|
|
|
|
Welcome
Welcome to our new format of newsletter. We will be refining this over the coming issues.
The role of SENCOs as leaders and our growing understanding of cognitive science are themes for all who work in education. This newsletter includes updates and key events for the forthcoming year and is essential reading for all SENCOs. It also includes some key resources and opportunities for SENCOs and headteachers to further your knowledge and some great opportunities to access high quality SEND CPD from both external and internal experts.
Jackie Muggleton
Special Needs Adviser, Integra Schools
|
|
Message from Hugh Disley – Strategic Lead Inclusion and SEND
Welcome back to another year where you will make such a difference to the lives of our special children and young people over the next academic year. Let’s hope that it is a healthy, happy and fulfilling one. There is a lot that will be going on and I am really grateful to Jackie and the Integra Schools team for their support in keeping us up to date and in providing the training.
A couple of specific mentions from me on the Inclusion and SEND agenda:
- A task and finish working group of the council’s councillors are looking at the work of the EHCP and would like to have a focus group meeting with SENCO’s. Jackie will be sending details out when the date is confirmed, but it would be great to get a good cross-section representation so please try and make it if you can. They are our ultimate decision makers, and this is a great chance for them to hear your stories and help them make informed decisions about the future
We also ran an annual review workshop on Monday 20 September undertaking a ‘SWOT’ exercise that will then be taken up by a task and finish group who will produce recommendations for annual review standards by the end of December. We will then have a training programme through to March 2022. We will undertake some pilots that will refine the standards during term five and fully implement from the academic year 2022-23. Alongside the task and finish group I am looking for four SENCOs to work with Jackie and me, who will work virtually as a ‘sounding board, ‘refining fire’ that will input into the task and finish group. If you are interested in supporting, please let Jackie know.
- Our DfE meeting to review progress with our Accelerated Priority Programme following the Ofsted Written Statement of Action, is on Tuesday 28 September. I am looking forward to welcoming them back and showing the changes and excellent progress we are making together. There is still a lot to do, but so much potential in getting it right
- Educational Psychology Service – Dr Helen Cox joined us in July as our Principal Educational Psychologist, and I know that her vision alongside her Senior Educational Psychologists will see major benefits into the future for all of us.
|
|
Dates for your Diary
SENCo training
Two new free SENCO leadership programmes will be running this year. To sign up please book on via CPD Online to ensure that we can send you all the relevant information link These sessions have been commissioned by Education Learning and Skills.
|
|
Newly Qualified SENCOs – Extending your skills
This course is for SENCOs in the first few years after qualifying. Initially it will be delivered online with the aspiration for some face-to-face meetings later in the year. |
| Session one |
Working with families and the agencies that support them |
Thursday
30 September |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session two |
High quality teaching – top of your list |
Thursday
11 November |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session three |
South Glos way
APDR using assessment to identify understand and meet need |
Thursday
13 January |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session four |
Courageous conversations |
Thursday
10 March |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session five |
Approaches to meeting complex needs |
Thursday 05 May |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session six |
Approaches to meeting complex needs |
Thursday
23 June |
15.30 – 17.00 |
|
|
|
|
To sign up to the sessions below, please book on via CPD Online, to ensure that we can send you all the relevant information.
|
|
Leadership for experienced SENCOs
This course is for experienced SENCOs looking to extend their leadership either with senior leadership teams, or within SEND clusters. Between each session will be reflection exercises which will contribute to the next session. |
| Session one |
Jacqueline Laver |
What do we mean by School Leadership? |
Thursday
7 October 2021 |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session two |
Workshop & short input |
Courageous conversations |
Thursday
25 November 2021 |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session three |
Ali Ford |
Understanding the commissioning cycle |
Thursday
20 January 2022 |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session four |
Workshop |
SEND leadership workshop |
Thursday
17 March 2022 |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session five |
Jacqueline Laver |
Supporting and developing colleagues. Enabling others to do their best work |
Thursday
12 May 2022 |
15.30 – 17.00 |
| Session six |
Workshop |
SEND leadership workshop
|
Thursday
30 June 2022 |
15.30 – 17.00 |
|
|
|
|
Maximising the impact of the TAs project
Over the next few terms twelve schools will be working with Sally Franklin from the Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants project to explore and develop their TA deployment. The aim being to ensure that children receive the support they need, but also remain connected with their peers, their teachers, and the curriculum. The project will also look at deployment of TAs to gain the best value, a pressing concern in these days of limited budgets. The schools involved will be presenting to all heads and SENCOs at a conference in April, so look out for that date.
