Support offered to schools

Children with SEND are five times more likely to be excluded from school and are at a higher risk of abuse and exploitation. There are a vast amount of children that are not able to access education, home educated, waiting on a school placement or are on reduced timetables. This can leave these children with very few options to access activities and social opportunities which can lead to poor mental health, isolation and vulnerable to exploitation. 

I offer schools autism screening for their young people so I can create a profile of the young person and how best schools can support that individual child. I liaise with professionals and with parent/carers as working in collaboration gives consistency for the young person which will achieve better outcomes.  The screening does not give the young person a formal diagnosis but it does indicate if they display autistic characteristics and their strengths and their barriers which can help to formulate a plan in how best to support the young person.

In addition to this I provide safeguarding support and safeguarding audits in schools. I previously worked as a front-line child protection social worker and unfortunately the threshold of need for social care support has risen which has impacted on schools managing the risk. Furthermore, the roll out of the governments new bill 'Families first for children' includes education as a mandatory agency in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. This will put further pressures on education settings and staff not having enough experience around managing risk.