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SECTION 1: BACKGROUND
Introduction: Advice and information services in the new legislative context
This report addresses the future profile of the national advice and information service for additional support needs in Scotland in the light of forthcoming legislative changes. The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 places a duty on local authorities to establish procedures for identifying and meeting the needs of every child requiring additional support in order for them to benefit from education. Whereas the previous special educational needs legislation applied to a narrower group of children and young people with learning difficulties, the new legislation applies to a much wider group including those from the Gypsy/Traveller community; looked after children; children for whom English is a second language; children of refugees and asylum seekers; and those with social emotional and behavioural difficulties, including those at risk of school exclusion.
In order to provide support for all children with additional support needs and to promote multi-agency approaches (Scottish Executive, 2001), there are important differences in the way in which children's needs are to be identified and reviewed in future (see Scottish Executive, 2005, for further details about how the new arrangements will work in practice). Co-ordinated Support Plans may be provided for children and young people whose needs are long-lasting and that arise from complex or multiple factors which have a significant adverse effect on their education and who require a range of support from services outwith education. Clearly, much closer inter-agency working will be required in the operationalisation of Co-ordinated Support Plans and the need for key workers to provide information and support on an ongoing basis has been advocated by groups such as the Care Co-ordination Network (Greco et al, 2004). Disagreements over Co-ordinated Support Plans maybe referred to the new Additional Support Needs Tribunal. Children and young people who have additional support needs, but who do not qualify for a Co-ordinated Support Plan, must also have their needs identified and met. For these children, it is likely that Individualised Educational Programmes will be used to summarise assessment outcomes, short-term and long-term targets, as well as progress over time (see Banks et al, 2001; Kane et al, 2003 for account of the use of Individualised Educational Programmes in Scotland). Mediation and dispute resolution services will be provided to avoid and resolve disagreements between parents or young people and local authorities. As a result of these changes, queries are likely to arise in relation to:
- The precise duties of local authorities and other agencies (Health Boards, social services/children's services departments, Careers Scotland, further and higher education institutions), and the division of responsibilities between different agencies, particularly in relation to resource provision.
- The mechanisms for identifying and meeting additional support needs.
- The criteria for opening a Co-ordinated Support Plan or an Individualised Educational Programme.
- The consequences of having a Co-ordinated Support Plan or an Individualised Educational Programme.
- Routes of mediation and redress.
- Transitional arrangements for children who already have a Record of Needs.
In addition, parents and young people are likely to continue to require information relating to the following:
- Transitional arrangements from school to further /higher education.
- Placing requests.
- The nature of support in particular school settings.
- Planning duties at local authority and school level.
During the implementation period, when local authorities will be finding their feet in relation to the new legislation, parents and young people will have a particular need for a pro-active, effective and accessible service, and therefore this options review is particularly timely. In addition, it is evident that a number of organisations (e.g. National Deaf Children's Society, Royal National Institute for the Blind, Communication Aids for Language and Learning Centre, Scottish Sensory Centre, Special Needs Information Point, Disability Rights Commission, Care Co-ordination Network UK, Scottish Traveller Education Programme) provide information and advice; it will also be important for future provision to take account of their different remits, target groups and ways of working. Some organisations are pioneering new ways of delivering information, combining face-to-face support with the provision of telephone helpline services, e-mail and web-based support, and leaflets containing general information and specific information about local services. In this report we consider the needs of a range of groups and the way in which they might be able to benefit from technological innovations in the future.
Current provision of advice and information services
Since 1999, Children in Scotland has been funded by the Scottish Executive Education Department to provide Enquire, the national advice service for additional support for learning in Scotland. Since 2004, Enquire has been contracted:
(1) To maintain and develop the telephone advice and information service for parents, families and carers of children and young people with additional support needs across Scotland and for children and young people themselves.
(2) To develop and implement a vigorous and effective publicity programme to maintain and improve the profile of the service and to encourage increased use of the information service, particularly by children and young people.
(3) To revise and expand the publications library to take account of recent and planned changes in additional support needs legislation and guidance.
(4) To develop and implement a pro-active outreach programme which ensures that children and young people have access to the necessary information and advice at a local level to make informed decisions about additional support needs.
(5) To devise and implement management, monitoring and evaluation systems for the service
As noted above, many other voluntary sector organisations provide advice and information services in relation to additional support for learning, using a mixture of strategies including telephone advice, one-to-one advocacy and publications. Local authorities have also traditionally provided some information for parents on their special educational needs policy, although recent legislation places a duty on them to do this. In addition, the Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils Educational Records) (Scotland) Act 2002 requires local authorities to publish accessibility strategies for disabled children. During the course of this report, we discuss the range of sources of advice and information available to parents and carers, children and young people and professionals, and consider the merits of the different approaches.
In an earlier report (Riddell et al, 2006), we presented findings from an evaluation of the services provided by Enquire. In this report, we focus on the views of parents and carers, children and young people and professionals in relation to:
(c) the current type and format of services which are being provided, and
(d) future preferences for the delivery of advice and information services in the light of the new legislation.
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