Paces

The Economist on early years' education, an international trend

Over the years, I have often found myself making the case for the conductive education of very young children with cerebral palsy, in the face of doubt, disbelief or downright dismissal that education has anything to offer. Surgery? Yes. Drug treatments? Yes. Therapy? Of course.

But education? I am not aware of any mainstream schools or nurseries that offer specialist education programmes, led by specifically trained teachers, for the very young with cerebral palsy. Perhaps somewhere there is but I am not aware of it.

Surgery, drugs and therapy are the "givens" of "intervention" for very young children with cerebral palsy. That the case still has to be made that such children need teaching seems to me to speak volumes about the failure of mainstream provision for these children and their families - and why making the case is such an uphill struggle.

However, there is, apparently, an international trend to a focus on the early years education of the very young. It's not just confined to Liz Truss, Minister for Education and Childcare, it seems.  The Economist today publishes an article "Learning for the very young: Little Steps" which considers this international trend. Even in America:

BARACK OBAMA likes to call education “the currency for the information age”. His presidency has brought a big shift in America’s priorities, devoting more effort and resources—and an extra $2 billion—to children who have not yet started their formal schooling.

I wonder this: if, all over the world, politicians are focusing on "children who have not yet started their formal schooling", might this be the time to make the case for children with cerebral palsy to have their specialist (conductive education) share?  

Worcestershire assault on independent living challenged by Irwin Mitchell

There was I thinking the best thing for me to do, not having posted for a while, was to put up the shutters and hang a sign up "Back in the New Year".  Then this:

Teenager Who May Be Forced Into Residential Home To Seek Judicial Review Over Policy to Cap Care Costs

A teenager and his family are launching a legal action in the High Court against Worcestershire County Council to challenge a policy which they say may force many people into residential care as the Council will place a cap on funding for care packages if people choose to live in the community.

Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which has already successfully challenged Council cuts to care for the vulnerable in other regions, said the council had failed to undertake a lawful consultation when deciding on its Maximum Expenditure Policy and that in the process of approving this Policy, the council have failed to have due regard to its duties under the Equality Act.  They are now applying to take the matter to a Judicial Review after the council refused to consult again or review their decision on the policy.

You can read the whole story by clicking on the link in the headline above.

The effect of the decision by the Worcestershire County Councillors will be to deprive young disabled people of the choice of where they wish to live, forcing them into residential accommodation. And it will impose stress and anxiety on parents. The mother of the teenager in this case says: "I am getting older and have my own health difficulties and I need to ensure that [he] is properly set up on his own in the community so that I know if he is properly cared for should something happen to me." 

How many times have I heard parents say "What will happen to my child when I die?"

The solicitor representing the teenager and his family is Polly Sweeny.

The Leader of Worcestershire County Council is Councillor Adrian Hardman. His email address, should you care to email him to enquire about the County Council's view is aihardman@worcestershire.gov.uk

Christmas just days away, images of Dickensian characters and situations come strongly to mind. Are other Local Authorities following Worcestershire's lead? Are there other local authorities resolutely rejecting this slippery mid-Victorian slippery slope?  How might we find out?

Worcester today. Your Council in 2013?

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My thanks to @fionajnicholson on Twitter for drawing my attention to this story.

 

Taking the long view, for the moment

Just heard Sarah's going to be home late. Hasn't yet left Paces. Don't know what time she'll be in for tea. Transport company being evasive about where her taxi is and likely time to pick her up. Funny same thing happened last Friday. 

Next week she's joining her two friends - and soon to be housemates - for afternoon tea, to see their new bungalow. All refurbished and newly painted and kitted out by AbbeyCare. Sarah has chosen lilac for her bedroom colour scheme. The great and probably unique thing about AbbeyCare is that it was set up by parents of a child, now young woman, with cerebral palsy, and their speciality is caring for the younger disabled client with complex health needs in their own homes.

It's good to feel there'll be someone to care for Sarah when in future the taxi is late, as well as the team at Paces.

