out reach team?

[jollypig]

where do i find the contact info for my local autism out reach team ? i seem to be going around in circles and getting nowhere fast .

[justine1]

I am not 100% sure as my sons school contacted them for us,but I think if you ring your local council they may point you in the right direction.

[Kazzen161]

It may be that they will only deal with schools. I found out who at the LA was in charge of deciding which children could access autism outreach and contacted him direct, but I only found out by accident. Round here AO are staff from a particular school, but I don't know that you can contact them direct.

[Kazzen161]

I was presuming you mean AO that goes into schools to give advice? You could try asking Parent Partnership at your local LA.

[Sally44]

In our area the autism outreach teacher can be contacted via the local authority. She does not need a formal diagnosis before she goes in. They also hold monthly meetings at a house for parents to meet them all and see what equipment they have available. But they only go into mainstream schools.

I also found out that several special schools have an 'autism outreach' teacher. One of them did go into my son's former school and give them a talk about ASDs.

Another woman went in twice (again from autism outreach team) who specialised in social communication.

 

However the school said that they simply could not convert 4 visits into any long term meaningful approach because it was all such general advice and not specific to my son. The Autism outreach teacher can only spare about 1 day per year per child. The Social Communication advisor had no advice for school whatsoever and when pressed for advice said "if only I knew".

 

I think it is a process you have to go through and it will have varying degrees of success depending on the professional, the school and the child. But I would try to tie them down to tell you exactly how much input they can give your child and school in hours per term. If that just is not going to do it, then I wouldn't turn it down, but start to work towards seeking an assessment towards a Statement and getting your evidence for that. And obviously it also depends on how the school act on the information/advice given to them.

[purplehaze]

Hi, try talking to the school or phone your local children and young peoples services they should be able to help you. Some teams need a referal from social services but in my area parents can now refer but this makes the waiting list much longer!!!

 

[jollypig]

thanks for all your help , i will contact the la on monday im hoping to get some one to go into school as they wont give her any support without a diagnosis and she is struggling.

[Sally44]

At the top of the Education Forum page you can download the Code of Practice. This really is an essential document because it explains about school action, school action plus etc and what should happen at each stage and what difficulties are relevent eg. academic or social or emotional or behavioural etc.

 

What stage of the SEN process is she at now? And are you in the process of getting a diagnosis?

What exactly are her difficulties now?

 

You can also speak with the speech therapy and educational psychology departments. They have to be invited by school to go in and see the child. But if you had spoken to them and said you wanted them to see your child, then they would raise it with school. But schools do have very tight budgets for EP time. It is something like 4-5 hours per term for the whole school. But don't be put off if you are told by school that there are children with much greater needs than your child. If you believe she has a SEN then you are acting correctly.

 

The school will be responsible for meeting her needs. And each school is funded to meet the needs of children with SEN. Have you itemised her difficulties and had a meeting with school about them? Do they agree that she has any needs at all? If so how are they supporting her?

 

You could meet with the school, itemise your concerns and ask that she is put onto School Action Plus. At this stage outside professionals are automatically invited by school to come and observe and assess your child. At SA+ stage the school should also put together IEPs (individual education plans). The targets on them do not have to be just academic. She can have social, emotional or behavioural issues. And those targets must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevent and time specific). So, for example, if a target is for xxx to learn how to take turns the IEP target might read xxx target is to begin to develop the skill of turn taking. Every day she will work with a TA at turn taking games for around 10 minutes. The TA will model turn taking with her. And during the school day the TA will point out to her other examples of children taking turns. (IEPS should ideally be reviewed termly. And if she met this target the next step might be to introduce another child into the turn taking game. Then the next step might be to involve turn taking in the classroom and outside in the playground. When that target is achieved and she is demonstrating in all environments that she can demonstrate this skill, then you move onto the next target. However if she does not achieve it it should be discussed as to why it wasn't met, the target should be changed, professional advice should be sought. If she is completely incapable at this stage of acquiring this skill, then something else should be worked on and this target come back to at a later stage. IEP targets should NEVER remain the same term after term).

 

Your local authority has a parent partnership and they support parents with children in school, especially those with SEN. They can come to all meetings with you. They do work for the local authority, and peoples experience of them is mixed. But they are definately worth trying.

 

After that has happened and if they have identified needs, you can then write in to the school and ask them how much of their delegated funding they are using for your child and how are they using it.

 

And you want to start putting things in writing and getting written replies because you never know when you might need all this written paperwork.

 

 

 

 

[trekster]

Contact your local "autism resource centre" http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp...amp;Submit=+Go+

 

or

 

your local NAS branch or regional team http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1296

Edited April 10, 2010 by trekster