|
|
What every head teacher needs to know about SEND
Last year one head teacher from every Alliance hub or MAT attended a series of sessions. This is an acknowledgement of the reality that many head teachers’ route to leadership is via teaching and learning, rather than SEND. The sessions were well attended, despite the limitation presented by Covid-19. The intention is to run the sequence again, but to also maintain the development of the headteachers in cohort one.
The programme below is open to any head teacher from cohort one and any head teacher who has been nominated by their Alliance hub or MAT and these colleagues form cohort two.
|
|
| Session one |
Cohort 1 |
Leading your school in trauma informed practice |
Mohmed Abdullah, Head of inclusive leadership course The Difference |
Thursday 14 October 2021 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session two |
Cohort 2 |
Inclusive school Leadership?
The challenges and drivers for inclusion |
David Boyce, CEO of the Dunraven Educational Trust |
Thursday 2 December 2021 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session three |
Cohort 2 |
Practical day to day SEND leadership for head teachers |
SG heads from Cohort 1 |
Thursday 21 January 2022 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session four |
Cohort 2 |
Maximising the impact of your SENCOs leadership |
Helen Curran, Senior Lecturer SEN, Bath Spa University |
Thursday 17 February 2022 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session five |
Cohort 1 |
Emotionally related school anxiety |
Helen Cox, Principle Educational Psychologist |
Thursday 23 March 2022 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session six |
Cohort 2 |
SEND and the law |
Jackie Muggleton |
Thursday 28 April 2022 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session seven |
Cohort 2 |
SEND and finance -The deployment of resources for greatest impact |
Jackie Muggleton |
Thursday 9 May 2022 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
| Session eight |
Cohort ALL |
The SEND review - Implications for your school |
Jackie Muggleton |
Thursday 9 June 2022 |
16.00 – 17.30 |
|
|
|
|
|
Head teacher and SENCo training initial implementation of the
banding model - Karina Kulawik and Kate East
At the end of last term Hilary Smith - Head of Education, Learning and Skills, wrote to schools to let them know about the latest position of the High Needs Budget and Deficit Recovery Plan. One specific area of focus that will have impact across the system relates to the way top up funding for children with EHC Plans is allocated. Those of you who have kindly agreed to be part of the workstreams supporting the development of the Deficit Recovery Plan and/or are members of the Schools Forum/High Needs Working Group, will be fully aware of the momentum that we are building now in moving forward with changes to our local arrangements, so that these are effective in meeting need and make more efficient and effective use of the funding available for children and young people with special educational needs. The working group involved in this specific element were tasked with developing a universal, transparent, fair and sustainable financial arrangement, which is completely aligned with the evidence of assessed need of the individual child/young person. The group have developed a proposed model which has been tested and consulted on through a variety of fora, including the High Needs Working Group. Cluster lead SENCOs, educational and health practitioners have also contributed to the development of banding descriptors across all four types of SEN.
We are currently at the later stages of this workstream of the Deficit Recovery Plan which involves completion of the final draft operational guidance document. The training below is for to all SENCOs and appropriate school leaders. It is appreciated that September will be a very busy time for all school staff, but for successful implementation of the change it is essential that we develop understanding across the whole system by having at least one person from each school complete the training.
Schools are invited to attend one of the following sessions of training. We would like to emphasise that it is vitally important that all school leaders and SENCOs attend. These dates have been circulate previously.
|
|
| Date / time |
Time |
Link
|
Monday 20 September 2021
|
09:00 - 11:00 plus additional one hour for specific questions |
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting |
Wednesday 22 September 2021
|
09:00 - 11:00 plus additional one hour for specific questions |
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting |
Tuesday 28 September 2021
|
15:00 - 17:00 plus additional one hour for specific questions |
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting |
Wednesday 29 September 2021
|
15:00 - 17:00 plus additional one hour for specific questions |
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting |
|
|
|
|
AET Training booking via CPD online
|
|
Making sense of autism
(primary and secondary) |
This course is an introduction to autism. It is most appropriate for colleagues with little or no experience of autism.
|
Cost £30
|
Thursday 23 September
Time: 15:30 – 17:00
Booking code: AET/21/238
|
Good autism practice
(primary and secondary) |
This course follows on from the introductory course ‘Making Sense of Autism’. Delegates can attend if they have not attended the introductory course.
