A Focus on Special Educational Needs and Disability

Introduction

Children and young people are important members of the community who should be safeguarded and supported to become better and productive in the society. However, children and young people have different abilities that may lead to slow learning, growth or even understanding. It is therefore important that children that are unable to learn or grow in the same manner as their peers be afforded support to make their lives easier (Davison, 2010). The category of children with Special educational needs and disability (SEND) may require extra health and education support. Social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) difficulties is one of the four broad areas of SEND that should be taken into account when providing educational and health support to children. Local authorities or councils are responsible for the provision of extra education and health services to children through assessment and implementation of Education, Health and Care plans (EHC). According to the Department of Education, there are at least 1,318,300 pupils with SEND in England which translates to 14.9 per cent of the population (NHS Digital, 2018)). Since 2016, the number of children with SEND has been increasing and the government attributes it to the rise in the number of children receiving SEND support (Snowdon, 2019). In this context, education dissertation help might be beneficial for understanding these trends. The report further shows that the number of children with SEMH is increasing in primary pupils. In fact, for a third consecutive year, the number of children with special educational needs and disabilities has increased causing concern among the responsible agencies.

In view of the above, this paper seeks to examine the current framework for SEMH provision in terms of the role of the different players in the sector. Children, parents and Educators play a major role in the provision of extra educational and health support to children with SEND, however, this would work better with the involvement of all the three players in the sector. For this reason, this paper is focused on SEMH provision for girls aged 11-16 years and how inclusion can enhance better support to the vulnerable children. Consequently, this study will cover the existing legal framework for the provision of SEMH to children and young people and how it has evolved over time to become an inclusive process that involves different players working together in the sector. The first part of this study gives a general introduction that informs the reader of the purpose and objectives of the case study. Following the above, the second part will delve into the legislations and policy guidance in provision of SEMH services to children and young people in the United Kingdom. The third part will introduce a case study of girls between 11 and 16 years old in relation to provision of SEMH services. This part will describe the research process including data collection, description of the environment among others. The next part will be about the findings and discussion from the case study and this is where the correlation between the findings and theory will extensively be discussed. The last part will provide various suitable recommendations to be put in place for future studies and eventually a conclusion of the study.

Context

SEMH needs in children can be manifested through a child’s behaviour in response to unmet social, emotional or mental health needs (Clark, 2011). Children with the above kind of needs mostly have problems managing their behaviour or emotions. This inability to manage their behaviour or emotions can be seen through: frustration, self-harming, anger, withdrawing, verbal or physical aggression and possible law breaking. In order to improve provision of SEMH to children with special needs, the Children Act 2004 was enacted to establish a legal framework for the provision f support to the needs of children and their families. The purpose of the Act is to promote the wellbeing of children by making the UK better and safe for children of all ages. In particular, the Act in section 9A provides for safeguarding and promotion of welfare of children in England. The SEND Code of Practice is a statutory guidance for agencies that support and work with children and young people with special educational needs. One of the core principles in the code is supporting children, young people and parents to participate in decisions about their support (England NHS, 2015). This principle clearly encourages the participation of children in the decision making process and aims to be inclusive in the whole process.

According to section 22 of the Children and Families Act (CFA) 2014, Local authorities are obligated to carry out their functions with a view to identifying all the children in the area who may have SEND. Further any person may bring to the attention of the local authority, the fact that there is a child with special need pursuant to section 24 of the CFA 2014. Accordingly, the SEND Code of Practice emphasizes the needs for collaboration between social care, education and health services in provision of support to children and young people with SEND. The NHS works with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and agencies like the Department of Health and Social Care, Department of Education and other voluntary organisations to provide the right support for children with SEND (Wall et al., 2019). Local councils are further mandated to provide Education, Health and Care plan (EHC) upon application any person whose child has special needs and requires extra support.

After the unfortunate death of Victoria Climbie, the government established a taskforce that came up with the Every Child Matters (ECM) Green Paper which came up with universal ambitions for all children and young people regardless their circumstances or background. The five outcomes of the Green Paper envisage that children: be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being. The rationale for the Green Paper was to improve the outcomes for children with special needs and disabilities. The government recognizes the role of families, carers and parents in improving the five outcomes and the need for support to children with SEND. A related component of Every Child Matters is the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) which is a process of identifying children with extra needs, assessment of such needs and provision of co-ordinated, multiagency support plan that is commensurate to those needs (Cox and Turner, 2018). The CAF approach is aimed at encouraging different organisations to work together, provide integrated support and share information. The process is a shared assessment and planning framework that promotes a coordinated effort in providing the right support and services to children who need them especially those with SEMH in all local areas in England.

