Providing Community Support and Social Inclusion for Disabled Children and Young People
at the Ann Tayler Centre
on Thursday 30th April 2009
23 parents attended the group
Professionals attending
Scilla Morgan
Bev Rolfe
Pat Howley
Sheila Ramdular
Gillian Goodchild
Kunbi Jones
Azhar Rahman
(+ 2 interpreters)
Bev Rolfe facilitated the meeting.
1. Introductions from the speakers and parents:
Bev welcomed everyone to the group; all present introduced themselves.
2. Karin Burt, Play Development Manager, The Learning Trust
Karin reminded the group that when Jackie Hopfinger, head of the Learning Trust's Early Years and Play service, attended Hackney Families Together a couple of years ago, the discussion was around Hackney's play strategy and that information from that meeting fed into the final play strategy and its projects on inclusive play for disabled children. E.g.
- The minibus to facilitate access to playschemes, kept at Evergreen
- Hackney Play Association's inclusive play project
- Step-by-Step's additional playscheme
- Huddleston's Saturday drop-in club.
- A new project, in partnership with Social Services, supporting Looked After Children to access play
- Support with translation costs to enable parents who don't have English as a first language to access provision
- Emergency transport scheme to pay transport costs to enable disabled children to get to playgrounds.
The Learning Trust will be running playschemes for children with complex needs at Tyssen, Millfields, and Whitmore, for children aged 5-11. These are likely to be for just one week. This year, for the first time, 50% of places will be reserved for children who do not attend the autism bases. Parents should approach the individual school to book a place.
The Learning Trust runs mainstream school-based playschemes, 2 at Easter one in summer (summer sites to be confirmed) and there is funding for 7 additional workers to support disabled children within these schemes on a 1:1 or 1:4 ratio. For places on these schemes, parents need to contact Anthony a month beforehand.
The Learning Trust will also fund an additional playworker for Evergreen Adventure Playground
Claira Scott-Grey KIDS Adventure Playground
Kids is a closed-access adventure playground with tues-fri after school provision, a Saturday term-time session and playschemes through the holidays. The closed access nature means that children can enjoy freedom of choice in a safe environment - the aim is to enable children to enjoy childhood. Kids currently provides playscheme places only to children who are assessed as needing this as part of their care package; this is because Kids is contracted to by social services to do this. Claira will take referrals from other sources, including self-referral, and will keep on a waiting list in case they manage to obtain additional funding from elsewhere.
Kids can provide limited transport (one minibus). Playschemes run up to 4pm and places are for children and young people aged 5-19 and are allocated on a 1:1 or 1:4 basis. This means they can offer 16 1:4 places and 3 1:1 places per day, plus any additional places that are spot-purchased. A sibling or close friend is also welcome to attend over and above this. The site is big enough to accommodate more children but although the playground is currently running at 50% of physical capacity, it is 100% of funding/staffing capacity.
Q I am on the Carer's Centre books - is this enough to refer me?
A No, Kids can only currently provide playscheme places for children referred via social services. However, a referral will put you on the waiting list if independent funding becomes available.
Q If you only have 19 places per day, does this mean you only work with 19 children?
A No - the aim is to give each child 10 days each and are likely to provide for 60-80 children over the course of the scheme.
Q How long does it take Kids to assess a child for a place?
A We ask children & parents to visit when first referred, then if funding is available we contact you
Q Is the Learning Trust here to gather information which can feed into play provision and funding?
A (Karin) Yes
Q How many teenagers attend, & how can you provide suitable and age-appropriate activities for the entire age range?
A Teenagers do tend to tail off. We provide two specific older children/young people evenings per week and one Saturday per month, and now there is a transitional team in Social Services we work at age banding. During playschemes we try to offer separate days so we can provide some days with activities that appeal to 16-19 year olds.