Sometimes it's hard to take the long view. Just now I'm more concerned about the next few weeks and Sarah leaving home for her new home.

What set me off with this little posting was a comment over on Conductive World, Andrew reflecting on the "inevitably long-term perspectives" of parents, as he draws attention to a posting on a Belgian Conductive Education blog, which Andrew kindly translates on his blog.

It's a familiar story - and worry:

This anxiety refers to a question: what can be the sense of a process of guiding one's children on a along a path... that ultimately takes the form of an dead end? What is the sense of a process that ask someone to go forwards... towards a brick wall.
Unfortunately, the answer is a simple one: there is no sense!

The writer calls it "a brick wall"; we've said it's like "jumping off a cliff" or "hurtling into a void" (which is why we called our young adult group "Leaping the Void"). The challenge is continuity, taking the long-term perspective, the long view, helping young people "into independent adulthood as active citizens" as it says in the header to this blog.

The SEN Green Paper is an odd document, I find; rather muddled and internally contradictory. But it does propose one much needed radical change, the recognition - insistence even - on the importance of individual planning from 0 - 25 years. For me, of course, this raises - as it has at Paces since about 2000 - all sorts of questions about how Sarah (and others in Leaping the Void) should be helped to discover for herself what a 'conductive life' might mean and how 'conductive living' might- or should - replace 'conductive upbringing' or 'conductive pedgagogy'.

I wish our Belgian friends every success as they try to work out how, sustainably, to create "a place for ​conductive pedagogy that can accommodate children up to age 18" .... and beyond, no doubt, to independent citizenship apart from their parents.

Walmart Foundation puts up $3m for transition

"In the US, retail giant Walmart has teamed up with The Arc of the United States - "the world’s largest" community-based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities - to establish the Walmart Foundation School-to-Community Transition Project.

"The Walmart Foundation awarded The Arc $3 million to start the project, which will be dedicated to improving outcomes for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities, especially during the transition from school to adult life.

"The goal of these transition programs is to achieve "greater inclusion and involvement of youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism in independent living, employment, post-secondary education or vocational training, and community, social and civic affairs," said the Walmart Foundation in a statement.

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It was the size of the commitment from Walmart that impressed me, as much as anything else. Paces' tiny "Leaping the Void" programme (named in response to the 1999 Joseph Rowntree Foundation research project "Hurtling into a Void") has been struggling to achieve the same goal, innovatively through conductive education and micro-enterprise.

"A Good Life", Sheffield's strategy for adults with a learning disability, usefully maps out much of the territory within which we at Paces can work. Our on-going programme is funded from social services monies and from the Independent Living Funds via individuals. In the past we have had project grants from the Camelot Foundation (now closed) and from the, then, Department of Trade and Industry's Phoenix Development Fund (also closed).  The Camelot Foundation project resulted in a substantial report (not published) and our work under the Phoenix Development Fund project resulted in a favourable mention in the independent evaluation (see below).

Singularly lacking thus far has been funding for training. We are hopeful that with the transfer of funding to local authorities following the closure of the Learning & Skills Council in 2010, more might be possible.

There is useful foundation work here that can and should be built upon.  Recognition of the need is a first step; resourcing what has been demonstrated to work is a second. (In the long ago, we were in turn inspired by an independent living programme we visited at Tsad Kadima and by Community Options Inc, whose programme in Charlotte NC I myself visited some years ago.) 

The Walmart Foundation grant to The Arc certainly recognises the need and delivers significant resource for useful work.

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"Incubation can be applied to very specific settings.  Paces has built in a unique form of business incubation alongside their other work on education, training, assessment,  and individual programming.  The organisation works with disabled people* that would not be able to operate in a traditional business incubator.  Paces has also had an influence on other providers of business support that were previously unreceptive to  this client group."
Evaluation of the Phoenix Development Fund
Interim report to the DTI Small Business Service 2004

* Paces transitional programme “Leaping the Void” for young adults with disabilities.