BY KAREN COWAN
I will always remember the first ‘Professionals’ Meeting’ that I attended many years ago, in my capacity as Class Teacher. Throughout the meeting, I remember being concerned at how the student’s mother was referred to, both before and during the meeting, as ‘Mum’.
Now, in my role as a ‘professional’ almost 30 years later, and despite guidance and laws which uphold the importance of the parental voice, it baffles me at how common the practice of referring to parents as ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ in meetings continues to be. This has a subtle, yet powerful, effect in undermining the value of parental knowledge: the depth of understanding and insight into their child’s needs.
By law, parents of children who have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are legally entitled to have ‘a real say in decisions that affect their children’, and whilst professionals are able to offer invaluable skill sets, so too are parents. This is especially critical when a child has additional needs and requirements.
Image By Ria Mishaal
Amongst many other insights and skills, a child’s parents, carers, and sometimes family members too, are those most likely to:
- Provide a holistic picture of their child, indicating key features and traits essential to the identification of need.
- Identify their child’s strengths, interests, views, and wishes – not all of which will be able to be demonstrated within a formal learning context.
- Be able to identify their child’s responses to environmental factors which may be masked when outside the home.
- Be able to observe and report on the impact to their child’s mental health which may be more easily observed within the home context, where their child is likely to feel most comfortable to express themselves.
- Be able to notice and report patterns of behaviour or response, informing how school-based provision can be adapted and fine-tuned to meet need in a highly effective and timely manner.
- Be able to identify the child’s patterns of response, struggles, views, wishes and feelings which a child may often mask in the context of the school environment.
- Provide continuity and opportunities for consolidation, should the professional recommend ‘exercises for home’, or similar.
- Support the relationship between the professional and child, with the knock-on effect of fostering a therapeutic alliance between parties.
Parents are an integral part of the SEND Team around which the child is supported, and professionals need to proactively invite parental contributions by sharing information and enabling inclusion.
Collaborative appreciation and respect for shared knowledge and understanding will facilitate exactly the objectives set in law (the principles of the SEND code of practice – 0-25 years*, 2015) and are in the best interests of the child: to facilitate the provision of ‘support to children, their parents and young people so that children and young people do well educationally and can prepare properly for adulthood.’
Building a truly collaborative rapport and relationship with a child’s parents is absolutely key to the effectiveness with which the need for support is identified, effective decisions made and provision accessed. This starts with explicitly recognising and valuing parental expertise within the team context, and includes calling parents by their names.
*DFE-00205-2013. (2013). Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years. Available: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398815/SEND_Code_of_Practice_January_2015.pdf. Last accessed 2nd May 2021.
By Karen Cowan, Assessor of Specific Learning Difficulties and SEND Advisor
Image Credit: Artwork by Ria Mishaal
