Please come talk to MNHQ about Special Needs topics: better with fewer of them or not?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We're looking into streamlining/reorganising our Topics list to make it easier for people to find the best topic for their thread, and to make it easier for everyone to find their way around Talk.

And, following on from some of the points raised on this Site stuff thread, we wanted to ask you folks about the range of SN Topics in Talk.

Currently, as you know, we have...
Parents with disabilities
Special needs support sessions
Special needs: children
Special needs: education
Special needs: legal/financial
Special needs: recommendations
Special needs: teens and pre-teens

Do you think it might be a good idea to lose some of these, given that some of them (legal, education, recommendations, in particular) are quite underused?

Would it be better to have fewer topics, so that every OP was more likely to get replies to their threads?

Or do you think the balance of Topics is fine just as it is?

Please do let us know...

To be honest the SN children is the most used. From what I see of the list above the main ones would be Parents with Disabilities, SN Children only. Most tend to use SN children from anything to asking for a recommendation to legal.

You could title it SN children/education/legal and have done with :)

Plus teens and pre teens are still children :)

Hi Helen

Here's a for you!

I agree with coff :)

Yeah I think two, one for parents with disabilities and one for children [covering all aspects]

I use the children bit even though dd is a teenager, because it has most traffic.

Maybe one for adults (parents?) and one for children? All the other stuff is usually relationg to one or the other.

Like what Amber just said

I agree with coff.

Maybe one just called SN to cover all the other lesser used boards, plus another called parents with disabilities.

But as Coff33 said. Specify the Group ie kids/ed/law/recommendation

SEN Children and Young People
Parents with Disabilities

To be honest, I only ever look at SN children and when I do venture into other SN topics, there's a lot of tumbleweed in there. Most of the topics seem superfluous, though obviously I do see the need for a separate topic for and about adults with disabilities and/or SN.

This is all good stuff - and v helpful. Thank you. Please keep it coming!

Re Recommendations: any mileage in renaming it Special needs Products? Then we could link to our Reviews here, which could become the ref point you're talking about zzzzz.

Unless Recommendations has a broader scope than just Products?

SN children and young people, and Parents/Adults with disabilities. Just to include those adults who may not be parents. The first is generally for the carers of those with SN, the second for those with disabilities themselves.

What EJ said. I always use SN children as it's the one with most traffic, and never look at the others.

But the Lingle Clock and the Moondog Calender ARE products, just not ones you can buy.

A set of SN review topics would be handy, eg. Sn Mobility, SN toys

Othherwise agree with just the 2 threads. children aithSN and Adults with SN Perhaps also a autism spectrum section,I only say that because there is quite a few of us and I worry that other problems get a bit lost

First time I posted in SN I used SN education and I think the first response was someone recommending I used SN children instead. As that is where most people go and post and can post about ed issues then I don't think you need two topics.

SN products sounds better IMO, recommendations could be for anything I suppose. Erm. Dunno on that one

I wouldn't like to separate by disability. I know there are lots on here with DC with ASD, but a lot of advice isn't disability specific. My DS does have ASD, I wouldn't like to be separated off. It may be that those whose DC don't have ASD would like this, though.

tbh i only look at the sn children section as its where all the lovely people are

Another vote here for streamlining into adults and children. We don't need all the others.