Good autism practice will build on your basic awareness of autism and help you to develop your knowledge and understanding of autistic pupils. It will help you develop strategies and tools for support and also inform you about ways to assess the progress of your autistic pupils.
|
Cost £120
|
Taking place over four sessions
Session one:
Thursday 30 September 2021
Session two:
Thursday 7 October 2021
Session three:
Thursday 14 October 2021
Session four:
Thursday 21 October 2021
Session Times: 15:30 – 17:00pm
Booking code: AET/21/239 |
Leading good autism practice
(primary and secondary) |
This course focuses on the strategic development of good autism provision in your school, including being an autism champion in your setting.
For staff who may lead or train other staff in their setting, taking a leadership role, with a responsibility for developing autism provision.
Delegates need to have already attended ‘Good autism practice’ training. |
Cost: £120
|
Taking place over 4 sessions
Session one:
Monday 15 November
Session two:
Monday 22 November
Session three:
Monday 29 November
Session four:
Monday 6 December
Session Times: 15:3 – 17:00
Booking code: AET/21/240
|
|
|
|
|
Autism bites
Look out for these one hour training sessions, as they will be scheduled in the term ahead and can be booked via CPD online. These short courses complement the AET training and will be covering topics such as managing anxiety, sensory, girls, demand avoidance and using the progression framework.
|
|
What works for children with literacy difficulties?
Many of you will be familiar with previous editions of this resource. This is the latest and most newly reviewed resource and is essential reading when selecting which intervention to use with children who are struggling to acquire literacy skills. To access the full resource please click here
Most children learn to read and write satisfactorily first time through home support and/or high-quality classroom teaching - but what of those children who haven’t? How are they to be helped? According to the Department for Education, in 2019, 73% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading at the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2) – down by two percentage points from 2018 – meaning that 27% of pupils left primary education below the expected standard in reading (DfE, 2019). In Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GPS), 78% of pupils reached the expected standard, meaning 22% did not.
This resource addresses the following two questions:
1) What intervention schemes are there which have been used in the UK in an attempt to boost the reading, spelling or overall writing attainment of lower-achieving pupils between the ages of five and eighteen, and have been quantitatively evaluated here?
2) What are those schemes like, and how effective are they?
The intention of this resource is to examine the effects of targeted school-based interventions on the development of reading, spelling and writing. This sixth edition provides information on intervention schemes for children and young people who struggle with reading, spelling, and/or writing. This resource reviews intervention schemes that have been devised to help struggling readers and writers and is intended to inform schools’ and other providers’ choices among such schemes. There is an obvious need for schools to have clear information, in order to make principled decisions about which approach to adopt for children who experience difficulties in literacy.
The intention is to make clear and analytic information on such schemes available to help inform practice and choices of approach.
Those choices should be guided not only by the evidence assembled and analysed here, but also by careful matching of the needs of an individual school, class or child to the specifics of particular schemes.
|
|
Update from the Inclusion Support Service
Welcome to our new team members!
At the end of last year, we undertook a recruitment exercise to supplement the Inclusion Support team and broaden our capacity to support our schools. We had an exceptionally strong field of applications and would like to introduce three new members of the team, who will work with us on a consultancy basis.
|
|
 Sarah Shepherd
Sarah will be familiar to many of you, as she has extensive experience as a SENCo and as a senior leader. She is currently head teacher at St Barnabas School and her passion for all matters SEND remains very important to her. She has delivered significant programmes of SEND school improvement and to top it all she’s also a lovely person to work with. We are very much looking forward to her contribution to the team.
At the end of last year, we undertook a recruitment exercise to supplement the Inclusion Support team and broaden our capacity to support our schools. We had an exceptionally strong field of applications and would like to introduce three new members of the team, who will work with us on a consultancy basis.
|
|
 Maree Thorn
Maree is an experienced teacher and SENCo who has worked in a wide variety of educational settings, including early years, primary, secondary, mainstream and special schools. She currently works with Bedford Borough Council as a Teaching and Learning Advisor (SEND) and South Gloucestershire Council as a SEND Consultant, supporting and advising local primary schools. She also provides specialist teaching for children and young people who cannot attend school for a variety of reasons, such as medical needs or school-based anxiety.
