Experience of Specialist Resource Bases?

[sansissu]

Hi
Wondering if anyone has experience of Specialist Resource Bases for asd in mainstream high schools? Do they help significantly where the problem is behavioural /emotional rather than academic?

Know of one that does, as it is much lower distraction, has a good understanding of sensory issues whihc can trigger anxiety, and a break out room for getting calm until a return to lessons is indicated.

It was quite a while ago that I heard about it I'm afraid

There is a Support Base at DS's secondary. He has a pass card, so if he feels he needs to get out of a lesson because he is stressed, then he can go there. It is always staffed and he can go on the computers and chill until he has calmed down. If things get really bad, then he can stay there for the rest of the day and his teachers email him work which he can do in peace and quiet. He has only used it on a handful of occasions and it is open to any child who is considered to need extra support. One of the lads in DS's year has the majority of his lessons there, as he has severe sensory issues.

I have direct experience of 3 resource bases all of which provided excellent support and integrated pupils as and when. Good resource bases combine the best of specialist teaching and social integration followed by general integration.
You do need to visit and talk to staff and pupils about their experience. ASD pupils can become very iso;ated and unhappy in bif secondary schools so it's vital support is there for them.

Thanks all and Tissie, that sounds like the one we're about to investigate. He's currently in a school with good lsa support and a special needs room he could go to when he needs to, but he is essentially expected to integrate relatively "normally" and it's just not working out. We're on the second exclusion in two weeks and school are at a loss as to how to anticipate or manage his behaviour. To be fair to them, so are we now, it's suddenly deteriorated significantly. The SRB we're going to look at is only for kids placed there by the local authority and is a separate building in the school grounds. As we understand it they aim to do 50/50 mainstream and separate lessons. Do you know what the approach to aggressive behaviour normally is in these units, as that is what the problem is?