Simon Vevers looks at how some are rising to it
Private and voluntary sector providers have an inbuilt disadvantage when it comes to removing barriers to achievement for children with special needs and their families.
Many of these settings are housed in old buildings - making it difficult to provide the 'reasonable adjustments' that are now required by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). Then there is the financial burden of providing additional staff, purchasing special equipment and accessing training. These factors, combined with a lack of experience on the providers' part, can produce a crisis of confidence.
That's not to say all voluntary and private settings are coping badly - many are excellent - but there is an urgent need to raise standards across the board.
The fact that barriers to achievement do exist was underlined by Ofsted's recent 'Firm Foundations' report, where only 30 per cent of settings received a 'good' grading for National Standard 10, which sets out the minimum requirements that private and voluntary providers must meet to support children with special needs. The standard does not cover what providers should do to remove barriers to inclusion in the first place.
This has served as a wake-up call to settings who are failing the inclusion test, to local authorities failing to give them sufficient support and to the Government, which has been accused of failing to ensure adequate training and resources.
Local support
The Childcare Bill, which is currently being debated in parliament, demands that local authorities meet the childcare requirements of families, particularly those with disabled children. Meanwhile, under amendments to the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), all public sector authorities have a duty to promote disability equality. The Disability Rights Commission is preparing a statutory Code of Practice to explain the new duty.
Phillippa Russell, a disability rights commissioner and policy adviser to the National Children's Bureau, says, 'The Childcare Bill and the expectation that local authorities will plan strategically for disabled children must mean that they enter into very creative and positive partnerships with all sectors.'
Anticipating that the non-maintained sector will have to provide a large portion of the expanded childcare envisaged by the Government, she says settings must be acquainted with the requirements of the DDA and be confident that they will receive advice and support from local authorities.
She says, 'We need to celebrate success and that is where the networking is important. The first time a setting, maintained or non-maintained, voluntary or independent, admits a severely disabled child or one with complex behaviour, they need to talk to another setting that has done it.
'We have to beware of thinking that disabled children are always difficult,' Ms Russell adds. 'Many of them are actually easier than a lot of other children who are socially disadvantaged. I am cautiously optimistic. I think we have a long way to go, because capacity does vary in different areas. But, as the Ofsted report shows, there are many settings who have always tried to be inclusive and that makes it seem possible to overcome problems.'
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), says the majority of private and voluntary providers are keen to provide care for children with special needs but often do not feel confident in doing so. She warns that they need to be made aware of the full implications of the DDA, and specifically obtain clarity over the demand that settings make 'reasonable adjustments' to accommodate children with disabilities.
'It is a joint learning curve for both local authorities and providers,'
she says. 'Partnership and multi-agency working will be all the more crucial as local authorities have a legal duty to provide a place for a disabled child.'
Pam Burrell, special educational needs co-ordinator at the Portland House day nursery in Huddersfield - one of the settings visited and highly praised by Ofsted - says that 'fear of the unknown' is often the main hurdle that nurseries have to overcome when taking an SEN child. 'Once you get a child in a setting, staff get more confident. It's about being aware and having the right training,' she says. 'We look at the child and then look at any barriers there may be to accepting the child and work out how to overcome them.'
While her local authority, Kirklees, is very supportive and offers regular training for SENCOs, it has a limited budget for inclusion. 'The other big barrier is equipment,' says Ms Burrell. 'Jigsaws and books are no problem, but larger pieces of equipment such as special stands and chairs are more difficult to get funds for.'
Many local authorities have pools of equipment which they are prepared to lend to settings. Sonia Waszczak, early years inclusion co-ordinator in Solihull, says the West Midlands authority runs a support scheme aimed at helping children with additional needs to access inclusive childcare and has a wide range of toys, books and equipment.
'We have just bought a special chair for 600 for a boy with disabilities. The only proviso we make is that the equipment belongs to us and not the setting, so if the child moves on we expect it to go with him or be returned.' She says that similar arrangements are being made to support a local childminder caring for a child with complex needs who requires a hoist.
The Solihull support scheme has also used funding from the Sure Start SEN grant to provide an additional support worker for some settings. But, as the Ofsted report notes, funding extra staff is 'a difficulty', and some end up sharing costs with the parent. The report states that 'only a minority of settings in the private and voluntary sector are able to access funds from the local authority to increase staff ratios and provide the extra support for children with assessed needs'.
Action stations
In the London borough of Ealing, the Pre-School Learning Alliance is part of a rapid action team (RAT) together with speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, the child development team and the portage service, primarily to support private and voluntary settings. PLA area executive officer Lesley Hunter says the RAT will step in if a setting needs support with inclusion. There is also a 'ratpack' - a suitcase of toys that can supplement a setting's own resources.
Phillippa Russell says that Government plans to pilot 'individualised'
budgets for disabled children could be the ideal vehicle for making sufficient resources available, particularly for children who have complex needs. She also believes that children's trusts must look at ways of providing additional healthcare resources.
In Bolton, the SEN element funding from Sure Start has helped to create service level agreements to ensure that specialist nursing teams, therapists and equipment can be deployed in the early years and childcare sector.
Jill Lee, team leader of the area SENCOs in Bolton, says that a pilot keyworker project for families of disabled children has seen 28 education staff from the maintained and non-maintained sectors being trained. This work has now been integrated into Bolton's Children's Trust for Disabled Children.
She says, 'All of these initiatives have enabled a co-ordinated approach to meeting children's needs, which is resulting in an increased number of children who are able to access, and continue within, non-maintained early education and childcare settings.'
Bolton's Inclusive Playcare Model, which was singled out for praise in the Ofsted report, has resulted in effective multi-agency working between education, health and social services departments and the private and voluntary sector to increase out-of-school provision for SEN children from one per cent to 7 per cent in two years.
It is this type of strategic partnership, together with multi-agency working through children's centres and extended schools, which Phillippa Russell believes can make a real difference to private and voluntary providers who are determined to offer an inclusive service.
Meeting the inclusion challenge
For Deborah Young, SENCO at the Apple Tree private nursery in Braintree, Essex, the keyworker system and the close involvement of parents are vital ingredients in ensuring inclusion for SEN children at the nursery, which Ofsted inspectors praised for its 'outstanding' practice. Currently it has four SEN children, mainly with language and communication difficulties. It has previously cared for children with autism.
'We give them one-to-one support, make up games to help develop their language and communication skills. We also act on any feedback we get from speech and language therapists,' says Ms Young.
Cathy Coleman, manager and SENCO at the Opportunity Playgroup in Ealing, says the voluntary setting reserves a third of its 20 places for children who have complex needs. Ms Coleman, who attends all early years partnership meetings and is a member of the local authority's sub-group on accessibility and inclusion, says, 'The rest of our places are taken up by local children. We think it is important to break down barriers early on and mix children who may not speak or behave in the same way. The aim of the group has always been for local children to play alongside children with SEN, rather than the other way round.'