Understanding and Supporting Needs Associated with Possible Neurodivergence: A Needs Led Approach

Transcript

 

Hello, everybody, and welcome to our training on understanding and supporting needs which might be associated with possible neurodivergence. This is the training for the needs led approach for Baines and Wiltshire, which is based on the Portsmouth profile tool.

My name’s Sarah Robbins. I’m the professional lead for the neurodevelopmental pathway.

So just to introduce to you a new approach.

So the needs led approach is a really exciting new approach. It aims to be holistic and creative, in supporting families and young people in an empowered way.

Our aims for the approach is that we want to work in partnership between education, health, and families to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people who might be neurodivergent.

So the plan for today’s training is to explain how the training works, first of all, to consider what the aims of the training are. We want to think about the context of a needs led approach and what the key principles of this approach are.

Then we’re gonna take some time to think in more detail about the needs led approach itself and what it might look like for you if you are, supporting a family or having this approach, suggested to you.

I want to really take you through the approach so you understand the different steps. So we’ll be exploring the needs led approach by working, to understand how to identify needs, how to use the kit, how to support those needs that you’ve identified, and how to access support during a needs led approach process. Then we’ll have a think about a case study.

And at the end, I’ve provided some frequently asked questions and more contact details so you know where to go to seek support and advice.

The training is webinar based, and it’s for anybody who wants to understand more about the needs led approach to support needs of children associated with possible neurodivergence.

We have designed this training primarily for schools and for settings, but we’re really keen that anybody who wants to watch it can watch it. So parents can watch it too. Carers can watch it too. Young people, other professionals.

It can be accessed at any time by anyone with unlimited views.

I’m going to try and make sure that there is opportunity for some thought and reflection on activities throughout. So I would suggest that you have pen and paper to hand.

Alongside this training package, there is support available from the ND pathway, and I’ll talk more about what that looks like as we go through the training.

We recommend that you allow about ninety minutes to watch and complete the activities. Of course, you can pause it at any time, and you can return to it if you need, advice and support for the first time, maybe that you do a needs led approach. You’ll notice throughout the training that we’ve included pictures to try and support understanding.

We recognize that visuals can be really important for some people, but for other people, they might not be as helpful. Please enjoy them if they work for you, but please don’t feel patronized if they’re not your cup of tea.

So the aims of the training, we really want to help, you understand why needs led approach to supporting children and young people is important. We want to help work together to identify and understand needs that might be associated with neurodivergence. Within that, we will be thinking about nine different neurodevelopmental areas, which can help structure our observations and understanding of a child or young person.

We’ll talk about how to use the observation tables to gain this information about a child’s profile.

We’ll understand, aim to understand how to represent a young person’s strengths and needs on the strengths and needs slider.

And we hope that you’ll feel confident to be able to complete a needs led profile collaboratively.

We hope that you’ll understand more about how to support needs and use the needs led profile that you’ve created to create an action plan for a child, a young person, their family.

We hope that you’ll be able to understand the importance of working with parents and carers to empower and support them.

Then we’ll talk we’re aiming to help you understand about how we on the neurodevelopmental pathway will work with you and knowing how to access advice and support from us around the profile approach.

So first of all, I wanted to give you some context to the needs led approach, and we’ll start with a quote from one of our SENCOs who has been working in a needs led approach way. She says, we always celebrate individuals and their unique strengths and struggles. The new profile allows for a holistic understanding and targets to be implemented at home and school. There is less frustration at the long delays experienced in the past and the often outdated and limited information is captured.

So I wanted to give you some more information about why we are implementing a needs led approach to supporting neurodivergence in Baynes and Wiltshire.

First of all, we are learning from doing. The needs led approach was devised in Portsmouth, and it’s now widely used across the country.

We’ve been trialing this locally in Baynes and Wiltshire with a number settings since March twenty twenty four.

We’ve been able to adapt the approach in response to the feedback from settings, from other professionals, and from parent carers. The needs led approach puts supporting need at the center.

We believe that children, young people, and their families will be able to access support and information from the right places wherever they are on an assessment journey, whether it’s pre referral or post assessment, the child’s needs need to be met.

And that takes us on to putting your children and young people at the center.

So if a needs led approach means that a referral for a neurodevelopmental assessment is requested, this process will place the child or young person’s needs at the center.

This approach will also help to support the needs of those around the child. Sometimes those needs are around understanding more about why the child or young person is behaving in a particular way or why they have particular interests or needs. So we want the approach to help each child meet their potential.

So there are several key principles to the needs led approach, and the needs led approach is now central to our referral process for consideration of autism or ADHD. We believe that understanding and meeting needs must take center place in the referral process.

This needs led approach replaces previous referral pathways for autism and ADHD assessment in Baynes and Wiltshire from the first of January twenty twenty five.

The approach has collaboration at its heart. It’s a collaborative approach between children when appropriate, families, settings, and other professionals.

The neurodevelopmental pathway and local parent carer groups work closely together to support you to achieve collaboration.

As I’ve said before, a key principle of the approach is that it’s needs led and informed by the neurodiversity paradigm, which we’ll talk about a little bit later.