She has previous experience of being a school governor and is currently a trustee for a local charity foundation, sitting on the board of school governors and fostering committee.
Maree has experience of supporting senior leaders to review their SEND processes and identify areas in need of improvement within their settings; mentoring and coaching staff to improve their individual practices and supporting governors and trustees to understand school requirements and their responsibilities.
Maree has a diagnosis of ADHD and so fully understands the challenges that people who are neuro-divergent can experience. With a family history of special needs, she has long had an interest in ensuring children with SEND are able to achieve their own individual outcomes and giving them the best opportunities for a full and rich life.
|
|
 Charlotte Francis-Finch
Charlotte is an experienced teacher and qualified SENCo who has worked in a wide variety of educational settings, both mainstream and specialist, in all key stages. She currently works to support and advise primary and secondary settings about their SEND provision. She also provides coaching and mentoring to specialist teachers to improve their knowledge and skillset to enable them to provide a more appropriate and bespoke curriculum to students with brain injuries. Furthermore, Charlotte also provides specialist teaching to children and young people with complex SEND, such as those with brain injuries and Pathological Demand Avoidance.
She is currently the SEND governor for a local primary school.
She has previously worked as a Provision and Evaluation Officer for Kent County Council, advising and providing quality assurance to both primary and secondary settings regarding their SEND provision and SEND funding. She has extensive experience in supporting and advising senior leaders, governors and SENCos within schools regarding how to identify areas for improvement within their SEND provision and subsequently how to improve.
Her brother, who has a diagnosis of Down's Syndrome and autism, has been the source of her dedication to improve the lives of those people with SEND and their families. Charlotte is passionate about providing support to children/young people, professionals and families, to enable them to navigate the complicated world of SEND and to ensure that the best and most appropriate outcomes are achieved.Maree is an experienced teacher and SENCo who has worked in a wide variety of educational settings, including early years, primary, secondary, mainstream and special schools. She currently works with Bedford Borough Council as a Teaching and Learning Advisor (SEND) and South Gloucestershire Council as a SEND Consultant, supporting and advising local primary schools. She also provides specialist teaching for children and young people who cannot attend school for a variety of reasons, such as medical needs or school-based anxiety.
|
|
News from the SEND Clusters
Ali Ford, Planning and Partnership Officer
As the academic year 2020 / 2021 came to a close we completed the annual evaluation of the SEND Clusters. Thank you to everyone who shared their views with their Cluster Lead SENCos. All responses were collated and analysed and have been shared with the Schools Forum and the Parent Carer Forum. If you would like a copy of the full evaluation, please contact your Cluster Lead SENCo.
The evaluation provided valuable insight into how our SEND Clusters are developing, and the impact that they are already having for children at SEN Support. Key points of note are:
- SENCos report that the cluster model is supporting them in their role
- The range of services commissioned by clusters has vastly increased the offer for children at SEN Support across South Gloucestershire, enabling them to access targeted and specialist support far earlier than previously
- SENCos have rated many of these interventions as highly or moderately impactful for children and young people
- Occupational therapy, behaviour and anxiety support and autism training received the highest impact ratings
- SENCos identified that the greatest progress towards the key outcomes of the clusters in 2020 / 2021 was improving provision and outcomes for children at SEN Support.
The views of parents and carers of children at SEN Support were also included in the evaluation and highlight variation in their experiences. Broadly, families’ views of how well schools are able to meet their children’s needs at SEN Support were high in early years, but showed decline as their children progress through the key stages.
The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic upon SEND Clusters has meant that:
- The evaluation is likely to have been undertaken in the expected lag between implementation and impact
- Some critical performance data on key cluster outcomes does not represent an accurate picture (e.g. attendance and exclusions) or is not available (e.g. educational outcomes)
- A consistent evaluation methodology was not used across all clusters.
As such, the ability to draw summary conclusions about the extent to which the SEND Clusters achieved their three key outcomes in 2020 / 2021 is limited. However, the views shared by SENCos show that clusters are beginning to positively impact upon their roles and improve provision for children at SEND Support.
