorted out my theoretical frameworks and analysis methodology, written a thesis outline and can see how the completed work might look. The current task is to construct a complete first draft of my thesis, while continuing to collect and analyse data. What I do need to give serious thought to is how to get my head above the parapet in terms of conferences and publishing - but maybe some of that can wait for the moment.

So in brief, I’ve made a beginning, achieved a successful U-turn and am now proceeding in an orderly fashion towards my destination, needing to decide whether to take the scenic route, or whether to stick to the motorway and then turn off to explore the countryside.

Posted in reflections | Print | 1 Comment »

31/03/2011 by lizit.

Last evening’s #phdchat session on Twitter focused on academic writing. As always, it was a wide ranging discussion, but one aspect that got me thinking a bit more was my writing voice.

When I started my DPhil journey, I remember saying to my supervisor that one of the things I needed to do was to find my voice. At the time, I had just co-authored an article with her on a project we had been involved with and it was the first serious writing I had done for several years, and my first venture into academic writing as such, in the sense that this was something that might be read by other than my teachers and supervisors. I was used to presenting stuff in all manner of contexts, but writing and a writing voice was somehow different.

A further, personal complication was my longstanding reaction to much academic writing and language. As an undergraduate, way back when, I had found myself virtually struck dumb in seminars and other discussions because I just did not understand half of what was being said, and there was no way I could actually write such impenetrable stuff.  I more or less made a promise to myself that anything I said or wrote should be in accessible English.

It is now about two and a half years since that conversation with my supervisor, and I realise I have found a voice - in fact I have found three different voices, all of which I will be expressing in my writing and my thesis.

First, there is the impersonal, authoritative voice. This is the voice most present in the theoretically based parts of my writing. It is the one that reports on what I have read, provides a context, discusses methodological frameworks and the like. From time to time it may use formal, academic language, but it aims to be accessible and clear. It is also the voice that identifies some of the issues and conflicts between theoretical perspectives and enters into debate with them.

Secondly, there is another voice which also discusses ideas and concepts, but not as impersonal researcher, but as ‘I’. This is the voice that makes observations on what the impersonal has written and brings a ‘real world’ perspective. When the impersonal talks about the number of different specialists a child with a disability might have seen, the ‘I’ voice talks from experience. This voice has a different type of authority from the impersonal voice. The impersonal is speaking from the body of research and professional experience which has been subjected to peer review and the like, but the personal voice is sometimes saying, that is the theory, but this is how it was for me in reality.

The third voice, which is a function of the type of work I am doing, and which in other circumstances might be part of that second voice, is me as participant in my research. Although, I am not taking an autoethnographic approach, my story and experiences are part of my research.  Last summer I blogged on some of the ethical dilemmas I was confronting. I have now found a resolution to these in writing and analysing my own story in such a way that I can use it as data, the same as the stories others are sharing with me. This voice is not recognisable to the reader as being my voice, but nevertheless, it is allowing me more directly to introduce perspectives on my research topic which are not readily available through any other source and is reflective of the very different experiences of different participants in my research domain.

Somewhere along the line, I probably need to do more work on this, and even to find some theoretical framework to hang this approach on, but for the moment, I do know that my voice is very present and real in my writing, and that voice is not a whisper trying to be heard, but is vibrant, strong, objective and authoritative - and it has a story to tell.

Thanks #phdchat for helping me to articulate this.

Posted in voice, writing, empowerment | Print | 1 Comment »

22/03/2011 by lizit.

The final section of the green paper addresses the questions of reducing bureaucracy and services working together to support families and children with SEN/disability.

The local authority role will have 3 core features:

• strategic planning
• Securing a range of high quality provision
• Enabling families to make informed choices

The Department of Health is tasked with working with the new Health and Wellbeing Boards to consider how the needs of children and young people with SEN/disability are best addressed and with working with GP consortia pathfinders to explore the best ways of providing support for the commissioning of healthcare services for children and young people with SEN or who are disabled and their families.

Statutory guidance will be simplified and improved for all professionals working with children and young people with SEN/disabilities so that it is clear, accessible and helpful. The SEN Code of Practice will be retained but revised to incorporate other guidance that is considered helpful to professionals. The mention of the CoP, does not acknowledge the use made by parents of this publication in understanding how to obtain their child’s entitlements.

IEPs are retained, but advice on their use is removed and instead schools are encouraged to develop other approaches to enabling children with SEN to develop, progress and fulfil their potential (para 5.23). This seems strange given it is recognised that parents value these documents, but may reflect the fact that so many are poorly written and presented.

Fifteen paragraphs focus on joint working and how this might be best achieved. Interestingly, no mention is made of the CAF and its attempts to foster joint working between professionals.

Further sections focus on speech and language therapy services and educational psychology services.

Encouragement is given to local authorities to work together through joint commissioning and management of services

Attention is paid to the voluntary and  community sector in providing advice and support, services and as a strategic partner to the Department for Education.

Finally, funding is addressed with the proposal for a national banded funding framework for funding high-cost provision. This seems to be a way of evening out provision for children living in different localities. The document concludes with a discussion of alignment of pre-16 and post-16 funding arrangements.

Posted in SEN, Government policy | Print | No Comments »

22/03/2011 by lizit.

This is one of the shortest chapters in the document and concludes by acknowledging :Many of the problems with the system to support young people with SEN or who are disabled are complicated and longstanding” para 4.50.

The proposed Education, Health and Care Plan will extend to age 25, which may ameliorate lack of clarity about post-18 opportunities.

The only mention I can find in the document about high achieving young people with SEN/disability is para 4.22, which recognises some of these young people will go on into HE. For some reason, this is connected to the National Scholarship Programme for supporting disadvantaged young people, but apparently one of the criteria for the progamme will be the support for disabled students.

Informal adult and community learning also gets a mention (para 4.23) and is connected with the Big Society.

Twenty per cent of the chapter focuses on employment including the role of Job Centre Plus and Disability Employment Advisers. Nothing is said about how training will be provided to ensure these personnel are equipped to support the full range of SEN/disability, something I find worrying given some of the accounts I have heard of experiences with employment services of young people on the autism spectrum.

A further area of transition is from child to adult health services and it is recognised that the transition from CAMHS to adult mental health services can be particularly difficult.

The final section of the chapter focuses on independent living and the planned change from DLA to PIP.

Posted in SEN, Government policy | Print | No Comments »