If we can understand and support needs regardless of a diagnostic pathway, this will lead to improved outcomes for children and families.

When we recently surveyed a number of schools, when we asked what their key aims were from engaging in a neurodiversity project, these were the key areas that schools were telling us that they wanted to develop. You can see that the four biggest areas there, correct greater parental engagement, support, training, and parental engagement, again, are really key principles of the needs led approach. So we hope that in using a needs led approach across Baynes and Wiltshire, this will help schools to achieve a greater level of parental engagement and collaboration and coproduction with their parent groups.

So let’s have a think about the first section, about understanding and identifying needs.

And I’ve added a couple of quotes here. One’s from a SENCO and one’s from a parent that it’s we need to, have a look at.

So one Senko has told us that this profile approach has enabled teachers to pinpoint additional needs, and they can’t quite put their finger on what is going on.

So we hope it empowers teaching staff, school staff to be able to identify kinda specific areas of need, and they might have had suspicions that there were some difficulties.

The parent quote tells us that they’ve been really listened to and heard. They felt like nothing was too much and no question was unanswered. They’re grateful that their child was brought on board to the meetings, so we can see they’re a real collaborative approach that is being so appreciated by the parent.

So let’s think about why it’s important to understand and identify needs. And this illustration from Emily Hammond at Neurowild really helps to show us a little bit more about why we need to understand people’s strengths and needs. So different brains, like different plants, need different things to grow well.

It’s important to know what kind we have so we can take care of it properly.

So we know that the care needs and support needs for two different plants are going to look different.

So it’s really important to have that understanding of what it is that somebody might need in order to help them meet their needs.

I mentioned before that we’ve been looking at what the neurodiversity paradigm is. So thinking about what neurodiversity means, in the simplest sense, neurodiversity means differences in brain function.

And we understand that everyone has differences in their brain function. We take this famous illustration as an example. Some people will view this illustration and they will see a duck.

Other people will view it and see a rabbit.

Neither one of those interpretations is wrong. In fact, it’s designed to be able to be interpreted both ways. And we find that about fifty percent of people see one and fifty percent of people see the other.

But what I’m trying to illustrate here is that we’re all seeing the same inputs. We’re all seeing the same black lines on the same white background. Some of us will initially see one thing and some of us will see something else. And that’s a really simple example of what neurodiversity means. It’s the usual distribution of different brain function across the population.

So we come to our first activity, and I’d like you to pause and pause the webinar. Have a think about people you know, colleagues, students, pupils, family, friends, could be TV characters.

I’d like you to think about what the noticeable effects of neurodiversity are.

Have a think about what the good things are about everyone processing the world differently.

And notice that I’m talking about neurodiversity and not neurodivergence. So at the moment, I’m talking about neurodiversity, which is the typical distribution of different, ways that we process the world.

Hopefully, you had an opportunity to think about some of the strengths that neurodiversity brings to life. You might even have thought about some of the following. So you might have thought about somebody you know or someone you’ve worked with who has a great vocabulary that far exceeds your own. Perhaps they know all the technical words. Perhaps they know what lots of things mean. That would be an example of when neurodiversity shows the difference between people’s ability with speech and language.

If we think about energy levels, perhaps we thought of a friend who’s particularly lively and bubbly, always, the first to get on the dance floor.

Yeah. Perhaps we thought about attention and impulse control.

We know we might know people who are able to concentrate for long periods of time. Perhaps they have lots of ideas. We might have thought of emotional regulation differences in neurodiversity. Some people are really calm. Some people show more of their emotions regularly.

Perhaps we’ve thought of motor skills, someone that we know who’s fantastic at sport, recoordinated, a gymnast, a dancer in the class.

Maybe we thought about sensory processing differences. Perhaps we know somebody who particularly enjoys or avoids a certain sensory input. Maybe we thought about flexibility and adaptability.

Maybe, one of the parameters we think about in neurodiversity there is someone who can go with the flow. And then there tends to sometimes be an organizer in groups of friends, someone who will be making the plan and making sure everyone else sticks to it. Maybe we’ve thought about differences in social interaction and social relationships. We might know some people who are really happy in their own company and other people who always want to be at the center of the group surrounded by other people.

And maybe we thought about cognitive differences in distribution across neurodiversity. So someone that we might know with a fantastic memory, somebody that you want on your quiz team. I wonder if you thought about some of the following, differences as well.

So maybe we thought about a speech and language difference that maybe has more of an impact, so stammering or difficulties remembering words.

Maybe we thought of somebody who is differences in in energy levels, so maybe someone who’s being tired or lacking in energy. And you can see that these things are more likely to have an impact maybe on daily life.

Somebody that we might know might have attention and impulse control differences, so, like, being distracted quickly.

Perhaps emotional regulation, so with these ups and downs, that have a bit more of an impact on their lives.

Maybe you thought of somebody who’s had motor skills, difficulties, or challenges.

Someone in class who always takes a long time to write, or perhaps it’s, you know, struggling to use the scissors and complete the craft activities.

Sensory processing differences is something we might notice as well when we’re considering neurodiversity.

