We are part of the Vulnerable Learners Service within North Somerset and consist of:
- David Jenkins, Educational Psychologist and team coordinator.
- Kate Campbell, Higher Level Teaching Assistant, mostly working with primary pupils.
- Lizzie Barwick, Higher Level Teaching Assistant, most working with secondary pupils.
We are lucky to be able to draw on the expertise of other people in the Education Inclusion Service and sometimes they can take on the enhanced provision work rather than having a new person start.
The enhanced provision offers direct work supporting children and young people in school, alongside the staff already involved, so that they develop their knowledge and expertise and the child has extra input. We usually work in school for a morning or afternoon, and if needed we can offer more than a session each week.
Criteria for working with children is:
- The child must have clear social communication needs, recognised by school staff (but they don't need to have a diagnosis of autism)
- Either the school placement might break down or there is a significant change for the child. The change could be lots of things, from a change of school or adults in school to a change at home such as a house move that affects the child in school
The support we offer is set up through a meeting with parents and school staff, where we all get to meet each other and to pan the things we think it will be most helpful to work on. We also agree a time to come back and see how things are going in about 6 weeks. We write a 'Service Level Agreement' so everyone is clear what we have agreed.
Alongside the support we offer in schools the Enhance Provision team are involved with lots of other activities such as running training on autism and facilitating parents' support groups.