Part time administrator needed for ASEND, based in Southgate

We are a consultancy providing advice and support to schools with pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.


The successful candidate will have experience in an administrative or sales support role.


The role will include day-­to-­day administration, basic book-­keeping, telephone calls to potential clients and recruiting potential candidates. 

Initially, the role will be four hours a day with the potential for increased hours in the future.


£10.00 per hour, 25 days holidays (excluding bank holidays) to be taken within school holidays, business travel expenses.


For more details, an application form and job description, please call Barbara Ball on 020 8166 8347 or email on barbara.ball@asend.co.uk 

Closing date for applications 5pm Friday 16th November 2012.

Interviews 23rd and/or 30th November 2012.

References will be taken up.

Job to start 7th January 2013.

Working Together Works - one term with a child with Asperger's Syndrome

Today I telephoned Jackie, mother of Adam, to ask her if I could use their story in a blog.   She told me that she would be very happy from me to, as since Adam has had the right support at school his life, and that of the family has been turned around.

Adam is in year six in a primary school in North London. He has had a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome since he was in year two. Between year two to year five, his behaviour at school became more and more challenging and sometimes quite bizarre. He has had numerous fixed term exclusions – for swearing at dinner ladies, for kicking mealtime supervisors, for punching a boy in the head, and for pulling down the basketball rings in the playground, to name but a few. Adam hated school (the first thing he told me was "Everyone at school hates me") and the school didn't like Adam very much either. Other parents complained about Adam's behaviour and his violence towards other children, and sent delegations to the headteacher to ask that he be permanently excluded. Jackie would be asked to come to school to collect him, to be met by groups of teachers and teaching assistants with folded arms and scowling faces. Adam's behaviour in class meant that he had done no work at all for a year, and the rest of the class had done very little – and that mostly when Adam had been excluded or was ill. Then the new headteacher came, and she called ASEND to see if we could help the situation. I met with her, and then with Jackie who told me that Adam's stepbrother has been killed in Afghanistan that summer - no wonder his behaviour had become increasingly violent!  We had a meeting with the head, the SENCO, the class teacher and Jackie and discussed how we might be able to help. The head, Lynne, said that she knew that it might take years to turn this situation around, but she was willing to give anything a go.

A very experienced and highly qualified specialist teacher came to school and spent seven half days working with Adam and modelling strategies that might work to the class teacher and a teaching assistant. A new teaching assistant was found from Resources for Autism, someone who had worked with autistic children before and knew strategies that could work. Another specialist trainer came and took two twilight sessions with the whole staff explaining to them what autism was like and how we can work with children on the spectrum successfully.

By the end of that term, Adam was no longer a problem. He was in class and working, and so were his friends. His teachers were delighted, and his mother was over the moon. Adam has even started playing football with other children successfully in the break and lunch times. For the first time ever, Adam enjoys coming to school, and Jackie is so relieved that she doesn't have to force him screaming  into the school that he hated every morning.

Today, Jackie told me that one of the parents who used to complain about Adam had stopped her recently in the street. She was full of trepidation, but the parents said to her, "I'm sorry about what we said about Adam. My son has come home and said we used to think Adam was horrible, but now we think he's really cool".  All that it took to turn his life around, and to enable everybody in the school to get on and learn, was a little working together and some expertise. When schools, parents and other experts work together for the good of the child good results can come, and can come fast!

All the expertise used to support Adam came through ASEND 

ASEND Summer 2012 newsletter

Come along to the next ASEND networking event 10th July 2012

ASEND Newsletter - Spring 2012 - out now - contact us for a copy

SEN support for Free Schools

ASEND are starting some work with a Free School to improve their provision for SEN pupils.   We opened with a review of current process and procedures – and the resources being allocated to this one year entry school.  Not all the processes in place will work so well as the school gets bigger, and so we have provided some recommendations around scaling up the SEN work.

If you are considering submitting an application to set up a Free School then we are keen to work with you to think through effective ways to provide for SEN pupils.

You may be running as a Free School now – and be interested in a bit of a health check on your approach to SEN.