And sometimes people have sensitivities which can actually form a bit of a barrier to accessing aspects of life. You might have thought of somebody who has flexibility and adaptability challenges. So somebody finds it hard when the plans change or when they’re not in control.

You might have thought about social interaction and social relationship differences. So somebody who can find conversations difficult.

And then finally, cognition. We might know somebody who doesn’t remember things well, and we know that the that the challenges that that could cause.

So, hopefully, the last couple of slides gave some examples that we find in the typical population when we’re thinking about neurodiversity. We recognize that everybody has strengths in some areas and needs in other areas.

When we start to think about neurodivergence, I think this is a really helpful description from the, off the record and Baines Youth Forum neurodivergent project.

The Baines Youth Forum have described neurodivergent to mean people whose brains work differently from the neurotypical majority.

Neurodivergent people might be autistic, dyslexic, have ADHD, etcetera.

In schools, this is often referred to as special educational needs, but we prefer neurodivergent because it’s more positive.

So we’ve talked about neurodiversity and the strengths and needs that can be associated with the way different ways that all of our brains are wired.

And I want to think what why neurodivergence is different from neurodiversity now, and I’m doing that with the help of this fantastic cartoon by Sunny Hallett.

So Sunny’s provided a little, group of shapes at the top left of our screen now, which is a diverse group of shapes. We’ve got squares. We’ve got long rec we’ve got a long rectangle. We’ve got a couple of circles, a triangle. I think it’s an octagon.

This is a diverse group of shapes, but we can see that the square or rectangle is the most common. So that’s the typical shape.

We can see that the circle, the triangle and the long rectangle and the octagon are divergent from the most common shape. They’re divergent. So the typical shape is the square or the slightly, squat rectangle.

And the circle, the triangle, the thin rectangle, and the octagon are divergent because they’re divergent within the common shape.

And Sunny likens this to brains.

So the most typical type of brain that you find in society is a neurotypical brain.

And for people whose brains don’t match the majority and don’t process in a similar way to the majority, you would consider that that might be a neurodivergent brain.

So let’s have a look in a bit more detail. Here’s a family of triangles. So we saw on the last picture there that the triangles are all divergent from the majority because the majority is the squares, but they’re not diverse in that family group because they’re all the same. So within within that family, we wouldn’t say they’re diverse because they’re all the same.

However, we know that they’re near they’re divergent from the majority.

On the right hand side, we can see that the octagon is divergent from the average square.

It can’t be diverse because they’re just one shape, not a group.

So we know it’s divergent, but it’s not diverse.

And then we finish with the little family of a square, a triangle, and a circle.

And Sunny explains that this family is diverse with two divergent members because in the society that they’re in, the square is the most common. The square is typical but part of a diverse family.

So I hope that helps. You will hear those, terms being used quite interchangeably, and, the language around neurodivergence is changing all the time, but it is really important to understand the difference there.

So when we’re thinking about neurodivergence, I mean, we have had an activity where we were thinking about some of the positives of the way that different brains are organized as well as maybe some of the challenges in understanding how all our brains are organized differently.

And I think it’s really important to remember that in neurodivergence, that is exactly the same. There are strengths and there might be needs as well.

No one person has the same set of strengths and needs. Everyone is unique in an individual, whether they have the same diagnosis or or not.

And here are some possible neurodivergent strengths from autism, the positives from the disability services at the University of Leeds.

We’ve tried to have a look at some other possible neurodivergent needs as well.

So I think it’s really important to think about what is actually the need when we’re looking at somebody who might be neurodivergent and really think about whose need it is. So let’s have a look at some examples. So you might notice somebody in your class stammering. And this here is the experience from Liz from the youth exchange project with Stammer.

Her experience of her stammering following a, youth exchange project, she says, being around so many amazing people who stammer has made me question why I was so ashamed of my speech.

So her experience of stammering has become positive.

So we can see from what she said that her need around her stammering wasn’t to stop stammering. It was to help her stop feeling ashamed of the way I talk.

Let’s think of eye contact. We might notice that somebody’s got reduced eye contact, and parents sometimes say this to us. They might say something like, my child doesn’t look at me. I don’t feel like we have a connection. It’s really hard. So, again, if we think about what the need is, the need isn’t necessarily make the child make eye contact. I know, in fact, that could be extremely distressing.

But the real need is something that the parent is expressing.

Help me find other ways of connecting with my child.

Let’s have a look at something else you might notice if you’re in a school. You might notice a young person playing alone at break time.

A parent has also noticed this as well and says, I’ve seen my child during playtime.

If I’ve been walking past school, he’s always by himself. It breaks my heart.

So let’s think about what the need is there. The need could be that to help the parent understand that actually what what their child needs at that time is that time alone in the busyness of the school day.

But it also could be if you spoke to the child that the child is wanting to join in with play, and so that would be the need in that scenario.

So we can’t assume we know the need because we’ve seen a particular behavior.

Finally, you might notice that a young person appears to be struggling to concentrate.

And this neurodivergent student says, my teacher gets frustrated with me when she thinks I’m not concentrating. I get frustrated too.

