The Government has produced a series of documents aimed at improving outcomes for all children, one of which focuses specifically on services for disabled children and their families. What are the implications of this for the early years sector?
Aiming High for Disabled Children represents the culmination of a review of services for disabled children, which the campaigning group Every Disabled Child Matters worked with the Government to implement.
It looks at the responses from a range of agencies and individuals and sets out further actions required to improve outcomes and equality of opportunity for disabled children and their families. It establishes five 'core offer' areas:
Information Disabled children and their families should be able to access appropriate information at every stage of a child's life.
Transparency Support for disabled children and their parents should be determined on a fair, understandable and transparent basis, with social care eligibility criteria designed according to need and published by local authorities.
Participation Disabled children and their families should have the option to be fully involved in the way services are planned, commissioned and delivered in their area, increasing their choice and control, which may include access to a parents' support forum.
Assessment Disabled children and their families should benefit from the integration of assessment processes, with shared information and basic assessments providing a gateway to more specialist services where necessary.
Feedback A clear and published complaints procedure should be provided for families who are unhappy with the services they are receiving.
Through consultation with parents of disabled children, MEL Research has found a common and recurring theme around access to information and a feeling that parents themselves need to be empowered in their 'fight' to access services.
Aiming High recognises the variable quality of provision across the country and how the current lack of data fails to reflect this failing. It also looks to local authorities and Primary Care Trusts to collect data on the number of disabled children in their area.
- Inclusion: For and against
The Government's intention is that universal services will be made accessible to children with special needs or disabilities. Aiming High recognises that children with disabilities may require a different level of care than most children their age. Until recently, such children's disabilities were either not recognised or were served by specialist provision in special schools and nurseries, set apart from the mainstream.
But the days of the specialist may be numbered. Change is underway and it is the Government's clear intention that all children should be 'included' and have the same rights to access services, regardless of disability. This sounds good, until you realise that the financial saving from closing special schools will not necessarily be reinvested in a commensurate improvement in mainstream provision.
Professional views are divided as to the benefits of such closures. Inclusion sounds 'good', but it neglects many of the needs of the children and the practicalities of staffing a demanding mixed ability and mixed needs classroom. Where special schools are still in existence, they are favoured by parents who value the professional experience and skills that specialist staff provide.
- Early years inclusion: childcare
Providing for children with disabilities in an inclusive setting enriches them with vital personal and social experiences. Doing so in an early education or childcare setting also allows their peers at an early age to gain an appreciation of difference.
This potential improvement in early education is important, as the protective effect of education and care at an early age can reduce the incidence of social, emotional and behavioural needs later in the child's development.
As part of their childcare sufficiency assessments, local authorities are required to identify gaps in childcare, assessing demand and supply, particularly for those who need special care. Within Aiming High there are specific references to the importance of childcare, not least the potential cost benefits in parents of disabled children being able to re-enter the labour market.
The early years sector has been a key area for policy reform over the past ten years, and in the current climate the focus is on the needs and wishes of disabled children and their parents. But what are the principles and implications of inclusion for an early years setting?
- Principles of inclusion
Aiming High holds that childcare provision for families with disabled children should include options but, where possible, children should be integrated into mainstream settings. If necessary, however, specialist provision will remain.
To be fully accessible to children with a range of disabilities, early years settings will need to consider several access issues. In terms of building construction, the Disability Discrimination Act will ensure that adaptations for physical access will be made to some extent, and all new children's centres will, by law, have to be fully accessible. But equality of access under the law is about far more than ramps and toilets. What about the more subtle changes required?
A review of inclusive childcare settings undertaken in America (Best Practices in Inclusive Child Care: Wisconsin, prepared by Wisconsin CCR&R Network, at http://www.wccip.org/tips/Inclusion/Best_Practices.html) identified several key principles of best practice in relation to inclusion. These are:
Staff training in specific conditions Although there has been a general improvement in disability awareness, accredited skill levels in the mainstream children's workforce are still low in terms of working with more seriously disabled children. MEL's own research supports findings in national studies, highlighting the shortfall in training and professional development for staff in mainstream settings as they try to cope with the multiple needs of children in their care. This has been recognised by the Government, which is to provide specialist training for childminders and nursery workers on caring for and educating disabled children.
Programme philosophy It is important that inclusive values are explicit and commitments to the principle of inclusivity are made when enrolling children with disabilities.
Professional development Fundamental to the inclusion agenda is staff training. As part of the Government's recently announced £35m support package within Aiming High, there will be specialist training delivered for childminders and nursery workers in caring for and educating disabled children within ten pilot areas across the UK. It is important that this training is included as part of a wider, systems change process.
Pay and budgets Faced with low status and inadequate pay - the average pay for those working in full daycare settings is £6.80, well below the national average of £9.88 - the sector faces issues in terms of staff recruitment and retention (see For Love or Money: pay, progression and professionalism in the early years workforce, Institute for Public Policy Research, April 2008).
Consultancy advice Resources to hire experienced, specialist advisors to give support and consultancy advice should be in the form of a delegated budget or access to externally-funded consultancy advice. This support would allow in-house training on practical skills, including handling, toileting and restraint, or more in-depth staff and management development on a range of inclusion-related topics.
So the Government has set out its stall in relation to supporting families of disabled children. With funding notionally committed until 2011, the future looks promising. But there are many hurdles along the way, and it will be interesting to see how effectively the Government's vision turns into a reality.
Kelly Hunt is a senior research consultant at MEL Research, specialising in early years and childcare policy; Dr Neil de Reybekill is principal consultant in child health at MEL Research
THE BACKGROUND TO AIMING HIGH
The Government's programme for children's services, Every Child Matters, tells us that every child, whatever their background or circumstances, should have the support they need to achieve five key outcomes:
- be healthy
- stay safe
- enjoy and achieve
- make a positive contribution
- achieve economic well-being.
Children's Trusts are a key part of this programme and central to their delivery strategy. They bring together services for children, particularly local education, social care and health services, by ensuring that planning and delivery is co-ordinated and information is shared so that children are supported before they reach crisis point.
In future, the UK will have to respond to new challenges that will impact on families, including demographic, social and technological developments and increasing global competition. The Government has promised to take action to support families over the three-year spending cycle to 2011. The approach is outlined in:
- Aiming High for Disabled Children: Better support for families
- Aiming High for Children: Supporting families
- Aiming High for Young People: A ten-year strategy for positive activities.
The documents (DCSF, May 2007) should be seen as an integrated package of how the Government intends to address the needs of families and feed into the Every Child Matters agenda.
LINKS TO EYFS GUIDANCE
- uC 1.2 Inclusive Practice
- PR 3.2 Supporting Learning
- EE 3.2 Supporting Every Child
- EE 3.3 The Learning Environment
- lD 4.1 Play and Exploration.
