Does anyone know about sn provision in france?

[saintmaybe]

I've an English friend living in the South of France. Her ds is 7, and is not very verbal at all, pretty challenging behaviour, they say not asd but superficially is very like a lot of the children in my ds's asd mld class.

He did odd days in the village school for a term or so; disasterous. She was told in writing that there would be a place in a sn scool this year, but has now been told that the place isn't there, and won't be for the foreseeable future because the school is full of adults who have stayed there because there is literally nowhere else for them to go.

So her son has no schooling at all, nothing else is being offered to them.

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of the system there, or know about any support groups, or anything. I don't know what to suggest to her.

I'm not much help but looked into SN education provision a little a couple of years ago when we considered (and rejected/postponed)a move to France. There is a book about living in France by a mother with several children including a DS child. unfortunatly I cannot remember the title- or find it! My memory is useless but I do recall that there is some system to get 1:1 support in local ecole maternal (nursery /infant school), but that the provision beyond that is patchy. It may be worth looking at 'moving to france with your children by Angie Power, if its in the library. Hope someone comes on with some real knowledge!

Thanks, magso. Patchy seems a nice way of putting it! Makes you realise how lucky we are (and that's not how I usually feel tbh )

Hi StMaybe,

I used to live in France. To be honest, we left for the UK pretty much as soon as we realised our son had asd as things are pretty dire over there (and what there is tends to be in Paris). However, here are a few things that could help:

• there is a fantastic anglophone parents group called Message, based in Paris but with a very active web forum and some members elsewhere - I'm sure your friend could get some help from that crowd. see www.messageparis.org/

• there is a group of anglophone professionals dealing with special needs called SPRINT, contact them via email: [email protected]

• there is a fantastic British speech therapist in Paris named Julie Tuil. It would be worth travelling to Paris to get her input. If you can't find her info on the web let me know and I will look it up.

• I don't know where in the South of France your friend is, but there is an American psychologist/ ABA specialist based somewhere in the South of France named Diane Fraser, who I gather is really good. Again, I can probably find her info is your friend can't find it on the web.

• I believe there is a yahoo! group for anglophone families of SN kids living in France.

I hope this helps your friend get started, and let me know if I can be of further help - I'd be happy to chat to her offline.

If you are talking about Autism your friend should look at Autism Europe which, I believe, is a Europe-wide group of national autism charities, of which the NAS is the largest. I also know that France was taken to the European Court of Human Rights (or one of those things!) and lost the case due to its poor treatment/attitude to people with Learning Disability and (I think) specifically Autism. I think the case was brought by Autism Europe but can't remember. Until very recently, or maybe still afaik, France classified Autism as a Psychosis which is very old fashioned and unacceptable thinking.

Thanks Baglady and Davros, that's really useful. I'll pass it on.