ASD Outreach team - anyone got a good one?

[appropriatelytrained]

Does anyone live in an area with a decent ASD outreach team?

I mean a team which actually meets the child and supports him/her.

A team which offers regular support rather than one-off referrals?

Anyone?

dd2 receives regular visits from an outreach teacher. Initially it was once a fortnight and now maybe once a month. It has been OK; she is really more to support the staff and in giving them resources and ideas for how to support dd.

Not me - sorry, - but then you knew that.

In an area I used to work in they used to do a group that lasted a year for early years kids and they also had inclusion mentor people who went and worked with kids regularly in school e.g. a term at a time. Parents seemed to find them supportive.

as cansu says they used to come once a week to give the school advice rather than dc support.

Can anyone throw any county names in?

buckinghamshire

Don't bother with Derbyshire unless you are prepared to believe that visual timetables are the answer to everything.
Our own particular AO person is so dire that both me and school have lost her contact details deliberately as she was horrified that dd didn't have said VT and neither school nor myself thought it was needed and wouldn't implement one.
Dd still doesn't have one and continues to thrive and it's two years now since we dropped of the AO radar .

west kent, they phone school about every term, go into see ds3 every year and ring me afterwards with the observations before the report is written up. (he's in a mainstream secondary indie) If he needed something in particular, I feel they are very approachable and would have no qualms about ringing them. Their input is on his statement.

When he was at a mainstream state primary they saw him routinely every term and wrote a report each time

Outreach team? What's that then?

We have an early years intervention officer, whose sole purpose seems to be to come to meetings with me & senco to take notes and tell me about the new format of the IEP, or the new improved "family file" (a folder containing blank file dividers which she ceremoniously handed over - and she actually minuted that she'd handed it over )

As for any actual practical support, er... that's it.

LOL. I got an EARLY SUPPORT file that I was tasked with filling in by the EP so that the info was all in one place and I wouldn't have to repeat stories etc.

Did ANYONE EVER ask to see it? er no, not even said EP on subsequent visits.

Derbyshire are horrid. I have dealt with them wrt an Autism FOIR and they are shifty.

But yeah, the support file handover was minuted too.

I guess in our LA, handing over an empty file counts as 'intervention'.

AT - Camden are supposed to be not as crap as the rest. Ken and Chelsea too.

Croyden have a scheme where if you homeschool a SN child that needs a SS you can have a proportion of the money yourself, - or at least some people can, not sure of the criteria.

Hampshire are also a bit better than most.

Manchester funds 3 children on ABA programmes without them having gone to tribunal - don't faint.

Surrey are ok as long as your child gets on well with the party line. they have a few very good (apparently) schools - plenty of families take Surrey to Tribunal to get into these SN schools. a reasonable amount of bases/units.

they (allegedly) are good at funding a private SN school if no state place is available. we got agreement for out of county/independent school funding for dd1 relatively easily (was all delayed, nd we got given the run around, but it was decided and accepted that she needed a SN school place, no place available and they didn't try to shoehorn her into eg ms school with support etc)

Star: need to pm you, but it is not working atm. if you see me about in the next couple of days, can you remind me? (brain like a sieve right now)

ASD Outreach observed ds in school, then met with me afterwards to report her 'findings'.

She observed ds was unable to change his library book without adult assistance. ds became anxious and close to tears at fruit time and needed her to prompt him to tell the teacher that he did not want fruit.
During a small group assessment ds struggled with language, communication, rigid thinking and separating fantasy from reality. She observed his avoidance technique of having his PE kit, but saying he had left it at home. He was not able to read from the interactive white board.

She concluded that she would make some recommendations, but that ds?s needs were too complex for her to deal with on her own and she would refer onto visual impairment team, SALT and Motor Skills Team.

I was quite impressed with her observations and it appears to be quite a long observation and she confirmed her findings to me in writing!

I then received a note from school stating after her visit "ASD Outreach, require no further action as school are managing difficulties well"

Amazing what a forthcoming Tribunal can do!

