When children with SEND, who have violent outbursts, become adults

[wobblychristmastree]

Saw an article online about teachers being injured by children/young people with SEND in schools. My own child is in a (mainstream) class with a pupil who has violent outbursts, is supported by a 1:1 but my child has been injured, as have others. Clearly it’s a failure of the school, although I understand it is difficult to keep 1:1s for them due to have difficult the work is. But it got me thinking, this can’t go on indefinitely. Is the hope that they develop the skills to cope as adults? What becomes of the these when they become adults?

Sadly this does not surprise me

This is why we didn't want specialist for our DS. The higher academic SS wouldn't take him as he had the wrong kind of disability and mainstream couldn't cope with him (because they wouldn't listen to us).

He's now in a school that has taught the same maths every year for 4 years, but we are appealing to get him into a new school.

But, more on topic, what might happen its that the DCs' parents might learn what is causing aggression (in our DS case one or all of anxiety or learning it got what he wanted or he liked the chaos that ensued) and stopped or prevented most of them (not by removing everything that causes anxiety but by getting him more used to most of them).

children with autism have all the different levels of intelligence that the general population do.

so some autistic people are very intelligent. Most are in the middle and some are really not very intelligent.

if you have an autistic child who is intelligent then schooling is a very difficult choice. If they go to special school they will learn emotional regulation and they will have access to various therapists - occupational therapy, speech and language, etc. but most special schools do not teach the national curriculum and it’s unusual for more than a few GCSEs to be offered (and some special schools don’t offer any GCSEs).

if they go into mainstream they will be taught how to read and will access the full curriculum BUT there is very little support and the social and emotional side will not be taught in school.

it’s not the easiest choice.

you are now getting more schools opening up that are specifically for autistic kids and try to offer academic challenge AND the social and emotional side but they are few and far between and usually cost tens if not hundreds of thousands.

That’s extremely unusual, it’s generally the other way around where parents are desperate for a specialist setting and keep getting declined, often you have to really fight for it even when mainstream is extremely unsuitable, and it can take years.

That is heartbreaking them poor women 😢

If your child is intelligent and the only specialist school offered is for children way below their level of academic potential then I can totally see why you'd refuse.

The age of criminal responsibility in the U.K. is 10.

https://www.gov.uk/age-of-criminal-responsibility

see eg Mary Bell,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell

or Robert Thompson and Jon Venables (the Bulger killing).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger

So-called ‘Care in the Community’ seems to have been a disaster.

This. I know many professionals in "the business" when "care in the community" and "inclusion" was all the rage and the "in thing" who all said "this is going to be a disaster".

Whilst it is not fashionable or politically correct to advocate for a persons segregation or to argue someone needs to be placed into care. Specialist settings are many times the best place for some people with SEN. They need the slower pace, the experienced staff, the quieter and less busy environments, the space in the curriculum to practice "life skills", recognising and managing triggers and also space to breathe and regulate. They need the facilities that specialist provisions have on site to help regulate them (sensory rooms, heavy work equipment, soft crash mats and crash walls, spinning equipment, slings and swings, trampolines and rebounders, dark rooms, sound absorbing rooms to mention a few). Putting a young person in a mainstream secondary school with upwards of 1000 others, with cramped corridors, busy stairwells, the social minefield, constant room changes, timetables, the 50 minute lunchtime crush, 5 minute "movement time between lessons", with a warm body serving as a 1:1 or "and SEN unit" is not enough. But it is so much cheaper.

Thank you for saying this, likely. I know it’s not the done thing to talk about it this way just now, but maybe some form of supported education/hospital/living environment will be brought in one day if that would be found to help.

Many parents and their severely disabled children, along with our schools, are paying a heavy price for the policies of the early 90s, aimed at cost cutting and responsibility shirking.

The majority of SEN parents with very complex and/or high needs children want specialist. Many fight incredibly, incredibly hard to secure it, too, which is why these proposed reforms are so terrifying a prospect (they strip away most rights to appeal for preferred schools, and almost all individualised support).

A lot of kids who are aggressive in mainstream are only so because the environment there is pretty much unbearable for them. They need smaller, calmer, quieter settings with expert staff, and where they are taught in a way that is accessible to their needs and profile. Forcing mainstream is desperately harmful to a lot of kids - SEN and non-SEN alike. Everyone is failed - I suppose that's equality of a kind.

