The Fred Foundation

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Make Amazon pay!

You may be one of the people in isolation having to use Amazon to get things you need. It is annoying when you would rather support smaller companies. However, there is a way you can get Amazon to stump up some cash for your favourite charity. Amazon have come over all charitable and started something called Smile Amazon. Here is how it works.When you want to buy something via Amazon instead of going to their normal page amazon.co.uk –  go to https://smile.amazon.co.uk or use the ink belowChoose your charity – The Fred Foundation – just type in that name and you are set up.

You shop as normal but Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) of your eligible purchases, to the charity.You can choose to download a preference which will always open up Smile Amazon. This helps you to remember to use the correct page. It takes 2 minutes to set up and if you remember to shop this way we will get some money. We appreciate it is a tiny amount but if all our supporters do it we may get a significant amount, and we are such a small charity that any money is useful!It is about time Amazon gave something away so please do remember to switch.The Fred Foundation page on Smile Amazon

FROM AUTISM STORIES. ‘WE SEE YOU’.

In light of all that’s going on around the world right now, a message to all of the parents and caregivers out there who have autistic children (or children with other special needs)…I see you

To all of you worrying about what to do tomorrow with no school, knowing how unsettling this complete break from routine can be, with no idea of when it might change again. Who know that their child just isn’t going to understand, and that the next few weeks and months are going to be full of meltdowns – I see you

To all of you whose kids schools are open tomorrow, who are being judged by others trying to figure out why your child gets to go to school and their’s doesn’t. Who are agonising over whether to send them, scared of the possible health risks, but trying to balance it with the health risks of being at home for an extended period – I see you

To all of you desperately searching online and in the shops for the few particular foods that your child eats, or trying to find the right nappies for your teenager, and are panicking as the shelves are empty – I see you

To all of you trying to figure out how you’re going to get your child to wash their hands as often as you’re being advised to, but whose child’s sensory system makes it incredibly difficult – I see you

To all of you worrying about what happens if your child gets the Coronavirus, knowing they won’t understand, and refuse to take any medicine. Who are scared of what might happen if they have to take them to hospital, and maybe even getting forcibly separated – I see you

To all of you who are petrified of what might happen if you catch it, if you get ill, if you have to isolate or end up in hospital, or even worse, die. Desperately worrying about who will look after your children and how they would cope without you – I see you.

To all of you trying to figure out how you get through the next few months with no school, no respite, and being a carer 24/7. Worried about the impact this time might have on your your kid’s mental and physical health, and your own mental health – I see you.

Know that you’re not alone. There’s thousands of families just like yours all over the world having these exact same thoughts.

Realising that, reaching out and speaking to others living similar lives will make this scary period that little bit easier. You’re not alone.

You’re stronger than you know and we’ll get through this… I see you ❤️

Autism’s Quiet Heroes “Underestimate siblings at your peril because they grow up to be extraordinary adults and you want them on your side.”

By Melissa Collins-Porter

For this year’s autism awareness month, I’d like to honor and celebrate the siblings. They love their brothers or sisters fiercely, yet quietly endure being dragged to therapists’ offices and doctor appointments and get used to only Mom or Dad coming to their events because one has to stay with their sibling. They often are forced to concentrate on homework amidst what reasonable people would call total chaos. From a young age, they have an awareness that at some point, they will likely become caregivers to their sibling. They may feel guilt about the fullness of their own lives (friends, sports, activities, travel, independence, college) in contrast to that of their sibling. They may feel pressure to be “the quiet one,” “the good one,” “the easy one.” They have become used to cancelled plans, destroyed or lost personal items, and giving up their own preferences to appease their brother or sister. They tirelessly stand up for their siblings when people ask questions, stare, or use “autistic” as a pejorative at school. Underestimate them at your peril, because they grow up to be extraordinary adults and you want them on your side. This one right here is my hero.

The writer is a filmmaker who lives in Southern California.

How to donate without donating?

amazonsmile_logo._CB469832382_As with most charities we struggle for money but I have found an easy way for you donate without donating!Amazon have come over all charitable and started something called Smile Amazon. Here is how it works.When you want to buy something via Amazon instead of going to their normal page amazon.co.uk –  go to https://smile.amazon.co.uk or use the ink belowChoose your charity – The Fred Foundation – just type in that nameAnd you are set up.

You shop just as normal but Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) of your eligible purchases, to the charity.You can choose to download a preference which will always open up Smile Amazon.It takes 2 minutes to set up and if you remember to shop this way we will get some money. We appreciate it is a tiny amount but if all our supporters do it we may get a significant amount, and we are such a small charity that any money is useful!It is about time Amazon gave something away so please do remember to switch.The Fred Foundation page on Smile Amazon

How to donate without donating?

