Pilot online 'clinic' with the charity KIDS: keen to hear your thoughts

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello,

We've been having a think about how we at MNHQ could add something extra to the amazing support and advice that the MN Special Needs posters offer each other. One idea is to have monthly online 'clinics' with staff members (who are also parents of disabled children) from the charity KIDS, which is one of the organisations that supports our ongoing campaign on respite care/short breaks.

We wanted to sound you out about how this might work, what would be helpful, and what sorts of topics you'd like to see covered.

We need to emphasise that this would in no way be a substitute for the extraordinary peer-to-peer advice on the SN boards; the idea is to complement what you (collectively) do with a slot (which could be regular) featuring KIDS staff. We know that many if you find peer-to-peer support to be the most useful form of support, but we thought it might be interesting to get input from the professional side too. Posters would be welcome (and encouraged) to enter into the conversations with the KIDS staff members.

We'd be really grateful for any feedback. We aren't sure whether it would be best to have a particular topic for each 'clinic' or whether to have a general open session (at least to start), so we'd love to know what you think about that; and if you think specific topics would be better, do please let us know what you'd like covered.

(As you can probably tell from our quote marks, we're also not sure whether 'clinic' is the right word for this, so please feel free to suggest alternatives - 'advice service'?)

Thanks,
MNHQ

Just had a look at their website and the Ofsted reports etc.

They are the charity I thought DS had been referred to (they have a centre just up the road from us).

It does seem a bit 'closed shop' to me.

Readiing that parents could use their Direct payments or their new 'personal budgets' to pay for KIDS services.

Reading that children have assessments undertaken by their LA's Child and Young Persons Dept and referrals are made to KIDS.

Isn't it just the sort of thing that we rail against here all the time - i.e. inability to get Direct Payments because they are dished out by LAs and inability to get honest LA assessments because support costs money?

So, not quite what I thought.

Far too chummy with the LA.

Thanks again for all your points. Our objective is to make this as useful as possible for posters on this board and for it to be what you want it to be; we don't have pre-conceived ideas about exactly how it might work, so the feedback is really useful.

It sounds like the first step might be to get one of the senior staff at KIDS to come on and answer some of the questions specifically about KIDS, and have a discussion with you about what the sessions might look like (topics and format) and what kind of input you'd find most useful - so we will have a chat with them about arranging that.

Please keep the feedback coming.

Thanks
MNHQ

I think this could be a good idea if anonymity could be guaranteed in some way. There are times on here where I can't post everything I want to because I am paranoid I am concerned that DSs teachers will work out who I am.
There are a lot of people on MN who have great knowledge but sometimes have to trot said knowledge out time after time, if a clinic on a particular topic was obviously accessible then general info could be easily picked up.

Think I would just lurk if there was a "clinic" wonder if it would put others off too?

I would be interested especially if they do something on Transition. The teenagers section is a bit dead and I am always desperate for more information.

I love the current ethos of the mn-sn board - it's a very special "safe space" for so many of us & I'll be forever grateful it was here at a very dark time for my family.

I think I'd also withdraw to lurking if it became an integral part of this section.

Hi. I just want to jump in with something positive about KIDS. My son is 3 has ASD and goes to a nursery run by KIDS. My experience of them so far is very positive, they run nurseries throughout the country for pre school children with SEN, and offer support for parents too.

Had a very quick look at the site and am dissappointed that Scotland Wales and N Ireland are not included or catered for by this charity. I personally would feel totally excluded from this clinic!!!

I wouldn't mind giving this a try.

At the moment I'd lick magic toads if I they offered me help with DS so I accept I may not be in the best place to judge though.

Hello all,

Thanks again for all the input.

Kevin Williams, the KIDS Chief Executive, is going to be online on this thread between 12 midday and 1pm tomorrow to address some of the questions about KIDS that you've posed, so do please join us then if you can (or post up any more questions for Kevin here).

In the meantime, here are the MNHQ responses to some of your points.

1. Can we think about developing an FAQ section, or using the online sessions to develop a set of pages that represent distilled wisdom on issues that commonly face parents of children with SN?

This exercise is all about identifying what the posters on this board want and need; so if there's a need for a set of signposted webchats covering common issues for parents of children with SN, then we'll happily work to develop that. (As LeninGrad pointed out, we do already have some SN content, which we like to think is rather good. ) Do please keep the ideas coming about the topic areas you'd like to see covered.

2. Where will we put the webchat/sessions/clinics (I'm afraid we're still working on a name)?

At the moment, the plan is to create a new 'Live webchat' topic within the SN board and have the webchats/sessions/clinics there. So, any SN posters who really dislike this idea could hide that topic if they wished. Because we want this to be as successful as possible (in terms of reaching the people who need it), and visible to the many posters who lurk on Mumsnet but tend not to post much, we do anticipate that these sessions will be stickied in Active Conversations for the duration of the chat, and promoted via our newsletters and so on. But we would be happy to put one of our famously stern disclaimers at the top of each chat explaining that it's a space for teasing out issues to do with parenting and caring for children with SN, NOT a space for discussing the ins and outs of welfare reform or disability benefits; and the sessions would be monitored closely to ensure that they weren't derailed by people who had no interest in discussing the relevant issues.

3. 'Think I would just lurk if there was a "clinic" wonder if it would put others off too?' 'I think this could be a good idea if anonymity could be guaranteed in some way. There are times on here where I can't post everything I want to because I am paranoid I am concerned that DSs teachers will work out who I am.'

The last thing we want is to change the nature of this board, or chase away our much-loved regulars. We're hoping that separating out the webchats/clinics into their own topic area will address most of these concerns. You're also very welcome, of course, to namechange for the webchats. I'm afraid, though, that - like all public online spaces - we can't absolutely guarantee your anonymity (although of course, we will never give out your personal details to third parties without your consent or a court order.) These sessions would be publicly available. It might be possible, though, for us to discuss with KIDS whether they could provide one-to-one advice for posters with particularly identifying situations, if that's something there's a demand for.

That's it for now, but don't forget to join Kevin here at midday tomorrow, if you're able to.

Thanks
MNHQ

Thank you. Midday isn't great though as my ds can't attend school full time so I'll be on the road then.

Is there a theme? Or is to establish what they/we are going to do?

Oops, sorry, I missed off a couple of points:

On point 2, we just want to make it completely clear that we will actively moderate the sessions, and remove unhelpful/off-topic posts straight away.

We also wanted to say that we think these sessions will be actively useful for lurkers, who may lack the confidence to post but will hopefully benefit from the discussion (as they already benefit from seeing posts by people who are regulars on the board).

Q: What if the opinions of the posters clash with those of the 'professionals'?

A: We do acknowledge that, even with professional advice, there can be differences of opinion. We wouldn't want to shut these differences down; sometimes a combination of responses can be very helpful to the questioner. Hopefully we would be able to achieve fruitful disagreement; as ever on Mumsnet, we hope that all posters will respect everyone's right to an opinion, even when they don't agree with them (and so long as everything is within our Talk Guidelines).

Oh, sorry to hear you can't make it Starlight. We know it's not an ideal time (I think we're thinking that the actual sessions are more likely to run in the evenings, but would be interested to hear what times would suit people best); this was the only time Kevin could make this week and we thought it best to strike while the iron was hot.

Tomorrow Kevin will be responding to the various direct questions about KIDS that have been raised on here; there isn't really a specific theme beyond that. But do add any questions that you have into the mix!