In either case, we would be pleased to meet and talk through the ways in which we can support you.  Contact office@asend.co.uk

Networking for ASEND Advisors

ASEND are holding our next termly networking event for Advisors from 7pm to 9pm Thursday 22^nd March 2012 in a North London venue.

On this occasion the focus will be on the Green Paper – Support and Aspiration.  ASEND Director Barbara Ball will be speaking on the practical application of the bill and its implications for SEN provision in schools.

Do come along if you are an Advisor, or are interested in finding out more about becoming an Advisor.

To book your place contact office@asend.co.uk  or book online through www.surveymonkey.com/s/asend 

Safeguarding disabled children and young people

On 6^th March 2012 ASEND held the first of two workshops for Advisors – exploring safeguarding issues that are specific to disabled children and young people.  This subject isn’t well covered by generic safeguarding training, but is central to the work of ASEND Advisors in schools.

Helen Elliott and Rodney Grey, from Wardell Associates, took us through recent legislation and research into the increased likelihood of abuse of disabled children.   Myths were exploded and resources highlighted alongside some very open discussions focusing on personal experiences.

If you would like to attend the next workshop – on 22^nd May 2012 at a North London venue – then please get in touch at office@asend.co.uk

Happy New Year from ASEND - Opportunity for a Marketing Professional

We would like to extend our best wishes for 2012 to everyone who has supported ASEND, especially over the last few months.


ASEND has a growing team of Advisors available to work in schools and other educational settings - to provide advice and assessment services for SEND children as well as to support staff skill development and whole school approaches.


In our next phase of development we are looking for someone with marketing expertise to work alongside us on a freelance basis.  If you would like to know more about this opportunity then please contact barbara.ball@asend.co.uk

ASEND Article for SEN Magazine

The following is an extended version of an article written by Karen Walkden, and submitted for inclusion in SEN Magazine in December 2011.

Faith, Culture and Disability

Nobody can argue that a truly holistic assessment of a disabled child needs to take into account the family circumstances.   But how well is the impact of faith and cultural background understood?

This article sets out some of the issues, and also responses available to health, social care and education professionals working with disabled children, young people and their families from different faiths and cultures.   There is also a checklist to use in identifying gaps and developing local action plans.

A complex issue

The first thing to say is that this is a complex area.   There are variations within faiths, as well as between them – and it is simplistic to speak in terms of eg the Muslim community or Christian community.   In addition to specific sub-groups or denominations, there will be degrees of adherence to the principles that define a set of beliefs.  Within families there could well be generational variations – often with younger members of the family taking a more liberal or westernized stance. 

Variations also arise in times of crisis – such as the diagnosis of a child’s disability.  Parents may tend to the extremes of their beliefs – from rejection of the faith to fervently embracing it.  There can be a reversion to the core culture, so that practices perceived as tried and tested, or handed down through the generations, are given greater credence – particularly where the disability causes the parent to question their own skills.  Clashes between cultural norms and UK norms (enshrined in legislation) may arise.  This may be evident in areas such as physical chastisement and forced feeding, for example, putting the child at risk of harm.

At the root is a simple concept – that beliefs drive behavior.  To understand why a person behaves as they do, is to understand the complexity of their belief structure.  As professionals, we need to take the time to explore this area with families and to understand the influence of faith leaders and the community as a whole.

Cultural competence 

Why do we shy away from these conversations?  Fear of offending or stereotyping families, of being branded as racist or insensitive?    A feeling that we should know more than we really do?

As part of this quest for understanding, professionals are advised to explore their own cultural competence – to identify experiences that have shaped their personal knowledge and understanding of different faiths and cultures.  Your cultural competence is the lens through which you look at the world, and interpret information in front of you.  A greater awareness of your own influences will enable you to work more objectively with those who have a different background to your own.    Cultural competence increasingly features in the training of front-line health and social care professionals, and is a good INSET topic to explore.

Perceptions of disability

Compassion, love and support for the vulnerable are common themes across all faiths.   Having a faith, and belonging to a community, can provide social capital for a disabled person.  Professionals working with local community groups have the opportunity to contribute to the building of a strong and enduring support framework for the family.  