And the need here is exactly identified really well by this young person who said, don’t push me to work or get frustrated. If I appear to be very tired, I might need to rest my head on the desk to help me recharge. A quiet word asking if I want to talk might help me.

So you can see that although you might notice something that you think the need is, the need of the that that person is experiencing might not match with your interpretation of what’s happening. And we really hope that the needs led approach will help us to really understand more about what the need is so that we can support that.

So let’s talk about how to use the needs led approach kit.

And, again, like with the other sections, we’ve got the voices of people who have tried the needs led approach out. So this Senko in July has said to us that the needs led approach kit has helped us understand how we can meet need, and it changes the way we think.

And then the parent carer from the quote the second quote has said, the needs of profile has opened my eyes to so many areas that were actually possibly neurodivergent traits, things I had never even realized, things that I had never understood were now making sense.

Hopefully, the last few slides have started to explore a bit more about supporting need and really understanding more about identifying what is a need and whose need it is.

As we can see from the cartoon on the right, reiterating the message that what we need to know is about what kind of brain we’ve got so we can take care of it properly.

We’ve got two brains here. One loves being outside in the world. They they love being out there. They find it a happy, comfortable place.

Whereas the brain who is neurodivergent finds that the world can be very busy and loud. They’re having the same input but very different experiences.

If we understand what each brain needs to make it happy and to make it, reach its potential, then we can pro work to provide meet those needs and help them meet their potential.

So the identification of needs is absolutely central to the needs led approach.

So we need to be focusing on these needs and what support these needs may be supported by rather than a diagnostic focus.

You know, that a diagnosis may or may not be the right thing for a child or a young person, but, ultimately, if we want to make sure that we’re giving the right support, this can often be achieved by focusing on meeting needs.

A needs led approach supports a neuro affirmative approach. It recognizes and celebrates neurodivergence.

So the parts of the profile which will help us to use, an identification, approach and then offer support for this are a manual, observation tables, a profile and action plan, and a resources pack.

And all of these are available on our website.

We’ve included some little pictures of what the front covers look like. So we’ve got the manual, observation tables, and information for families letter and a profile itself. And these are the bits that you need when you are identifying needs.

So let’s think about using a needs led approach and those identification of what the needs might be. So it’s gonna start. Somebody recognizes some needs that might they wonder if it might be related to possible neurodivergence.

This could be a family member. This could be a young person. This could be another professional thinking about possible neurodivergence related to something they’ve seen or heard about.

An ease of approach could be a good way to find a way forward to find out a bit more about this young person’s strengths and needs. But first, there’s a few things we need to think really carefully about.

Is it a good time to be working with the family to think about a needs led approach? Are there things going on at home that would make it difficult for parents to give it their attention? They’re a new baby or illness or big change in the family. Might be best to revisit that in the future.

Are there concerns about the child’s sleep or nutrition?

These are areas that we need to be exploring before we started considering other strengths and needs. We all know what what impact poor sleep or poor nutrition can have.

We might want to think about what other support is already being offered to the family from other services.

It might feel a bit too much, or it might be the perfect opportunity to pull everything together.

For some people, it’s really important to consider whether it’s the right time to think about neurodivergence.

Maybe somebody doesn’t want to find out more about their strengths and needs. Maybe they don’t like the idea of finding out about that or working together. Perhaps it’s not right for them at that moment. Maybe there’s other piece of work that needs to be completed first, developing understanding of what neurodivergence means.

Really important to think what the child or young person thinks about finding out about their profile.

We’ve talked about that. Are they happy for others to be working together with them? And then you’ll also need to think who the right person is to lead on creating and reviewing a profile and action plan. Does that person need a bit of time to access this trainee, or do they need some time and links to join in with one of the drop ins with the ND pathway team to update their knowledge and skills?

Maybe if someone hasn’t done a needs led approach, before, they’ll need a little bit of extra time to do that, and they’ll definitely know need to know where to find the resources that they’re gonna need.

If you decide that it’s the right time to think about a needs led approach to supporting a young person, Here is the overview of the approach. There’s three levels. So level one is about identifying and supporting needs or differences.

Level two is about reviewing and adjusting support.

Level three is where you might need to seek extra advice from the ND pathway if the needs are not being met despite the actions and support identified at levels one and levels two.

So the main objective at each level is to help everyone around that young person and the young person themselves, if it’s appropriate, to understand their needs or differences, provide advice, guidance, and support.

Children and young people might move between the levels when the differences indicate a higher level of impact.

If somebody has recognized some needs that might be related to neurodivergence, really important that school and home and the child work together to agree whether a needs led approach would be helpful.

We strongly recommend that you use the information for families letter to help parents and carers understand more about the approach and how to find out more.

Parents and carers need to be able to access all this information, if that’s right for them, to make a decision about whether a needs led approach is right for them.

Some parents will want lots of information and might want to access this training session. Other parents might not want as much information and might find it really, really overwhelming.

The information for families letter will help provide them with some key places to explore, help, and support.

If parents, carers, the young person wants to continue to explore needs using a needs led approach, school and home and the child need to use the observation tables together to identify areas of strength and needs.

You use the the information from the tables to complete the strengths and needs profile.

