Help help help help - my pants are on fire - blardy racist feckers.....

[StarlightMcKenzie]

www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/278458/0083689.pdf

Last sentence at bottom of page 163.

I'm so tbh I don't know what to say/do!?

[Bluebirdonmyshoulder]

Words fail me.....

[TheNebulousBoojum]

Umm, explain a bit further please.
I've worked with a lot of families from the Indian sub-continent, and many of them are unsure that the needs of their children will be taken seriously, that it won't be written off as a language issue and that their child won't be marginalised. Partly it may be their own experiences of education in their home country, partly a lack of confidence and awareness of how the system is supposed to work in this country.
On training days, we are still being reminded not to put EAL children in with SEN as a matter of course, the same advice I was given thirty years ago. So it is still happening, and vice versa, that SN are possibly being overlooked because of a child's ethnicity.
I don't think the report was saying that it was a fact, but that may be how parents from some backgrounds may perceive it.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

I really have to explain it?

[TheNebulousBoojum]

'Identification rates of the child?s disability before school age are much lower in communities originating from the Indian subcontinent living in the UK. It has been proposed that professionals may also contribute to this lowered identification rate. They may recognise the difficulty and simply attribute it to poor language skills, differences in parenting styles or some other factor rather than diagnose it
as a disability (Reading, 1999).

Some families from ethnic minorities feel that their beliefs and needs will either be ignored or misunderstood and ridiculed by the white service provider (Shah, 1995).'

Racism or lack of knowledge about the cultures they are dealing with? Are you saying that the last sentence is racist? That the parents are wrong? Or that they are correct and their beliefs and needs will be ignored by racist professionals? Or that, as I believe, there is a need for education and collaboration on both sides in order to meet the needs of the child appropriately?

[TheNebulousBoojum]

If I've misunderstood, then educate me.

[babiki]

I don't get it either.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Are all service-providers always white? Is that the natural order of things so much so they can write it as fact in a government document?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

If they wanted to speak of conflicts between ethic groups or even between majority an minority groups they could have done so without the racism.

[TheNebulousBoojum]

But does it say that?
I've worked on my own and with interpreters and in professional settings and at the parental home. Many parents are suspicious of white service providers, especially if they are first generation immigrants and unfamiliar with the system.

[MareeyaDolores]

Star, I blame the research. The entire section on ethnicity is derived from just one widely quoted but ancient reference, from 1995 (well, actually 1992, but revised 3y later).

I wonder about the evidence base of the rest... no actually, I don't wonder Wasn't there a mother who challenged the ABA section, and the entire treatments bit had to be rewritten cos it was so badly researched?

[MareeyaDolores]

not perfect but more modern contrast

[MareeyaDolores]

Oh, and white parents think they'll be listened to

[AgentProvocateur]

I don't read it as the service provider always being white. I think the point is that some families from an ethnic minority background don't feel that white service providers take their problems seriously - (the implication being that service providers of another ethnicity would). To me, that's why they're defining it as white service providers.

[ouryve]

Are all service-providers always white?

Absolutely not. DS2's lovely paediatrician is black and DS1's psych is Asian. We don't even live in a distinctly multicultural part of the world.

I take the last sentence as reportage of how parents perceive the services they receive, whether their perception is accurate and fair or not. I suppose the nearest thing we would commonly experience, as white mothers, is being instantly written off as neurotic by a professional. Or instantly being talked down to because of where we live, rather than being listened to, because it's assumed that we have no education or knowledge.

[TheNebulousBoojum]

That's a very interesting read, Mareeya.
Thank you for the link.

[babiki]

I think it's the perception of providers as being white. Statistically in UK, majority of them are white anyway, aren't they?

[tabulahrasa]

I think it means perception as well, but also - it's Scottish...so um, their perception of white service providers isn't that out tbh.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

But you would mention them as the majority ethnic group, not the white group of professionals.

[tabulahrasa]

I think it reads quite clearly as - that's what parents perceptions are... Yes it could be reworded, but I don't think it is actually acknowledging anything about the ethnic mix of service providers, just the fears of parents.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

But there are so many ways to write that without being perceived themselves as racist. I worry that there wasn't an alternative way of writing it, if that was true. I'ts written as if services providers are white, and some ethnic minorities might have a problem with it, which I find racest.

Having looked at it a bit more I'm interested in the point Mareeya makes regarding the fact that white parents at least on MN boards have a number of issues with service providers who are white and not white. I am especially interested in the implication that those countries who don't have a word for autism are somehow 'behind'. In fact, many of the ethnic minorities in the UK are from cultures where they just get stuck in with helping the child and see no particular need for labels. IMO far advanced of our crazy labelling system in the UK which is often all you get.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Some of the eastern European countries are better for children with disabilities (though not sure about adults) because they just don't have the money to train up so many caring carrots. They can only afford people who DO something, and do it quick before the children become a burden as an adult.

[bochead]

My son's Romanian 1/2 bro got a vastly superior start in life thanks to a system that can only afford to implement proper clinically evidenced teaching techniques & proven effective therapies, as opposed to the latest politicians fad. No stuck in a corner or corridor with a poorly trained TA there. Instead he had intensive ABA style tuition from age 2 - 7 with the outcome you'd expect from that level of timely, effective intervention. If he'd been of Roma origin that wouldn't have been the case though as those children are regarded as little more than dogs by their system.

In Hungary it takes 7 years to train as a teacher for children with disabilities, & then they specialise in just 2 disorders, as opposed to a 1 yr TA course here. In Nigeria there is now an ABA school and generally society has a far better attitude in terms of focusing on what a child can do, rather than spending time getting parents to "accept" their child's limitations. The goal in both places is to prepare a child to the best of everyone's ability for an independent adult life rather than assuming the welfare state will support them from cradle to grave.

I'll never be able to prove it, but anecdotal evidence in my area suggests that the children of white, middle class married mothers living in the "nicer" parts of the borough get far better treatment from the early years onwards. Those unfortunate enough to be born in the wrong postcode to a single mother of the wrong ethnic minority are more likely to have to fight for assessment, spend years "proving" their parenting skills and have to go to Tribunal to stand a chance of getting the services offered as a matter of course to the children of the first group.

All support services are physically located in the areas most easily accessible to the first group too. The effectiveness of those services is a subject for another debate.