Charlotte - Inclusion worker, Laburnum Boat Club (and Steve Smyth, volunteer)
Laburnam offers sports club evening twice a week, Monday for 15-19 year olds and Thursday for 11-14s. Activities include swimming, narrow-boats, bowling etc and there are some spaces still available - via self-referral. In the summer, Laburnum is working in partnership with Hackney Young Peoples University to offer a course on Mondays which aims to encourage children's independence. Information and access to this will be via local secondary and special schools. There is also a general playscheme during the summer holidays mon-fri; contact Charlotte at Laburnum to see if it is suitable.
Occasionally there is also a short residential, for members of the sports clubs, at an activity centre. This is inclusive and does have wheelchair access.
Q Are you likely to be able to offer 1:1 support for my son?
A Not in the holidays
Q If Social Services provided a 1:1 worker for the holidays could you support him?
A Not certain: some of the activities might not be appropriate for him if his needs are very high, especially any canoe-based activity if the support worker is unfamiliar with kayaking.
Additional information - Anthony Greenidge can sometimes provide additional support. Kunbi also added that the Huddleston Centre runs both a summer playscheme and a youth club (Friendly Wave) for young people with high support needs.
Lucy Mason (and Jenny O'Shay) HPA Inclusion Playworkers
The Inclusive Play Project (IPP) supports mainstream, playgrounds to become more inclusive. The playworkers work with the after school provision; they can provide some 1:1 support for particular children, but the aim is not to be an add-on but to include disabled children in the whole playground. There are IPP workers at Shakespear Walk (SWAPA), Homerton Grove, Apples and Pears, Shoredith and Hackney Marsh adventure playgrounds. Playgrounds are for 6- 16/19 year olds. Under fives are welcome, but cannot be left there unsupervised because of Ofsted regulations. A parent must remain at the playground with the child.
The IPP is definitely community-based, encouraging children to use their local playgrounds alongside their peers. A lot of the work is around friendship-building and around the older children gaining some independence. Lucy also noted that a lot of the older young people who use the playgrounds are taking ownership of activities and engaging the disabled young people in this.
SWAPA and other playgrounds are currently in the process of redesigning the outside space to be more inclusive. WPA currently supports around 12 disabled children, with 3-4 attending each day. Most of these need 1:4 support, though a small number need a higher staffing ratio. There is capacity to include more children, so now is the time to get involved! Self-referral to the playground or HPA, then a site visit with the playworker, child and parent.
The IPP is currently building relationships with the Ark to try to enable further inclusion and use of community facilities; this is especially valuable if the child is not currently embedded in the community via a local school as it enables friendships outside of school. They are also involved in doing some transition work with older young people who are likely to leave Play services to go to Youth services, with the aim of ensuring that they have access to leisure activities.
The IPP is not contracted to run in school holidays.
Martin Machado - Hackney Young People's University
HYPU runs a four-season programme of activities, though summer is the main season and HYPU is linked to the London Summer University programme. Most events take place at B6 (Brooke House 6th form college in Clapton) which is an accessible building, though this coming summer they also have a contract with Laburnum for boat activities on a Monday and some courses will also take place at the Jack Petchey Academy and one or two other sites.
HYPU provides for young people aged 11-25. Some courses are aimed at promoting vocational aspirations of young people - for example sports, DJ-ing, or journalism. HYPU is currently in the middle of finalising the summer programme. The aim of the programme is to widen participation, promote achievement, independence and the involvement of the young people themselves: there is a youth forum of users and peer mentors who shape the programme.
All details of the sites and courses will appear on the website as soon as they are finalised and leaflets will be sent to Hackney Family Backup for distribution, once they are ready.
Funding is always an issue, though, and although the sites are accessible, they are unable to provide specialist 1:1 support.
Q My son has special needs and challenging behaviour and is excluded (from HYPU)
A Don't know about this - need to find out cause and follow up
Q Why can't you provide support for SEN?
A Funding! We have skeleton funding specific to programme delivery and this doesn't cover 1:1 support, though if a young person is accompanied by his/her own support-worker, they will be welcome. Also, we recruit peer mentors whose brief is to support the tutors, and on occasion they might provide some 1:1 support if this is appropriate. Parents are welcome to come and look around to see if they think it will be suitable, and even if we can't provide for your child's needs now, let us know the need and we may be able to sort out the difficulties for the next programme.