During Term six, a working group of educational psychologists, inclusion and SEND officers and the Parent Carer Forum began developing the Cluster Evaluation Framework for 2021 / 2022. This will be further co-produced with SENCos in Term one and then shared widely for use in all SEND Clusters. If you would like to be involved in this development, please do let us know.
|
|
Update from the EHCP team
|
|
Jennie Mackenzie, EHCP Team Manager
As a team we’re looking forward to another busy term working closely with you all. Focus for the next three terms, as always, will be our phase transfer work; the team have already written out to all parents of children in our new transition year groups (NCYs -1, infant school 2, and 6) to ask for their 2022/23 school preference. We have asked parent/carers to send us these by the end of September so that we can secure the majority of placements early and in good time before the February 15 deadline.
Please do talk to your EHCP co-ordinator if you need any advice or support with your transition cohort, especially if you are concerned about a year six managing transition to secondary school. Each year we get special school requests from more than a third of the year six EHCP cohort, and we will be looking at these in term one to help meet the February deadline. Most pupils will be making the move to mainstream secondary and there are several ways in which we can offer transition support to those with more significant needs, particularly if we are aware in good time.
We have made some changes to our school/co-ordinator allocations for September due to role and staff changes. In most cases if your EHCP co-ordinator has changed, you would have been told in July. If you do not know who your co-ordinator is, please do contact your cluster lead or cluster inbox:
Cluster 1 – Kerry Saunders (EHCPC1@southglos.gov.uk)
Cluster 2 – Sam Beeley (EHCPC2@southglos.gov.uk)
Cluster 3 – Claire Rice (EHCPC3@southglos.gov.uk)
Cluster 4.5 – Liz Harris (EHCPC4or5@southglos.gov.uk)
Cluster 6 – Kirsty Benson (EHCPC6@southglos.gov.uk)
For information we now have a Post 16 cluster, led by Michaela Cork – should you have query relevant to Post 16, they can be contacted at missing info?
|
|
‘WeThe15’ global human rights movement launched for persons with disabilities
WeThe15 is a new global human rights movement looking to end discrimination for the world’s 1.2 billion persons with disabilities. The name comes from the fact that there are 15% of the global population identified as disabled. The campaign is launching at the Tokyo Paralympic games and plans to initiate change and remove inequality.
WeThe15 is a new global human rights movement looking to end discrimination for the world’s 1.2 billion persons with disabilities. The name comes from the fact that there are 15% of the global population identified as disabled. The campaign is launching at the Tokyo Paralympic games and plans to initiate change and remove inequality.
The campaign, sport’s biggest ever human rights movement, is spearheaded by the International Paralympic Committee and International Disability Alliance and is working with Loughborough University to research the effectiveness of the campaign across four global territories, with the UK being one of them.
There is information on how to get involved, including spreading the message on social media and highlighting the injustice people with disabilities currently face, including:
Less than 15% of the 70 million people who need a wheelchair have access to one.
Girls and women with disabilities may face up to ten times more violence than other women and young girls.
One third of out-of-school children are children with disabilities We the15 - get-involved
|
|
Ofsted research overview
This paper presents the research evidence underpinning the education inspection framework. The review draws on a range of sources, including both Ofsted’s own research programme and a review of existing evidence bases. The review is structured to provide the evidence base that underlies each of the four key judgements for the proposed new framework: quality of education, personal development, behaviour and attitudes, and leadership and management Ofsted Research Overview
|
|
SEND and exclusions - what the recently released exclusion data shows
The statistics on permanent exclusions and suspensions for the academic year 2019/20 have been released by the Department for Education. Despite high profile campaigns to highlight the disparity in rates of exclusion amongst pupils with SEN and calls for better support for unmet needs, the data shows that children and young people with SEN are still significantly more likely to be excluded from school.
A pupil with SEN is between two and five times more likely to be permanently excluded and four to five times more likely to be suspended, in comparison to a peer without SEN.
Children or young people with SEMH identified as their primary need are 15 times more likely to be permanently excluded and 13.5 times more likely to be suspended than a peer without SEN.
The most commonly stated reason for both permanent exclusions and suspensions continues to be persistent disruptive behaviour.
