Well, it’s been another interesting start to the academic year. In the fallout from lockdowns one and two, nurseries are finding themselves once more at the forefront or pointy end of work with families and children.
The impact of the pandemic has begun to leave its imprint on the services that families relied on for early identification and support. The recent and ever-helpful report from Ofsted tells us little that we don’t know as we haven’t been working from home over the past 21 months.
The lack of two-year-old checks from health visitors, the absence of face-to-face visits and the paucity of speech therapy has left much in our laps. The complete disregard of a sector that can help the most is simply bad policy. Well, it is the pantomime season, and the DfE can put on a good show (or party).
Supporting parents as they come to terms with their children’s unique needs can be hard. It needs time and empathy to give them the space needed to process the message.
I was touched by the recent documentary about Christine and Paddy McGuiness’s family and their journey in understanding autism. As well as dispelling many of the myths around autism, it opened a conversation for me about ‘difference’ and ‘inclusion’.
Am I alone in beginning to find the word ‘disability’ outdated as we begin to understand difference in society? The ‘dis’ prefix polarising the world into two halves. The discussions that play out (sometimes quite brutally in the media) about gender could be echoed in a non-binary discussion about individuality. It is our decision to operate within particular social constructs that disables, it is not the individual operating within that environment.
As diversity touches more people’s lives and we move away from a deficit model of difference, the opportunities for repositioning our view of the world from one of ‘fitting in’ to simply ‘belonging’ comes a step closer.
Personally, I don’t have the answers here, but I do feel that the discussion is important to have, and with those discussions, the curiosity, mistakes and resultant change that take place. Language is important as it mirrors the consciousness of a society.
I leave you with a quote for the New Year that will hopefully be the start of new opportunities:
‘Diversity is being asked to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance.’ (Vernā Myers)