However, religions offer differing, and sometimes confusing, views of disability; for example, a manifestation of “the sins of the Father”, and a form or punishment – or each person is created equal, and in God’s image.   

Families may believe that the disabled child is a special gift that they have been entrusted to care for, that there is an innocence about the child that gives them a more direct relationship with God,  or that the parent’s faith is being tested.  Both of these stances can pose a risk to the child, if taken to extremes. 

The family of a disabled child in a church with a strong belief in the healing power of prayer, could feel isolated and embarrassed when they are not “cured”, potentially leading to a risk of physical or emotional abuse as the child’s differentness separates them from the community. 

Where there is a belief in malign influences, actions may be taken to expel spirits possessing the child, and believed to cause the disability.  These can become physical and extreme – as seen in recent high profile cases.  The emotional and psychological consequences of being labelled in this way compound the family’s difficulties within the community.

Cultural stigmas may result in denial or concealment of the child’s condition and so limit access to services, treatment, therapies and medication.  Where provision is limited then professionals might well inadvertently collude with families who express a wish to keep their child away from public services.  The challenge for professionals is to work with the family to overcome and change the views of the wider community.

Responses

Some very practical issues may sit alongside a belief system.  For example medication containing preservatives based on porcine, bovine or opioid products will not be acceptable in some faiths.  Similarly blood products and transplants may not be accepted.   Suffering may be seen as part of life’s process, with a resultant view on the use of pain relief.   Creativity on the part of health professionals is needed to find alternative responses and in some instances the medical view may prevail.

Where English is not the first language then the issues may be less around beliefs and more about support to describe the child’s needs, to interpret information provided and perhaps to implement complex instructions or therapies.   This is another area where working with community groups, through interpreters and building up the skills of advocates, can be beneficial.

I’ve worked with one London borough which has invested in disability awareness training for supplementary schools, with the twin aims of enabling the schools to include disabled children effectively in their own group lessons, and to increase parental awareness and confidence in engaging with mainstream schools.

We secured lottery funding for a local group supporting BME families with disabled children to set up school based parent support groups, facilitated by trained volunteers from the BME community.    The outcomes include an increase in the uptake of local services by BME families, who can find navigating their way through the various forms and processes intimidating.   Increased confidence on the part of parents will result in better advocacy for their disabled children.

Creative local commissioning can provide culturally appropriate and cost effective disability services.  A good example is Ronak, an Asian project run by Barnet Mencap, and Salaam, an inclusive scout group providing Islamically sensitive short breaks for Muslim families.

Culturally specific provision is one way to go – but the other is to ensure that services are sensitive and accessible across a range of belief systems.   This requires some knowledge of the barriers that could exist.   One real example is the reluctance of a Hindu father to allow his daughter to attend a siblings group set up to provide a break for brothers and sisters of disabled children.  The concern he had was around the presence of boys, and group leaders of different faiths.

Checklist

The following questions will help you to evaluate the extent to which you are responding to the needs of families whose faith and culture differ from the host nation.

• ü  Do you gather information on the faith and culture of the disabled children and young people you work with?
• ü  Does the faith and cultural profile of the families you work with reflect that of the local area?
• ü  Would you expect particular faiths and cultures to be better represented in your figures?
• ü  How do you engage and work with the voluntary and community groups that support families of different faiths and cultures in your area?
• ü  Is there scope for co-production of services – through partnership arrangements between faith groups and the public sector?
• ü  Aiming High for Disabled Children has provided funding to establish forums for parents of disabled children – how are these groups reaching and representing families from different communities?
• ü  Do you undertake equality impact assessments in the development of new services or the decommissioning of existing services?
• ü  How accessible are your services to people from different backgrounds?
• ü  Is there a need for more inclusive services – and some culturally specific provision as well?
• ü  Have you examined your own cultural competence – and that of your team?

Karen Walkden is a chartered psychologist, working part-time as Business Manager for ASEND – providers of SEND advice, assessment and support services to schools.