As with most charities we struggle for money but I have found an easy way for you donate without donating!

Amazon have come over all charitable and started something called Smile Amazon. Here is how it works.

When you want to buy something via Amazon instead of going to their normal page amazon.co.uk –  go to https://smile.amazon.co.uk or use the ink below

Choose your charity – The Fred Foundation – just type in that name

And you are set up.

You shop just as normal but Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) of your eligible purchases, to the charity.

You can choose to download a preference which will always open up Smile Amazon.

It takes 2 minutes to set up and if you remember to shop this way we will get some money. We appreciate it is a tiny amount but if all our supporters do it we may get a significant amount, and we are such a small charity that any money is useful!

It is about time Amazon gave something away so please do remember to switch.

The Fred Foundation page on Smile Amazon

THE STRUGGLE IN SEND HURTS US ALL. IT’S A SIGN OF SOCIETY GONE WRONG By Tania Tirraoro.

Yesterday I was interviewed by BBC TV news about the Ofsted Annual report. It’s not an unusual occurrence, being contacted by various news organisations to talk about the crisis in SEND. It’s just depressing after more than a decade – and four since the “reforms” – I’m still having to say the same thing.

Almost every report that comes out of charities, researchers, Ofsted and the DfE’s own commissioned research  – many of which we have covered on SNJ — reports the same picture: Not enough money, not enough SEND in teachers’ training, too many children being excluded, too many poor outcomes for disabled children, rising numbers heading to Tribunal, not enough mental health support in schools, too high criteria for access to CAMHS, insufficient support in mainstream, too, too many children in crisis.

It physically hurts to keep writing about it. And I know, from having been there, how much it hurts families going through it. I want to give up and run away and do something that actually pays, now my boys are older (My eldest was 21 earlier this week, my youngest is 19). But those families still deep in the hell that is the SEND process, and those about to plunge, cannot walk away; indeed, they know they MUST not walk away despite the stress, the hurt and the fury that the system invokes.

Behind the Ofsted report headlines

The headlines of the report were covered in the press yesterday, who can jump on it early but whose reporters miss the depth of context, so I’m adding further quotes from the report here.

The BBC producer I spoke to yesterday for example didn’t know about the SEND inquiry. This is why, although it’s heartening that I’m constantly asked for help by journalists covering the SEND story du jour, the fleeting nature of the news cycle means it’s forgotten the next day.

“Something is deeply wrong when parents repeatedly tell inspectors that they have to fight to get the help and support that their child needs. And I’m not talking about middle class parents wanting extra time in exams for their child. I mean adequate support for our most vulnerable children with SEND, which is a basic expectation of a decent, developed society. We need to do better.

Amanda Spielman, Ofsted Chief Inspector

The Ofsted report was damning in the extreme about SEND provision – all it had to do was look at the results of its own (and CQC’s) SEND area inspections, where almost half of those local areas so far inspected have failed to meet expectations. And we’re still not even halfway through the first round.

“In the second year of our local area SEND inspections, we have seen a continuing lack of coordinated 0–25 strategies and poor post-19 provision. We have seen a continuing trend of rising exclusions among children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Mental health needs are not being supported sufficiently. The quality of education, health and care (EHC) plans is far too variable. Critically, the gap in performance and outcomes for children with SEND is widening between the best and the worst local areas.”

Ofsted Annual Report 2018

“We are still seeing too many local areas providing a sub-standard service when it comes to SEND provision. At the end of our second year of LA SEND inspections, we have inspected 68 local areas. Thirty of these have been required to provide a written statement of action.”

Ofsted Annual Report 2018

And, I might add, that any number of those areas who “passed” their SEND inspection should not have, according to local parents.

That translates to tens of thousands of disabled children being failed by their school, health service, social care and local authorities. And, as I said, that’s just from the areas that have been inspected so far. It’s sickening. Because these are not inanimate institutions, they are run by tax-payer-funded human beings who are systematically failing in their legal duties, and their jobs, to support vulnerable children.

It means children aren’t being assessed when they should be and when they do get an EHCP, it often isn’t legally compliant:

“… the quality of these (EHC) plans is far too variable within some local areas and across the country, and contributions from care services to EHC plans are weak. The areas that have successfully implemented the government’s reforms are jointly commissioning services that support parents and lead to good outcomes for young people….

