Parent Partnership Services (PPS

Parent Partnership Services (PPS) are statutory services offering information advice and support to parents and carers of children and young people with special educational needs (SEN). PPS are also able to put parents in touch with other local and national organisations.

PPS have a role in making sure that parents’ views are heard and understood and that these views inform local policy and practice.

PPS are based with a voluntary organisation, with the Local Authority (LA) or Children’s Trust.

All Parent Partnership Services, wherever they are based, are at ‘arm’s length’ from the LA and the services they provide are confidential and impartial.

The services offered by individual PPS will vary but all will be able to provide information and advice about:

How special educational needs are identified and assessed by schools and the local authority

Who parents can talk to in a school or LA about their concerns

The SEN Code of Practice, the statutory assessment process and statements

Parents/carers rights and responsibilities

Meetings and reviews about a child’s needs

How progress is monitored and reviewed

What parents can do if they are not happy with a decision made about their child’s SEN

Each PPS develops its own local aims based on national guidelines.

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When school is too scary

As a teacher, Charlotte Morbey had always been sceptical about school phobia until her son threatened to jump from the window sill.

She thought she knew about school phobia. In common with colleagues, she used the terms "school phobia" and "school refusal" interchangeably. She was sympathetic but sceptical. She felt it was probably exaggerated and pandered to by parents who colluded with difficult children for a quiet life.

Then Charlotte's son developed school phobia. It started with headaches and stomach pains every day. Her first thought was that he was making them up, but they seemed genuine. They talked about school - was he being bullied; was the work too hard; did he have friends? Everything was fine, he said. He just felt ill.

You can read this story here>>>

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Support our Forum

Our Forum has just exceeded the capacity allowed for the current free service. To continue to provide the service, I have had to go 'Pro'.

Sadly, I am not in a position to provide for all the costs associated with running the School Refuser website, and must ask for assistance with covering the running costs.

If you are in a position to provide a small donation to defray the costs, please use the donation widget below. You can make donations in any currency. The system will transfer the money to me.




Thank you! This will have the added advantage of removing the ads from the Forum, which has got to be a good thing.

School refusers/phobia conference

In the Forum, a suggestion has been made that a conference should be held to discuss school refusal.

A first step would be to clarify aims and objectives from the conference. But there are a number of other questions that need to be answered:

• Who would come to the conference
• What would the agenda be?
• Do we want to educate schools and health professionals or
• Do we want to help the parents?
• Would parents be interested?
• Would we even get health professionals interested?
• Would it be an opportunity to get press awareness?
• Would a conference be of interest?
• and then of course, we have to look at the cost...How much would people be willing to pay?
• Where should it be held? (London has been suggested)
• Who would organise the event?
• Where do we get the funding?
• When? (September 2011 has been suggested)

What does everyone think? Your thoughts would be really appreciated...

There are two parents here who are definitely interested and maybe their daughter.

The Children's Legal Centre

One of the problems we face as parents of a school refuser is getting the right help and support. Things become more difficult when we begin to face legal threats.

The Children's Legal Centre is a unique, independent national charity concerned with law and policy affecting children and young people.

Their aims and objectives are:

• To promote and uphold children's rights within the context of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights in the UK and internationally.
• To monitor and develop law, policy and practice concerning children and young people, to inform and influence policy makers and the general public.
• To improve access to justice through legal advice, information and representation for children, young people and adults working on their behalf.
• To publish a range of legal guides and information on child law, policy and practice.
• To carry out research in the field of child law to assist policy reform and the application of law relating to children.
• To provide technical expertise and training programmes to states, Inter-Governmental Organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations and United Nations agencies.

I have no experience of this organisation, but they might be worth a try. I would welcome any feedback.

http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com

Access to Education for children and young people with Medical needs

On 1 November 2001, the Government issued statutory guidance on access to education for children and young people in England and Wales with medical needs. It set out minimum national standards of education for children who are unable to attend school because of medical needs.

The education of pupils with medical needs is a partnership and it is essential that education, health and other agencies work closely together to provide the support to enable a pupil with medical needs to receive appropriate education. This includes Local Authorities and schools and related bodies.

Full details can be found on the Department of Education website.

Forum problems

We are having problems with some of the threads on the Forum, for which we apologise.

We are attempting to resolve the issues.