The Case study

The study involved girls who are between the ages of 11-16 years whose parents and carers had consented to their participation in the study. The girls whose names will not be used in this paper for purposes of confidentiality were observed over a period of time to note the changes in behaviour, if any. This group of girls comprised of children with special needs like learning difficulties and in particular, some of them were impulsive and had little knowledge of social skills. Consequently, they found it difficult to mingle freely with other children of their age and sometimes were victims of bullying. This validates the assessment that these are children with special needs within the meaning of SEND and SEMH. While these category of children may be keen to learn, they also like pushing boundaries hence, they must be handled with care and granted the necessary support for their learning and health. Most of these children exhibited learning styles that can be categorised as negative transfer such that the learning one task makes the learning of another difficult.

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To get the neutral results, the study was entirely based in the school setting where the children were observed and assessed at their normal schools. This provided an agreeable environment for them to feel comfortable and also to protect the integrity of the results of the study. Previously, these children had been in schools that did not really have the resources to cater for their needs until they were moved to specialised schools. Clearly, some mainstream schools do not have adequate resources to care for and support children with special needs thus the need for special schools that can carry out ability tests and determine where a particular pupil should be placed. This calls for the participation of both the school, parent or carer, child and the local authority. Before the commencement of the six week assessment of the girls, applications were made by their parents and carers for EHCP (Holland and Pell, 2017). More importantly, a diagnosis of SEMH was carried out to determine how best the girls with special needs could be supported throughout their education till adulthood.

The study majorly involved the observation of the behaviour and responses of the participants in the research. Conjunctively, taking notes of the behaviours and responses of the participants is one way of recording the observations. One on one interviews were also useful for other people involved in the process such as parents, carers, family and health practitioners involved. The key things that were at the centre of observation were the social and emotional responses of the girls. They responded differently, while some of them would be agitated the others would be calm but very anti-social. It was actually worse for the pupils that had complex mental health needs because there is a struggle to control anger or other feelings. As a teacher I conducted Emergency Person-Centred Annual Review (EPCAR) of their EHP to check for any improvements. In order to help children struggling with the above issues, there are strategies for support including allowing the child to time-out for playing to relax their mind and release the tension. Alternatively, the child can be showered with praises for good behaviour so that they are more inclined to be in the right direction.

Teacher Assistants play a major role in facilitating the right support for children with SEMH but this is only possible with the input of the parents or carers who should take part in the whole process. The parents or carers should present daily reports to the Teacher Assistant on the behaviour of their child and how best they can be supported. It is preferable to use techniques like observation where there is need to note behavioural changes and impact of support on human beings. This is a study of people’s behaviour and observation provides the best way of seeing the changes in people first hand in a natural environment. Observation is a preferable research method in a studies like this because it allows the researcher to see the participants in their natural setting (Morgan et al., 2017). The method is simple and does not require technical knowledge to apply. It is also a useful method for framing of hypothesis. Unlike other methods like interview or questionnaires, the researcher does not need to rely on what someone else says but on what they observe and it is easier to determine the accuracy of the research. As a result, research conducted through observation tend to be more reliable than other methods like questionnaire or interview.

Further, the present study involves a social science and observation is used in all sciences and has been known for its universality of practice (Morgan et al., 2017). However, the method may sometimes be unreliable due to the generalisations involved in observation of participants’ behaviours. In some cases, the observer could have been biased hence he or she may instead of recording the true state of behaviour, indicate his or her own perceptions which may be at variance with the actual findings. Observation as a method is slow and expensive because it needs time and effort to be completed successfully. Therefore, observation as a method requires that it be complemented by another method to avoid reliance on a single method that may end up being unreliable. Generally, the study presented a number of challenges including the lack of time to conduct a wider and comprehensive study of the girls’ behaviour. Financial constraints also slowed down the process and prevented a comprehensive research that could have covered all the relevant areas in the co-ordinated provision of SEMH support and services.