You then use the profile to help agree support ideas for the action plan, and you review this and continue if it’s working.

Now we can see a summary of level one.

Work together to look at the needs. You agree the actions to help. You agree a review time frame. We usually think about six weeks, but sometimes it can take longer if some of the ideas are gonna take a little bit longer.

If you find it’s helping at the review, keep on with those actions and agree how are you gonna keep communicating together to check that things are still going well.

So I’ve mentioned that families and the schools will work together to complete the observation tables.

We have seven packs of observation tables, and you can see they’re divided by age group. We’ve got a baby’s observation table right up to key stages four and five. That they are all available on our website.

And within each observation table palette, there are tables that are organized into nine areas of development to help you focus your observations, what you’ve noticed about the child or what the child is telling you, and to also capture what the parent is noticing at home.

So we’ve got speech and language, energy levels, attention and impulse control, emotional regulation, motor skills, sensory processing, flexibility and adaptability, social interactions, social relationships, and cognition.

We know that the reality is that all of these areas of development impact each other, but this is just a framework to help us understand more about the child who we want to understand.

So within each of the nine areas, there are descriptions of development which might be considered to indicate strengths for a young person, needs for a young person or those people around them, and expected development.

We recommend that you go through the observation tables with the parent carer and the young person if that’s appropriate. And together, look at the descriptions that you think best describe the child’s development.

You can highlight the best descriptions of the child reach area.

You might want to use different colors for home observations and for school observations or young person observations, and it’s absolutely okay to have different opinions. We know that young people are often very different in different places.

Together, these observations build up a profile of the child.

And you can see there at the bottom, we’ve got a slider from the speech and language area, which indicates that there might be needs, there might be expected development, or there might be strengths.

So for here’s an example. So we’ve got a key there at the side and an example of one of our observation tables, and this one’s around emotional regulation for key stage three.

So we can see that home and the young person work together to identify their experience.

So we can see that she’s demonstrating high levels of distress at home. They’ve noticed self harming at home, and home have also noticed that she’s engaging in repetitive movements. We would consider those to be needs.

Home have noticed a strength as well that she uses a range of strategies to self soothe and regulate, which is fantastic.

School in green have noticed they haven’t noticed kind of the the same as as home, but they have identified needs. They’ve noticed that her emotions are muted or seen that way in school and that she doesn’t seek out support or help or comfort.

So you can see that there’s a picture emerging, somebody who’s really keeping their emotions, hidden when they’re at school to such an extent that they seem muted. But when they’re at home, we’re seeing high levels of distress, self harming needs.

Yeah. School and home and the young person all agree that they require support to describe and identify how they’re feeling, and they all agree that they can seek support and comfort through peers.

So we’ve got a bit of a mixed profile, and we do expect that it’s very rare that somebody, I think somebody’s, you know, needs and behavior is all in one column. Everyone’s got differences and everyone’s got complexities there. So this is a completely typical, type of table to see.

So let’s see what this looks like on the emotion regulation slider there from the profile.

So we can see that the green color represents school, and they have noticed that the majority of what they’ve seen is in the needs column. So they have put their marker on the slider as a need.

Home also has identified the majority of needs, so they have also put theirs their mark on the slider in the moreover to the needs side.

There’s a box underneath the slider to give an opportunity for home and school to think reflects a bit more on why they decided that, why they put the marks where they did. They don’t have to use that, but it can be helpful to sort of explain.

And what they’ve put here is that very distressed at home every night and self harm. We don’t see this at school, but recognize she can shut down.

And then they very helpfully filled out the impact section.

So Homer felt that the impacts of the emotional, regulation difficulties at home is high. They’re very concerned about her, and she’s also worried.

School, they don’t because she’s in more of a muted, kind of state and she’s not seeking out the support, maybe they’ve realized that the impact in school isn’t isn’t huge. They feel that she’s kinda completing her work okay despite this, but is definitely not as engaged as she could be. So they’ve rated that as a medium impact.

Here’s another example. This one’s key stage one.

In the attention and impulse control area So we can see here that home identified that this child was needing support to stop playing when it became too rough and boisterous. And then the rest, of the descriptors, both home and school agreed with. And you can see again a distribution between, expected and strengths there.

And when we put this on the slider, we can see that overall, the picture is of expected strengths in attention and impulse control.

When school and home talked a little bit more about the, impulse control at home, Mum was saying that he does tend to get impulsive with his brother and felt that that was because they wind each other up. And both school and home agreed that for attention and impulse control, there was not a big impact.

Here’s a further example, and this one is around speech and language in key stage two. So we can see again some differences between home and school where the blue is indicating both.

And here, we’ve got it sort of the other way around. So school are noticing more of the needs, whereas home are feeling that the know, that there are some some kind of expected skills emerging at home.

So here’s an example slider. We’ve got speech and language here, needs at one end, strengths at another end.

And we recognize that people completing the observation tables often have different opinions, and there’s more guidance in the manual about how to place the marks where you feel they should go. So we’ve had a look at a few of the observation tables for a couple of different areas and, different ages.

Now it’s your opportunity for a bit of an activity.