There has been little time to act upon the recommendations of the Timpson Review and any impact was unlikely to be reflected in this latest set of data. Moving forward, it is hoped that, with further support provided to schools to help develop understanding of how to meet the needs of all students, fewer students will have to experience the negative short and long-term impact that exclusions have upon their lives. Link to full report here
|
|
Exclusions and the strategic role of the SENCo
For full report click here
This research looked at exclusions that occurred during Covid-19 lockdowns and aimed to determine levels of involvement and impact that SENCOs had in SLT decision-making and planning for offsite and onsite provision for ‘vulnerable’. It also asks whether working to prevent exclusion or off-rolling was a SENCO priority. It explores SENCo’s experiences concerning exclusionary pressures and their roles in schools’ strategic direction during this time.
Statutory guidance requires special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) in England to provide strategic leadership to ensure a school ethos of inclusivity (DfE, 2015). The Covid-19 crisis has underlined the need for ‘advocacy’ leadership (Clarke & Done, 2021), as children with such needs are already disproportionately represented in school exclusion data.
Findings from this BERA-funded research project indicate that some SENCOs are routinely prevented from exercising such leadership – for example, when they are omitted from their school’s senior leadership team (SLT), suggesting that SENCO input to schools’ future crisis planning is an area that requires clarification.
|
|
SEND review - still no definitive timescales for publication
The eagerly awaited SEND Review, delayed due to Covid-19, would appear to be subject to further delays. Susan Acland-Hood, Permanent Secretary for the Department for Education stated that, “We can see the system into which the SEND review needs to land changing quite fundamentally as a result of the pandemic and we wanted to make sure that there was a risk that it wasn’t going to be as effective as we wanted it to be. We are going to do it as soon as we can.”
There has also been discussion on the increase in High Needs Funding, not waiting for the SEND Review. However, the current National Funding Formula consultation on page 36 states: ‘The SEND Review is considering improvements to make sure that the SEND system is consistent, high quality, and integrated across education, health and care, and to make it financially sustainable for the future. As such, the recommendations of the SEND Review will have important implications for how support for pupils with SEND is delivered and funded, including in mainstream schools.’
Therefore, will the delay in the publication of the SEND Review have implications for the funding consultation and the implementation of a new funding formula for pupils with SEND?
|
|
New EEF research on cognitive science
Evidence link
The EEF has released a new review of the evidence on cognitive science approaches in the classroom. The evidence summary looks at the impact of the principles of cognitive science when they have been applied in the classroom and all the studies have taken place within schools. The review looks at several practices that have found their way into classrooms:
- Spaced learning
- Interleaving
- Retrieval practice
- Managing cognitive load
- Working with schemas
- Multimedia learning - including dual coding
- Embodied learning
The report details the theory and the evidence supporting the effectiveness of each of these areas. It notes the research to practice gap, that there is limited evidence for how to effectively apply cognitive science principles in everyday classroom conditions. There is also an acceptance that the social, emotional and physical aspects to cognition and learning have received less attention and that these are also important considerations for research and practice in the future.
Whilst it is useful to know principles of cognitive science, there is a lot more work to be done on how these principles might work in the real world. The EEF states that they will continue to evaluate approaches and fund scalable programmes and training to look at the effective deployment of cognitive science principles.
|
|
New National Strategy for Autistic Children, Young People and Adults 2021 - 2026
The government has issued the new national strategy for improving the lives of autistic people and their families and carers in England, and the implementation plan for year one. The foreword by the Secretary of State for Health, Sajid Javid, MP, states:
Following a call for evidence the strategy will focus on changes in six areas:
- improving understanding and acceptance of autism within society
- improving autistic children and young people’s access to education, and supporting positive transitions into adulthood
- supporting more autistic people into employment
- tackling health and care inequalities for autistic people
- building the right support in the community and supporting people in inpatient care
- improving support within the criminal and youth justice systems
In the first year some of the actions are:
- Investing £7million to implement the most effective ways to reduce diagnosis waiting times
- Encouraging more autism-friendly programmes in the cultural and heritage sectors
- Provide £600k for autism training and professional development in schools and colleges
- Moving forward with plans to open 37 new special schools, including 24 with specific provision for autistic children and young people
- Taking action to strengthen and promote pathways to employment, such as Supported Internships, and working to develop Supported Employment Forums
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
