Innovative use of student specialists has revolutionised our schools’ SEND therapy and cut assessment waits to just 10 days

by Conrad Bourne, Mercia Trust Our post earlier this year, ‘No specialists = no support’ highlighted a severe shortfall in the number of speech and language therapists and other specialists …

SENDInTheSpecialists: The campaign to boost investment in the SEND specialist workforce grows, and how you can get involved

with Peter Just, Royal College of Speech and Labguage Therapists Last November we joined with a coalition of more than a hundred other SEND-related organisations to back a #SENDintheSpecialists campaign …

Using a different lens for neurodivergent children: Don’t treat them as younger, give them the tools to achieve

A little while ago someone on my Facebook posted a meme that supposedly showed the functional age of a child with ADHD according to their chronological age. The meme contained …

The #SENDReview must embed Speech, Language and Communication skills across education, especially teacher training

with Amy Loxley, Lead Speech and Language Advisor for I CAN, One of the major criticisms of the SEND Review is its silence about the revolution in SEND teacher training …

Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) and Perplexing Presentations – New guidance for social work practitioners

with Sally Russell, Trustee, The PDA Society Scientific rigour in medicine is, thankfully, the rule rather than the exception. We want our medicines, procedures, and treatments to be based on …

Free course: Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) in children with mental health difficulties

With Melanie Cross, Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists One of the most common elements of additional needs is speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). If a child also …

How has coronavirus affected your child’s access to speech and language therapy?

with Caroline Wright, Policy Adviser at the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists In the first lockdown, thousands of children overnight lost the external therapy input such as speech …

It is a mistake to assume all vulnerable children are ‘at risk of harm’

Coronavirus has divided Britain into those who are vulnerable and those who are not. But vulnerable means different things to different groups of people, and it’s important to still differentiate between vulnerable because of need and vulnerable because of risk, especially when talking about children with SEND

Care in a time of coronavirus (ii): Using health direct payments to pay family members for care

Some children and adults receiving direct payments for complex health needs will be avoiding all non-essential face-to-face contact during the Coronavirus pandemic, including minimising the number of carers coming in and out of their home. One potential solution to these challenges is for ‘direct payments’ to be used to allow family members to be paid to provide care.

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