So here we have, different needs, expected level, and strengths, marked on this behavior table by home and school and both. Here’s the example slider. So if you could use your pen and paper and draw a line, a horizontal line on your piece of paper because you’re going to have a go at seeing what you think and plotting those identified, observations onto a slider. So if you’ve drawn the horizontal line, you might want to put an n for needs, an e for expected in the middle, and an s for strength on the right hand side.

Okay. So if I leave this slide up for about a minute, and I wonder if you are able to plot onto the slider where you think though that young person may be with their skills in that area.

So how did you get on? It’s definitely not an exact science.

And with this example here, you can see that we decided to mark the home and the school views separately. That’s because they were quite different actually. In school, generally, we’re noticing quite a few needs and home weren’t. So it’s really important that we, understand that and mark that so everyone feels listened to.

So there’s some questions and comments about using the observation tables that we thought would be to share. So some SENCOs have asked us if they can share observation tables with parents, and our advice would be that absolutely, as part of a collaborative approach, it’s a really good idea to share them together. If a parent wants to then take them away to give themselves a bit more time to think about it or or have a think about them with a young person at home, fantastic idea.

What hasn’t worked is when parents have been given the tables without the opportunity to understand a bit more about what they’re like and what they’re for. So we really recommend finding out from your parent if that is something that’s gonna be helpful for them.

Several SENCOs and setting managers have told us that they found the observation tables a really useful starting point with parents, particularly when it’s the setting that’s got some has noticed some differences or needs and maybe the parents haven’t. So it’s a really neutral opportunity to say, oh, this is what we’ve noticed. This is what we’ve noticed. What have you noticed?

Other SENCOs and, settings have told us it’s been really good to show parents that it’s okay not to agree, and that children can be very different in different places.

So once you’ve completed that level one, identification, you will review the action plan with the family and the child if it’s appropriate, and we’ll talk talk a little bit more about action plans in a minute.

Family and setting in anyone else who’s contributing needs to agree whether there are still unmet needs which are having an impact. The unmet needs might just be in one place, so it might be that, actually, it’s home where the unmet needs are. So let’s think about some different actions and things that school can help if that’s relevant to that kind of area of need.

At a level two, we’ll be con the review of the level one, we’ve been considering whether the plan needs to be adapted. Maybe there’s other support and advice required, and then the plan needs to be adapted.

Different ideas, different things to try. That is then called a level two approach.

Again, the level two will be reviewed.

Hopefully, it’ll be helping keeping keep on with those actions and agree together how to monitor. And keep communicating together to keep that positive impact going.

If you get to a review of level two, you might find that there are still some unmet needs which are having a significant impact.

You need to consider what other actions could support those needs.

Maybe you’ll find that you’re not sure what else to try, and we recommend that you attend one of our weekly drop ins by emailing n d dot pathway at h c r g care group dot com, and we can provide you with the link for Microsoft Teams meeting.

We’ll be able to share ideas with you, signpost you to more resources, and help you find possible ideas from the resources pack if you haven’t been able to do that.

If you and the family and the young person, if appropriate, think a diagnostic assessment with the ND pathway could help meet those needs that are still remaining, please submit the observation tables, profile, and action plan to the ND pathway via the SPA.

You can find more information about that via our website and the manual.

It’s really important at that point that you all, the family, the young person, and any professional supporting considers what it is that a diagnostic assessment might what need that might support and have those conversations.

So if we receive observation tables, profiles, and action plan, we will review those.

We might help you consider additional and different suggestions for actions, or we might discuss with you whether a referral for ND assessment is indicated at that point.

If it is recommended at that point, we will talk you through next steps of what to take.

We will already have all that information from the needs led approach, so that will form a huge part of that referral information.

And here is a level three description in a visual form.

So at level three, you might agree that there are still unmet needs which are having an impact.

Further support and advice for the family is required. So we would recommend coming to an ND pathway drop in or email emailing those documents for the ND pathway to review.

We would encourage you to work together with, the ND pathway, the family and the child to adjust the plan and submit the information as required.

It’s really important to recognize that even if you talk to the ND pathway and we recommend, that diagnostic assessment will meet those needs that you’ve identified, that the approach doesn’t just stop. The family and the young person will still need support to meet their needs and, creative ways to explore those regardless of whether or not they’ve been accepted for a diagnostic assessment and whether that’s going to meet their needs.

So if a referral for ND assessment is recommended at level three, It’s really important to help the young person understand that the child would still be the same person whatever the outcome of a possible assessment.

The child and the parents must consent to considering an ND assessment.

It’s really important that they understand that if a diagnosis is given, that is a lifelong diagnosis, and it won’t be removed unless there’s significant information which suggests it isn’t.

It’s really important to be clear that a diagnosis of autism and ADHD does not automatically provide additional support in school as we all know. It doesn’t mean that a child or young person will automatically get an EHCP.

We understand that an EHCP is a needs based support plan, and using a needs led approach will evidence what those needs are.

It’s important that people recognize that some career paths and visa applications might ask for any diagnosed conditions to be disclosed.

