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SECTION 5: TRAINING EVENTS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMME
5.1 Events aimed at parents, carers and practitioners
During the period 2004 - 05, Enquire undertook 22 information sessions or information stands. The majority of events were attended by parents, but education, social work and health professionals also participated, as well as voluntary sector workers. Many events were geared towards informing people about the Additional Support for Learning legislation. Focus groups, training events, consultation events and a national conference were also undertaken. Joint events were also organised in partnership with a wide range of organisations including the Scottish Executive, the Disability Rights Commission and voluntary organisations.
5.2 Events aimed at children and young people
Following an assessment of need, during the year 2004-05, Enquire developed an outreach strategy aimed at children and young people. Workshop materials and activities around the following four themes were developed:
What's Enquire - nature of the organisation and what it can provide to children and young people
Have your say - discussion around an Enquire video on rights and responsibilities to participate in decisions about schools and learning
Think big - choices, possibilities and people who can help
20 questions - surgery; an opportunity for young people to ask questions of Enquire staff
Up to April 2005, Enquire had delivered 20 events and was hoping to deliver 12 events and 8 surgeries in the following year.
5.3 Views of Enquire staff
It was noted that the outreach programme was pro-active and tried to anticipate what people's information needs were likely to be. Transition to post-16 was one area where more work might be needed in the future.
Outreach work with children and young people was recently developed as a separate strand of work, with the focus in 2003-04 on devising the video Have Your Say. Twenty workshops were carried out using the video. Subsequently, letters have been sent out to schools in different authorities asking if they will host an event. Sometimes, there are only a few responses to a wide mailing. Some work has been conducted with children in special settings, but one-off sessions with children with significant difficulties are generally not successful. A much longer term approach is needed. Teachers also often ask for a fifty minute session, but this tends to be too short.
Other new ventures included plans to deliver an outreach event in Urdu in conjunction with Barnardo's.
5.4 Views of SEED staff
SEED staff felt that the training events organised by Enquire were of a high quality, and the Executive benefited from being able to draw on Enquire's expertise in the running of consultations with parents and carers and children and young people, which often had to be undertaken to a very tight timescale. Enquire had assisted SEED in consultation on the Additional Support for Learning legislation, and more recently on nationwide consultation on the Parents' Guide to Additional Support Needs.
5.5 Views of service users
As illustrated in Table 4.3, service users were much less familiar with events,
training activities and outreach work with children and young people. Nonetheless, the vast majority of those who had attended such events said that they were very good or good. Comments included the following:
- My experience varies too much to answer this - events have been very variable.
- The trades hall event (on the new parents' guide) was very helpful.
- Someone came to give a talk to a Glasgow support group - very informative.
- Events are very interesting as long as parents can access them.
- Need more events outwith the central belt of Scotland i.e. Inverness area.
- If someone has made contact and an event is due to happen, then to inform the carer by contacting them would be helpful.
- Training is far too expensive for parents on some events - many being well in excess of £100.
- More frequent and aimed at a professional audience.
Some comments related directly to children and young people.
- Make it well known to children and young people that you are there for them. My son and I don't know what services you offer to him.
- Need support for children and young people when they are trying to understand the implications of their disability.
- Need to speak directly to children and young people - they don't often read leaflets.
- Participation, consultation and evaluation involves young people - encourage them to know their rights, how to access them and feel empowered about accessing services and information.
5.6 Views of local authority staff
In contrast to those who responded to the service user questionnaire, a high proportion of local authority respondents had participated in events and training. Sixty five per cent had attended events frequently or sometimes, and nearly 70% indicated that they had attended training events frequently or sometimes. Of those who attended, virtually all said they were very good or fairly good. Comments varied from the slightly critical to the extremely favourable:
- I have attended a number of events - they varied in relevance and quality.
- A bit low level
- Costs for training local authorities seem rather high
- Events are often not aimed at practitioners. Our council has been involved with Enquire on a number of pilots and these have been mutually beneficial.
- The help and advice Enquire have offered in relation to multi-agency training and parents' events have been extremely helpful.
- Enquire has provided a very helpful facilitating role for Aberdeenshire Council to assist us in developing ASL awareness raising for local authority staff. It would be useful to have further information on how Enquire sees its role developing in the area of mediation, and working with local authorities in the implementation of the ASL Act.
5.7 Views of external key informants
A majority of external key informants had not attended any of the training events organised by Enquire and knew very little of the events aimed specifically at children and young people. Of those who had attended training events, a mixed picture emerged. An educational psychologist who had attended an event on the ASL Act about a year ago said that she was 'not impressed with the presentation' and that the presenter had 'not got the information under their belt'. A support organisation worker commented that she often did not hear about the events until rather late, and they were too expensive for small voluntary organisations to attend. Another development worker in a support organisation said that she was completely unaware of Enquire's outreach and training activities. She surmised that information was included in general Children in Scotland mailing, but there was so much information that 'important things tend to get buried'. Another development worker who had attended a Parent Talk event was quite critical of the general tone. She felt that serious points raised by parents had been brushed aside by the SEED speaker in a somewhat cursory manner, and the workshops were patronising and had little useful content. She also noted that critical comments made on evaluations forms had been glossed over in the final report of the event.
Two respondents commented on the use of people's time in consultation events, with particular reference to recent consultations on the forthcoming parents' guide to additional support for learning. It was felt by these parents that many people had given up time to attend these events, but it was unclear how parents' comments would feed into the production of the final document, partly as a result of the pressurised timetable to which Enquire was working. However, parents and facilitators attended such events on the understanding that their comments would make a difference, and it was dispiriting if it appeared that such consultations were tokenistic.
5.8 Summary
Like other aspects of Enquire's work, events and training activities were generally regarded very favourably by both parents/carers and local authority staff. It is clearly difficult to aim events at a very wide audience, and a few comments from local authority staff suggested they would prefer something tied slightly more closely to practitioner concerns. The outreach work with children and young people is at a relatively early stage of development compared with other aspects of Enquire's portfolio of activities, and it is evident that strong links with schools and other children's organisations take quite a long time to establish.
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