Sept 30, 2020, BBC: Special Educational Needs: Proposals to change special needs support https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-54360847 Decisions on what support pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) get are to be made in 22 weeks rather than 26 in future. That is one of Department of Education's (DE) main proposals to change the way children with SEN are helped in school. The current 26-week statutory limit for the assessment and statementing process is breached in 85% of cases. The Education Authority (EA) has apologised for failings in SEN support. An internal audit found "unnecessary and undue delays" in the statutory assessment and statementing process and raised concerns about the security of confidential information about children kept by the EA. Cynthia Currie from the EA told MLAs on Stormont's Education Committee on Wednesday that there had been "significant improvements" in EA's performance in 2020 when it came to the statementing process. "Of the total 530 cases open greater than 26 weeks approximately 400, 70 per cent, have been issued with draft statements or are in the final stage of the process - the agreement of the draft statement, agreement of placement and issue of final statement," she said. Ms Currie also said that no children were now waiting more than 80 weeks for their statementing process to be completed. However, 19 children have been waiting longer than 60 weeks - though that has reduced from 265 children in November 2019. Committee chair Chris Lyttle, from the Alliance Party, said it was "profoundly regrettable that it took such a systemic failure of children with SEN for a more robust and co-ordinated approach to be taken". "There are serious questions to be answered as to how we got to this situation," he added. Both Mr Lyttle and the deputy chair Sinn Féin MLA Karen Mullan called for an independent review of the EA's support for pupils with SEN. "Principals and parents are telling me that they're still not seeing improvements," Ms Mullan said.KING/PA WIRE In response to a question from the DUP MLA Robin Newton, Una Turbitt from the EA acknowledged that many parents felt they had to "fight" with the EA to get help for their children. Other MLAs on the committee highlighted a number of other problems pupils and their families faced in getting appropriate support. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
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What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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