And as I said at the end of the last slide, once a child is referred, if that’s going to meet their needs, the needs led approach to support must continue.

Many parents and young people have told us that the reason why they are wondering if they meet a diagnostic criteria is to access support and understanding.

For many, this can now be accessed via a needs led approach, does not require an ND assessment pathway.

So here’s a summary.

You can also find this summary in the manual.

So onto the second section, how to create a meaningful action plan. And as with the other sections, let’s start with some quotes from people who have used an ease of approach.

So this parent carer tells us that the parent carer adviser gave me ideas and strategies to try at home. I’ve learned so much about how my children behave and process things throughout this whole process.

And then another parent carer, a piece of feedback says, it was really good to see what they’re doing in school, and I was pleased to have a copy of the action plan to take away as it was a lot to take in.

So as we know, pupil has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability that needs special educational provision, namely provision that is different from or additional to that normally available to pupils of the same age.

We know, don’t we, that making higher quality teaching normally available to the whole class is likely to mean that fewer pupils will require such support.

The improvements in whole class provision tend to be more cost effective and sustainable. So let’s think about the parasol analogy. So the parasol represents the ordinarily available provision in the school, And all the children whose needs are met by the parasol or who are shaded from the sun, if you like, by the parasol, don’t need additional support. They don’t need a sun hat because their their needs are supported in the classroom, and their shade is provided by the parasol. They don’t need sun cream because they’re in the shade, and they don’t need sunglasses. So those extra and additional things are not required because their needs are met as part of the whole class approach.

So what we really want to do when we’re thinking about school action plans is thinking about how, as a class and school approach, we can extend that parasol to make sure we’re meeting the needs of more as part of our ordinarily available provision.

And how are we gonna do that? How are gonna make that parasol bigger? It might be that you identify training needs, and coming out from a young person’s action plan could be an understanding that, actually, there’s some additional training in school, perhaps around sensory needs, perhaps around something else that might be available in your local right choice.

Perhaps it’s resources that are required and accessing those again through the local authority and the provisions there will help you to ensure that those needs are met.

One thing that we found in doing the, action plans is that many parents and carers haven’t understood the provision that is already available in schools for the young person. And going through the action plan has been really reassuring to them to hear about all the things that are already going on in school. Yes. There’s a quiet place for where their child might be having their lunch. Or, yes, there’s a buddy bench which the young person can access and is accessing. And yes, there’s a visual timetable used every single day in the classroom. And knowing that that is happening in school has helped parents feel more connected to understanding what is happening.

It might be there are other things to explore together, and hopefully, the needs led approach will help identify training and opportunities, and looking at the resources pack will give you lots more ideas.

So when we come to completing a meaningful action plan, this is what you need. You need the profile because that’s going to show you where the strengths and needs are. You you need the action plan document, and you might need the resources pack.

The key principles of creating the action plan are collaborative.

We need to listen carefully to what parents are telling us, especially when school and home are likely to have different priorities.

So the actions for parents should be to support the needs that they’ve identified. The actions for school should be about what school can do. And sometimes it might not be what you think.

It might be there might be other professionals involved who’ve already given recommendations. They could be included in this as well.

We want to empower. Parents and young people are experts by experience. They know what works at home. They know their young person, and they might have some experience to share of what’s working. Build on this.

It’s so empowering for parents to hear that some of the strengths that they’ve noticed are recognised on the action plan.

Communication is absolutely central.

We’ve talked about this already that lots of the parents have told us they don’t know what happens in school, and they don’t realise that all the support is embedded into the teaching.

And they found it reassuring to hear what’s happening and how this is helpful. And there’s another opportunity to talk about the parasol and that it’s an opportunity to identify actions which are more likely to make the class or school more neuro affirmative.

Of course, there might be some specific adaptions as well, and it’s really important to be realistic.

Parents and carers have told us that they can feel overwhelmed with signposting. So putting twenty actions down on an action plan isn’t gonna feel great.

Try to work together to pick just one or two places to look for support, those areas which are having the most impact. And don’t forget, it might not be the area that you think, and that’s when it comes back to that collaboration and really listening.

Feel free to add what’s already helping in school and reference documents where, that might exist elsewhere. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

If you’ve got loads of extra ideas, they can be added at the next review. And please ask for help. There is a resources pack which has lots and lots of ideas of where you might want to access support for each profile area if you’ve identified a need.

Consider training and resources provided by your local authority on local offer, right choice, your graduated response. Okay.

Give parents the information for families letter because that will help them access the parent carer groups and help them to support and share knowledge and experience. And please feel free to come to our ND pathway drop in sessions to ask for help with action planning and learn from others.

It’s really important that you reach out and email us so that we can send those links to you, and they are available for any professional who is completing a needs led action plan.

As I said, we’d work with the, parent carer forums and councils in the local area to trial the needs led approach, and they have provided invaluable support and insights, into this approach, and we’re thrilled to have been working with them. I’m thrilled that they are continuing to support this approach as we roll it out.

So if you’re in Baines, the Baines Parent Carer Forum has an ND support line, which operates a callback system for parents.

This is detailed on the parent information letter, but we’ve put it here as well so that you know that parents and carers have got another place to go to seek support and, information about the needs led approach.

