Helen's Blog - Reorganisation Opportunities
Published: 9th May 2012
Having worked within the N.H.S. for my entire career, I know one thing for sure. Change is inevitable! The current service redesigns are biting hard, and there can be few of us unaffected by downgrades, frozen posts and budget cuts.
Our local Education Authority is also radically altering its SEN provision, and we have a high number of schools, both primary and secondary, which have become academies.
This offers many challenges to a small Speech and Language Therapy Service like ours, but also opportunities for new kinds of provision. For example, several local schools with academy status, have expressed real interest in purchasing speech and language therapy support for their pupils and to develop skills and knowledge in their teaching staff.
Our M.L.D. special school is one such case. They offer high quality provision for pupils with Autistic Spectrum disorders, and are looking to invest in a project to develop functional communication skills in their year 9 and 10 pupils.
The project needs to be up and running by September, so we were obviously looking for a published programme which could be ‘tweaked’, if necessary, to fit the needs of the school. Many were looked at – most of them excellent – but I’m pleased to say that 'Independence Through Communication' (Prag 10) by Dr. Liz Dean and Alison Barnes exactly fitted the bill.
The modules have clear aims and expected outcomes, and the detailed lesson plans and resources will make it easy to carry out. It focuses on exactly what the school was looking for – asking for information, starting a conversation etc. and it is colourful, visual and fun. Ideal for the targeted age group in the school.
The pack received excellent reviews from Ruth McCartney in the Nasen Special Magazine in November 2011 ( see November 2011 News) so I will be extremely interested to see how it goes here! I’ll keep you posted.