Paying for Inclusion Support

[hopeytg]

I am interested to see how many other settings have to pay for Inclusion Support? I am based in Worcestershire and we have to pay £180 for an Inclusion Adviser to visit the setting if we have concerns about a child. That £180 'buys' 3 hours of the advisers time, this would be a visit to the setting and then time for any paperwork. We used to be able to ring the Inclusion Team, share our concerns and an adviser would visit and offer advice and support - we have all had that 'gut' feeling about a child and we really benefited from the experts confirming our concerns and supporting us with strategies, referrals etc.  As with the majority of settings we are very tight for money and I feel we are letting children down as we simply cannot afford to pay this sort of money and I am interested to see if it is nationwide and if not if I have a case to fight these charges?

[Mouseketeer]

 £60 an hour, that is scandalous! What the b%@#y hell are these counties doing with the money they skim off of our funding if they are making charges like that for their support now........that would pay for nearly 22hrs 1:1 for a Sen child at NLW 

I’m going to look into what ours would cost now

[finleysmaid]

We don't get much support i'm afraid. We do have a help line that we can ring (very limited help!) . We do all the referrals and send these through our MASH team. We now have a part time area SENCO . We are charged for all training and network meetings . No other funding routes available until the 'professionals' have seen them.

Personally I would suggest that you use local support if you can find any. So ASD charities /support groups or other organisations that are set up as charities. You would need to do this with parents permission of course.

Have you looked at your local areas SEND support information? Are they operating according to their own guidelines/funding arrangements??

Maybe send this information to 'Special needs jungle' they may also be able to tell you if this is common/legal etc

[Cait]

Yes.  Check your County's local offer.  This is appalling!  Children will just have to be allowed to slip through the net until they start mandatory education if this is allowed to happen!  

[Tim]

On one hand we are told of the importance that government and our local authorities place on inclusion, and the expectations on us are considerable, whilst on the other hand you are being charged for support in getting it right. This does seem contradictory.

I guess the premise is that we have inclusion training and SENCOs, enabling us to assess inclusion needs, formulate and implement support plans and decide on the need for referral. If referral is not required, should we have the skills and training to support children's inclusion needs? And if referral is required, the appropriate agencies are there to support. This is not an attempt to defend the LA's position - I'm just trying to think through their possible reasoning. I'm sure their budgets are being squeezed, and they have hard decisions to make, just like the rest of us.

But I agree that children will slip through the net.

In East Sussex, we have the ISEND Early Years Support Service, who say, "Support includes assessment, advice to the parents or carers, support in the home and support to the nursery, pre-school or childminder.  Parents who want their child to receive support should contact their nursery, pre-school, health visitor or childminder, there may be a charge to nurseries, pre-schools or childminders for training. There is no charge to families."