…But many EHC plans have not been successfully implemented. As a result, the gap in outcomes for children with SEND continues to widen. Identification of SEND is weak and those who do not quite meet the threshold for an EHC plan have poor outcomes. Understandably, this leads to many parents feeling that to do the best for their children, they need to go to extreme lengths to secure an EHC plan, which of course not every child will need.”

Ofsted Annual Report 2018

Or at least they wouldn’t have needed and EHCP  if they’d had early enough intervention. LAs know early intervention works—and yet so many deny assessments at an early stage and have closed, or are planning to close, local Children’s Centres. They expect parents, often without cars, to be able to travel across or between towns via expensive or non-existent public transport – with children in tow – to get to their next nearest. Ain’t gonna happen.

“We are still seeing too many local areas providing a sub-standard service when it comes to SEND provision…Frontline workers are clearly dedicated and professional, but improvement in many local areas is often slow and inconsistent. In particular, in the areas we visited, we are seeing:

– a continuing trend of rising exclusions among children and young people who have SEND

– mental health needs not being supported

– children and young people who have autism waiting up to 2 years to be diagnosed; some were not being educated at all during this time

– a continuing lack of coordinated 0–25 strategies and poor post-19 provision”

Ofsted Annual Report 2018

Is funding to blame?

Yes, partly, but it’s far from the only reason. Lack of funding is integral, especially fully-resourcing the 16-25 year olds who were promised much, only to discover the Children and Families Act has played out like the proverbial Mercedes in the driveway but no food in the fridge. If that’s too obscure, it means it’s all show and no substance.

But it’s lack of culture change that is just as important. The very thing we have said from the beginning that was crucial to success. I haven’t heard much in the SEND inquiry about this specifically (though see more, further down).

Fine words about improving outcomes for children with SEND, as echoed in LAs up and down the land, have not, and are not, translating into changes in belief. It’s like their lips are moving but their heart’s not in it because somewhere, deep down, they think it’s either the fault of feckless or faulty parenting or, conversely, middle-class, sharp-elbowed parents “gaming the system”. I thought this attitude had disappeared, but I was asked this very question on LBC Radio just the other week. Yes, I gave him an ear-bashing, but the “hostile environment” brought by austerity and compounded by Brexit, has ramped up attitudes against anyone who needs to ask the state for some kind of help, against people with disabilities and against those from racial minorities.

Off-rolling, schools’ dirty little secret, uncovered (again)

Ofsted describs off-rolling as “the practice of removing a pupil from the school roll without a formal, permanent exclusion, or by encouraging a parent to remove their child from the school roll, when the removal is primarily in the interests of the school rather than in the best interests of the pupil. Off-rolling in these circumstances is a form of ‘gaming’’. 

This is not the same as a formal, legally conducted exclusion and Ofsted has identified around 300 schools with ‘exceptional levels’ of pupils coming off school rolls and not reappearing elsewhere, between Years 10 and 11. Ofsted acknowledges it’s the most vulnerable children who are more likely to be excluded or off-rolled. Its new education inspection framework (EIF) is aimed at changing this, by focusing more on inclusion as a mark of a good school, and less on league tables. Will it make a difference? Let’s keep watching.

Parents speak to the SEND Inquiry

At the same time as the Ofsted Annual Report was making news, six parents of disabled children were taking part in the SEND Inquiry hearings before the Education Select Committee in Westminster, three of whom represented parent carer forums.

The parents’ stories in the first half were bad and difficult to hear but not unique, far from it. They are stories we’ve heard repeatedly If you want to watch it all, you can do so here.

Earlier this week, the Inquiry published 600 submissions to the Inquiry and said it will still accept further submissions until the publication of the report.

To be honest, I’m not sure what else can be said that they have not already heard, unless it is more about how the lack of culture change has heavily impacted on these reforms. As we said at the start, there is little point in changing the structure of a system if those administering it are going to simply overwhelm it by doing the same things they’ve always done because ‘that’s the way they do it”

Taking up this theme was the stand-out speaker, for me, Penny Hoffman-Becking. Penny is from Kingston and Richmond where her PCF, SEND Family Voices, recently closedbecause the local authority was refusing to work with them, leaving them to conclude that co-production in that environment and culture just wasn’t possible.

I’ve isolated a few minutes of Penny speaking because what she says sums up the experience of many parents who have worked their guts out in PCFs, only to end up disillusioned and exhausted. I urge you to watch and tell us if that’s also your experience too.https://www.youtube.com/embed/nmp5vLbM-pU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The other issue is Brexit, yet again. If parliament is dissolved because of a snap election, the SEND Inquiry goes bye bye. And that really will be a tragedy.Advertisements

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