Q Have you approached social services for funding?
A. Yes - no luck
Q How can my son access the summer programme, is it via the Learning Trust?
(Pat Howley responded to this question) Basic responsibility for play during the summer rests with the Learning Trust, but if the LT cannot provide this it is up to us to map the gaps: Kids/Huddleston schemes are under the children's social care umbrella, but the Learning Trust needs to know what the shortfall is.
Q Why is it so difficult to access summer activities? There is The Key, who else can I approach?
A Raise with the Learning Trust.
Martin told the meeting that he wanted to work with parents to address the shortfall - please do visit, let him know what the issues are – he is keen to make the summer university as inclusive as possible and needs to know what the barriers are in order to address them. This summer HYPU are carrying out an extensive monitoring and assessing exercise which will be fed back into plans for next year's funding applications.
3 Group work - feedback from groups
Parents then discussed three questions - there was a lot of consensus between groups.
What does your child enjoy about playschemes?
- A non-judgemental venue
- Broadens the social horizons - Playing with other children
- Laughter!
- Builds confidence and gives freedom
- Activities - lots of variety. Computers, reading, clothes, music, toys
- The opportunity to enjoy "mainstream" stuff (eg play!)
- Trips - even if it's only to the shops
- Free play as well as fixed activities
- Parties!
- Sports - football, swimming
- Opportunity to exercise some independence
- The fact that I am confident that the children are safe, confident and happy
- Time and respite for myself
- The opportunity it gives for accessing new places
- The choice of both specialist and inclusive mainstream sites
- The social opportunities - my child has the chance to make friends outside school
- Hackney playschemes/playgrounds are generally very welcoming
- A Toy Library
- Glad to know that disabled children are interacting on an equal footing with their peers
- Some providers don't understand the children's needs
- Staff can be afraid or lack knowledge and then can blame the children
- Parents need to be able to give advice... AND BE LISTENED TO!
- Lack of knowledge of what is available
- Social workers! (they can be a barrier to accessing closed sites)
- Social work assessment - it's intrusive, we just want our child to be able to play!
- The criteria for supported play are exclusive - supported play is underfunded
- Lack of funding for 1:1 support
- Lack of provision for teenagers
- Language barrier for non/limited English speakers - knowing what's there & being able to access it.
- Support staff bunged in to playschemes who don't have specialist training
- Communication
- "Tried playschemes once, didn't work, I'm scared to try again"
- Play equipment in parks is unsuitable
4 Action Points
- All play providers to map unmet need (via play coordination group)
- Disseminate information on what is available via the Learning Trust, the Key and through HFT
- Summer University to carry out the assessment and monitoring process (as above) and report back to HFT
Feedback from HIP (Hackney Independent forum for Parents/carers of disabled children)
Amanda Elliott gave feedback on the parents meeting. HIP's primary concerns are about how the Aiming High money is spent, particularly for 2009/10. They are also concerned that parents are represented on decision-making bodies.
She explained that HIP aims to splice into Hackney Families Together and be the "action wing" under the HFT umbrella! It is very clear that it aims to be an action group not a support one, so they are all keen to hear from parents who want to get involved in doing things. There is a meeting on 8th May with Richard Marks and Steve Goodman at the Ark, from 10-11. This is to discuss
a the Short Break reference group
b What is happening re Aiming High money.
Childcare costs will be met.
Hackney Parent Partnership annual discussion group
Scilla Morgan announced this meeting, Change and Your Child on 13th May at City Edge, Mare Street, 9.30 am - 3pm. Discussion will cover what parents can do to help children cope at times of transition. There will be crèche and interpreters available.
6 Date of next meeting
11th June 2009
HFBU never make direct appeals to the public for funding. If you receive an e-mail requesting
financial assistance that you think might be from us please contact us immediately.