I think Manchester are supposed to have a team which goes out (don't faint) BEFORE diagnosis to any child where there are concerns and parents can SELF REFER At least that is what they said at a conference I went to. This might be the team. They said they were often the first to realise the child had autism and would support the family through the diagnosis. They also said in their team they went out regularly eg weekly and had 3 autism specialists (the team covers all disabilities) who had a wide range of training including some ABA. Now I don't know what parents views are but it sounded a lot better than what we get.

I started to write about my team but it ended up in a rant so I deleted it! Lets just say that after tribunal both we and nursery refused to have anything to do with the lying bastards ever again. We had the anti-outreach team.

Star will you share what you know about Derbyshire with me please?

I have a FOIR in, and a request under the Data Protection Act. Are they likely to be incomplete then?

Durham have a very good, if overstretched team which works with the school and offers advice, secures resources, training and funding etc. Both of the people we've been involved with have been very good at including me and at throwing away the ASD rulebook when it's obvious that the boys haven't read that particular chapter, themselves.

Ass, I submitted some FOI questions to a vast no. Of LAs. Same questions about an aspect of SEN that needed to be responded to directly from the SEN team. Let's just say that I'm getting real 'feel' for LAs from that. I have requested SN internal review of the responses from Derbyshire and North Yorkshire due to their avoidance of the question. Some LAs have been a bit defensive but ex

ASD, to continue.........

Some have been defensive but explained themselves. I liked Barnet's response and Waltham Forests although I don't believe moving there would be instant peace, but at least they seem to be bothered and open about things. The two I just mentioned for review are shifty.

Gloucestershire Communication and Interaction Advisory Teaching Service are really good. They have their own early years LSW who goes into schools and nurseries for about an hour a week or so, to work with the child but also to advise the nursery staff. They have teachers who assess children (regularly and for SA,) advise schools and parents, attend reviews, offer training courses for teachers and TAs, arrange transition conferences between settings, supplying questionnaires at transition so most potential problems aren't forgotten. Best of all, they feel like they are on the child's side. You do not need an ASD DX, anything Spectrummy is covered.

Also recommend Gloucester Communication and Interaction Advisory Teaching Service. I'm so pleased with the service they've given DS and myself over the past 9 months- which have been so hard and draining. I can't begin to express how grateful I am as DS has been given a place now at a Communication and Interaction Centre. It's the only one in our small city and has only 6 pupils in KS1 with 1 teacher and 2 t.a's. He can start reception in Sep in the right setting for him.

Our LA employ an LIO specifically to fight off any ABA requests at Tribunal Star such is their opposition, I can tell you that much.
It has got so much worse over the last five years in our LA though, when I was fighting for ds's secondary provision at least they had some regard for the statutory guidelines, now they blatantly disregard them.
I only hope that if and when our case gets to JR it is exposed that we are just the tip of the iceberg as there are countless families in our LA being treated shoddily.

ASDx2 my experience sounds similar. Our LA just fight anything that goes above and beyond their lied about blanket policies.

Our ASD team require a referral through a complicated pathway: school submits form, it goes to one of the team's monthly MEETING, a decision is made about whether to offer advice on the telephone of to visit. A visit is then arranged.

At the visit, the outreach team talks to the staff about their problems and advises. They can also talk to parents but they make it clear they are not there for parents.

They then issue a recommendation form and run away. If you dispute any of it, or any of it is inaccurate to inappropriate. Tough.

So we got crap like 'visual timetables are a priority for DS'. Really? Or, 'he needs a white board so he can write down the teacher's name and change it if he has a new teacher'. Honestly, that is a load of nonsense as neither of these issues are problems for DS. It's just generic crap.

We're thinking about moving Devon but wondered what their services are like??

Think of a relevant question and then submit FOI to all LAs you would consider. Honestly, I've learned loads from my responses. Perhaps ask how many tribunals there were last year and how many if these had a barrister up against the parents. Things like that tell you whether they are trying to work with parents, whether they actually believe in their provision or whether they are just bullies.