Risk assessment for a SEN child.......help please

[dreamgirl]

We have an autistic boy in early years who is becoming more aggressive and has caused injury to a member of staff and a child....mild to child, quite bad bite to staff. Obviously we are dealing with this in consultation with various agencies and an IEEP is in place. However someone has suggested we need a risk assessment because of this child's behaviour. What do you think? Title seems impersonal. Should I just pull our strategies together in a document called something like BehaviuorManagement Procedure for xxxxxxxxxx. Think the suggestion has been made to protect the school if another incident occurs. Any thoughts anyone?

[Guest]

If it was a child in my care then a risk assessment would be entirely reasonable but I would also have a behaviour care plan as well. The child is a risk and as such does need assessing as to his possible impact on the provisions other users. A care plan would show everyone how you are planning on managing the risk and will aid staff in how to deal with him as well as showing that you are taking his impact on everyone seriously

[dreamgirl]

Very wise words. Thank you for replying. I don't suppose you've got an example I could look at?

[Guest]

I use a standard proforma for risk assessment so I would use the same one as I would for say, an asthmatic child. The behaviour care plan need only be a bullet pointed list of the procedures which would be put in place to deal with the child and these would come from recommendations from other professionals working with the child, known strategies that you have tried and those compiled from discussions with staff about how they would like the behaviour dealt with.

[dreamgirl]

Thank you. feeling a bit out of my depth.

[Guest]

No need to be, just take one step at a time, sounds like you are getting support from other professionals?? use them! do you have a SENCO support officer that you can talk to help with the care plan. Are you able to access any other funding to help support this child with maybe some one-to-one work. Think about what you are already doing with him that seems to work, are there trigger times that you could plan for extra support? It is usually easier to change the triggers than the behaviour, so for example, if packing away time is stressful, then maybe a visual timer to indicate when this time is about to happen could help alleviate stressful times and this would then be written down as part of the care plan.

 

[dreamgirl]

Just wondering what paperwork has to be in pace in school setting to make sure all safeguarded. If he bites a child, and we know this is a possibility, how do we make sure paperwork is robust enough to stand up to scrutiny?