Mines one of those answers and yes you're right, Im more thinking of my client group who are just on the cusp of adulthood, so are still violent and will be once they turn 18 which is like 'now' so are likely on an unfortunate trajectory

And as Ive said in othr posts my view is that early intervention in specialist settings is necessary a lot of the time and could support that better.

Yes this is incredibly common, so the idea of a 'specialist setting' and the availability is limited already, its even more limited because there are sort of set categories

You have SS for more LD/severe ASD type needs, then you have SS for more academic/ASD/SEMH needs but they cant work with or dont want to work with extreme dysregulation or manage that

So someone that falls in the middle, and a lot of children do, theres no where for them except to muddle through with mainstream which means they dont thrive, their peers dont thrive and the teachers dont thrive. A mess all round.

i guess we need to discuss the situations on an individual level vs SEN and non SEN.
all i now is that my grandson with adhd is prone to hitting at home but each year as he matures and learns better coping skills he expresses his frustrations in more appropriate ways. equally we as adults need to be alert to signs of being "hangry" and always plan ahead on that front.
i sincerely doubt he will be violent in the future.

Does anyone remember the removal of Remploy as well?

The average prison is chock a block with people with ADHD though

Independent mainstreams can work really well, with extra support, for SEND "in-between" kids (huge sensory needs and often vulnerability, but needing access to a standard curriculum). Sadly I am told that many such schools are getting more reluctant to take EHCP and SEND in general, because they worry other parents will start to ask what the value add of independent is, when VAT is making it so much more costly as an option.

Most SEND kids who are too academically able to be suitable for specialist, but too high needs for mainstream state, are turning to EOTIS, I think. There is literally nowhere for them. And again, the reforms are going to make things for them (ironically, the cohort most able to hold down jobs and contribute as adults, IF not broken in adolescence first) really unendurable.

85% of male prisoners have SEN.

Which makes sense when you consider the it’s only been very recently that SEN has become more accepted in society.

There is also strong correlation between getting expelled from school and ending up in prison.
And you are vastly more likely to end up being excluded from school if you SEN.

And LAs are opposed to EOTIS. Partly because of they perceive it as losing control. Partly the cost of proper provision. Most have to appeal for a proper package - even then some SENDIST panels are more open minded than others.

A subsection of the general population object to EOTIS too. Some because of the high cost associated with a proper package. Some because they wrongly see it as parents ‘demanding’ the ‘best’ bespoke education and about ‘wants’, not ‘needs’. Some think parents pursuing EOTIS see it as the easy option. It isn’t.

If they declined an offer I’m surprised the mainstream school has said they can’t support him further

If the state MS is named in section I of an EHCP, they can’t just they can’t support him further.

Most of them learn to cope as they get older. Some don't and end up in residential care/supported living or even mental health hospitals with high levels if support usually including sedative medication and support plans involving restraint.
Some learn to cope to an extent where they can live independently but end up in situations where they become violent and end up in prison.

It’s really hard to get a kid transferred to a more appropriate setting if a mainstream school genuinely can’t meet need.

i used to work in a secondary with a Sen unit and we’ve had all sorts from students starting fires (the English department for reasons best known to themselves were teaching the whole of year 9 the lord of the flies and they did a real life sit in the woods at the end of the school field and have a campfire etc which so inspired one lad with downs that he spent the next six months trying to start fires every available moment) to serious sexual assaults by students who were experiencing teenage hormones and had absolutely zero understanding of any sort of social rules and this tended to just grab other student’s breasts.

usually at any point beyond reception the special schools are full and they don’t want pyromaniacs and sexually obsessed autistic kids anyway so alternative provision tends to be the way it goes but it is hideously expensive.

And I think its important to caveat as well that when we talk about 'violence', I suppose Im also lumping into that general ASB, so disputes with neighbours, stalking, verbal abuse or altercations, low level crime like noise nuisances/speeding/petty crime - so abuse towards society so to speak

So the actual physical violence may become slightly less or sometimes more managed but there are soemtimes other issues that continue. Again early intervention can support that although not always

Yes, many parents who want SS, and not all do, have to appeal. ‘Full’ isn’t defined in law and on its own isn’t a reason for LAs to refuse to name a non-wholly independent SS. The LA has to prove placement is incompatible with the provision of efficient education for others or efficient use of resources. This is a higher bar than LAs and many schools admit. It has to be something tangible and specific and is more than an “adverse effect”, “impact on” or “prejudicial to”. For schools. That are not wholly independent, they can be named even if they object.