Findings and Discussion

The study showed that a co-ordinated effort from local authorities, social services, health services, parents, schools and children are important for the provision of the right support and services for children with SEMH. Taking into account the five outcomes from Every Child Matters, the first one requires that children should be healthy and should therefore be involved in Physical Education, School trips and Outdoor education (Watson, 2017). These activities are useful in helping children with SEMH develop skills to avoid conflict and gain social competence and emotional confidence. It follows that girls who were antisocial and had poor relationship with adults and their peers can become better at socialising with others. The second outcome is concerned with the safety of the children with SEMH and requires that they should be in a secure and stable environment where they are afforded the right care. Common vices in schools like bullying undermine this outcome and schools should train their staff on creating a safe place for all children regardless of their background or circumstances. Child protection and safety concerns should not end at the school but should extend outside the school with collaborative effort of parents and local authorities.

The third outcome requires that children enjoy school and achieve personal, academic and social development. A consultant psychologist with the school should be available to conduct assessment on the pupil to find out the strengths and weakness with a view to designing Individual Educational Plan for each student. The type of teaching involved should be one that is interesting enough to invoke the interest in the children so that they enjoy it and would want to come back and learn more in school. In line with the inclusivity agenda of the government, the fourth outcome is concerned with children making positive contribution in their own lives. They are able to do this by being allowed to participate in the decisions that affect the school community. To encourage positive behaviour and moral responsibility, schools have reward mechanisms to instil in children social consciousness. The fourth and last outcome is all about achieving economic wellbeing hence children are encouraged to become more economically aware through life skills programs (Lawson, 2018). Children with SEMH are also subjected to the above outcomes to prepare them for adulthood despite the challenges they face in their learning and development.

The Plowden Report by the Central Advisory Council is relevant to this study since it reviewed primary education and introduced new approaches to teaching that took into account children’s needs. The report recommended an overhaul of the curriculum to make it more focused on the pupil as an individual rather than a group. This approach was instrumental in enhancing the quest for improving the provision of extra educational and health support to children SEND children. According to Dolton, Adams and O’Reilly (2019) the current educational system and approach needs to change to become more child-centred. In their study, the authors acknowledge that schools in England have improved a lot by supporting children with SEMH, however, the voices of these children is not heard. Therefore, they found through semi-structured interviews that children with SEMH difficulties despite being articulate and reflective about the effect of their difficulties in learning, felt that they were not valued, heard or understood. As a result, it is important that schools adopt a child-centred approach by involving the children in decisions that affect their lives including health and education.

The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2017 report (NHS Digital, 2018) indicate that 11-16 year olds are at risk of self-harm and suicidal behaviour. As a result, Howard, Button and Lovemore (2019) suggest that a whole school approach should be used to support children with SEMH difficulties. This approach is based on the role played by the leadership and management of the school. In order to deal with mental health and enhance wellbeing, the school management and leadership create a learning environment, ethos, curriculum, culture and professional practice that takes into account the views of the children. Father, there should be a partnership between carers, parents and other agencies in supporting the school in mental health and well-being. This approach has previously been recommended by Public Health of England in 2015 and Brooks in 2012 as a way of enhancing cooperation between all the parties in pursuit of better support for all children including those with SEMH difficulties. Additionally, the approach encourages different partners involved to speak up and have their opinions heard to facilitate understanding of how best to support children and young people in their setting.

Educational, Health and Care (EHC) plans has been a very useful approach in providing additional service and support for children with SEMH needs. However, the use of the plan requires that an application must be made first, then an assessment conducted to confirm whether the child meets the desired threshold before the plan can be rolled. This multi-agency approach has been useful and very effective in improving the process of accessing SEND provision through involvement of family members in the decision making process and an enhanced collaboration between care, health and education sectors. In the setting of school, special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) are responsible for the application of EHC plans and implementation of educational reforms. A study involving the role of SENCOs found that there are difficulties in accessing an EHC plan for children with SEMH needs (Boesley and Crane, 2018). The above study is supported by the assertions of Louise Tickle who wrote an article on the Guardian on 5th September 2017 concerning the pain and agony that parents go through before they can get EHC plans approved for their children with SEMH needs, if at all. (Guardian, September 5, 2017). It follows that the problems associated with EHC plan approvals is caused by the budget cuts for local authorities who may be unable to sustain such plans. As a result, the EHC plans take longer than necessary and are sometimes rejected despite meeting the required threshold.

In a qualitative study by Childerhouse (2017) that examined the experiences of teachers supporting learners with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD), the author found that teachers became conflicted between policy considerations and actual children’s needs. For this reason, the stud study proposes a rights-based approach to supporting children with SEBD in the educational system. According to the author, the above approach is well suited for supporting children with disruptive, and challenging behaviours because the present approach is restrictive and confines teachers to policy considerations. The study was conducted in mainstream schools and 9 teachers were interviewed, each giving his or her account of successes and challenges in supporting children with SEBD.

Since the Plowden Report, there has been other reports like the Warnock Report of 1990 that has driven the agenda of multiagency working to enhance better support and care for children with SEMH needs through integration of services and collaboration between different agencies and partners (Haines and Ruebain, 2011; Mitchell, 2008). There is also evidence that the culture of inclusive schooling in the UK has also through policy changes in England led to the exclusion of children with SEMH needs because of the need by schools to limit their spending on EHC plans with their limited resources. Because of the differences in practices in the educational system, children with SEMH needs are continuously being left out of the educational system and the only way to counter this situation is by introducing inter-professional co-configuration and networking to improve relations and communication for purposes of pooling services for children with SEMH needs (Daniels, Thompson and Tawell, 2019)

Recommendations and Conclusion

Teachers are at the core of supporting children with SEND needs generally. Therefore, special attention should be given to the capability of teachers that engage children with special needs. Childerhouse (2017) recognises that teachers sometimes become conflicted and even confused when they are faced with certain aspects of the work especially when policy guidelines conflict with the needs of the children. As a result teachers should be engaged more in the multiagency approach to supporting children with SEMH needs especially in the decision making stages because they have the first-hand knowledge of the situation. In light of the enactment of the Children and Families Act 2014, teachers should feature prominently in the policy formulation stages as far as provision of extra educational support is concerned. An approach that is child centred should give priority to the teachers because the teachers know what is best for the students or pupils and are trained to handle, care and support children with need.

Additionally, teachers ought to be continuously trained to be able to support children with SEMH needs adequately. Schools should provide training and support to enable not only teachers but also other staff to enhance better service and support to children with SEMH needs. Training on SEND issues should focus on the areas of interaction concerns, speech and language difficulties, communication, specific learning difficulties and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). More importantly, teachers and staff should be further trained on how to handle children with social, emotional and mental health needs, because this area involves very delicate children that if they are not given the necessary support could self-harm or become suicidal. The essence of the trainings is to improve the teaching and learning of all children including those with SEND. In the spirit of multi-agency approach to providing SEMH needs support, schools can involve other agencies by inviting them to train teachers and other staff that are in direct contact with such children. Alternatively advisory teachers can also play a role by visiting concerned schools and training staff on the best ways of supporting and interacting with children with specific needs.

A number of professions have professional development as part of its rules and requirements for renewal of practicing licenses. Teachers also undertake professional development training to help them advance in their careers and in particular make them better suited to teach and support children with SEMH. Apart from teaching, the training is supposed to help the children learn effectively from the teachers and prepare them for adulthood and independent leaving. Therefore, schools and concerned local authorities should ensure that teachers are trained on three levels including: awareness, enhanced and specialist. Awareness is a type of training beneficial to all staff that interact with students with SEMH needs so that they recognise and know certain types of special needs like cerebral palsy or dyslexia. This makes it easier for staff with that kind of awareness to interact with and support such children where needed. The second level called enhanced training is one that helps teachers adapt to supporting children with special needs. Examples of this kind of training is the AET training from the Autism Education Trust or the Dyslexia SpLD Trust. The third level entails specialist training that is focused on a particular type of SEND so that they are equipped to not only provide the necessary support but also to train others on that particular area. Further, the number of teachers to student ration should be maintained at an optimum level so that it becomes less tedious to manage and support students with special needs. The Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) are responsible for the whole-school improvement and this should extend to training and support to staff to help them improve the learning and teaching of children with SEND. Another recommendation is that the Department of Education should adopt a rights-based approach to alleviate the situation where teachers are torn between adherence to statutory requirements and children’s needs.

In a nutshell, girls between 11-16 years are affected almost in the same manner as other children with regard to SEMH needs and they need care and support just as their male counterparts. The study has demonstrated that the multiagency approach is a good initiative that is based on collaboration and sharing of information but is time that other measures be introduced to deal with new problems in a new world. All the relevant agencies should consider the issue of training of teachers, adhering to the prescribed ration of teachers to students and adopting the rights-based approach. It is time that new culture that is responsive to rights of all individual children in schools is adopted to change the face of supporting children with SEMH in the UK. Be that as it may, the Department of Education, Department of Health and other agencies have made reasonable attempts to improve the situation for children with SEMH difficulties in the UK.

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