And then if your parents are in Wiltshire, they can access the Wiltshire Parent Career Council who run their advice line Wednesdays and Fridays, and they will also call back if a message is left. Both of those have email addresses for parents to access.

We’re we’re really keen that, families and young people find out about autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent conditions, whether or not they’ve got a diagnosis because it can help understand themselves. We really recommend Amazing Things Happen, which is a series of short video clips that are suitable for all ages. Really simple kind of explaining about, some needs that may be associated with autism as well as some strengths, and autism understood for older young people.

We also really recommend Autism Central as a fantastic place where there are resources, for autism and, possible autism.

And Autism Central lists many events and, support offers that that state that you don’t need a diagnosis to access this support.

And if people want to find out a little bit more about ADHD, we recommend the ADHD Foundation and ADHD UK.

Again, both of these organisations have lots and lots of support, ideas, and information about ADHD, which can be useful whether or not somebody has a diagnosis.

And we’d also recommend that you look at the ND Pathway website. Our menu is there, on the right hand side, and we’ve got a different, website for Baines and for Wiltshire.

We’re just going to finish now by looking at a case study.

So the first case study is Aisha.

Aisha’s parent frequently approaches her setting, saying she thinks Aisha’s autistic, and she’d like a referral for a diagnostic assessment. The parent says that Aisha’s got a very difficult behavior got very difficult behavior at home, and that’s putting a strain on the family. And they feel like they’ve got reduced social opportunities as a result. They’re not going out much. They’re worried about her behavior. In the setting, Aisha’s quiet. She’s achieving age related expectations.

Pause the video and think about how you would use a needs led approach to support the family.

How did you get on?

I’m hoping that you identified that it’s a really important first step to talk to mom, or a parent and Aisha, if that’s appropriate, depending on her age and, whether she wants to do that.

It’s really important to find out what the family were hoping for from a diagnostic assessment.

It might be an opportunity to do some myth busting. They might feel that they, there might be some additional support that is only available if Aisha has a diagnosis.

It might be a good opportunity to what is ex what is available now whether or not she’s got a diagnosis.

We’d recommend that you discuss the approach with mom and Aisha and give the information for families letter.

Even if mom’s re the family or mom is really keen to think about the needs led approach, she needs some time to decide whether it’s right for them. Then we recommend that you use the observation tables to talk together and understand more about Aisha at home and school. They provide an objective opportunity to talk about her profile of strengths and needs.

And then we’d recommend that you create a profile for Aisha and her action plan, including support to help the family access more social opportunities.

And then, of course, there’d be a plan review do cycle with the needs led approach. Okay. Onto a second case study, and this one’s Aaron.

The settings noticed that Aaron is finding it hard to regulate his emotions, distractible and impulsive. So the same code mentions this at the parent teacher consultation, that the family don’t feel that there are issues at home.

The setting of finding it increasingly hard for Aaron to access his learning.

How would you use a needs led approach to support Aaron? Pause the video and have a think about the steps you’d take.

So, Aaron, again, we hope you’d find a time to talk with the family and, Aaron, if that was appropriate.

We’d recommend that you discuss the approach with the family and give them the information letter so they can access the support and information themselves.

Recommend that you give the family some time to think about it and if it’s right for them.

If they come back and say it is right for them, you could use the observation tables to talk together and understand more about him at home and school.

These are the objective opportunity to talk about his strengths and needs.

You could then create the profile for Aaron and an action plan based on what the needs are.

Again, follow a plan, do review cycle with an ease led approach.

We’ll just finish by, going through a few frequently asked questions.

Of course, if you’ve got questions that aren’t, answered in this FAQ section, please come to one of our drop ins by emailing ND dot pathway at h c r g care group dot com.

So some parents, some FAQs are around working with parents and carers.

Schools have said to us they’re worried that an e zed approach might lead to unrealistic expectations with parents.

One of the key principles for action planning is that the actions need to be realistic. Nobody’s helped by setting unrealistic actions. This applies to parents as well as schools, and it’s another reason why it’s important to work together and understand each other.

Somebody else has asked how they start the conversation with parents, and our experience has been that some settings have found that sharing the manual and talking through the tables are a good place to start for some families.

The information for families letter is really important because that shows the families where they can get their additional support.

And then capturing different views when parents are separated, we do recognize it’s important to include all views.

Our question is around support for parents who are considering the needs led approach, and we’ve talked about the Baines Parent Care Reform and the Welch Parent Care Council.

And somebody else has asked whether they can share the manual observation tables resources pack with parents.

And although some parents have told us this can be overwhelming, it can also another negative is that parents and schools can then work in silo rather than collaboratively. So we recommend the best thing to do is have a conversation first and then give the information for families letter.

Frequently asked questions about the profile kit as where where to find them. And as I’ve said, they’re on the website our website.

Another question is who can complete the needs led approach?

And we have said that this anybody who’s completed this training session can complete a needs led approach as long as there’s collaboration between those working with the child and the family.

This Senko has said that they’ve completed a staff meeting for all staff to talk about the profile, so they’re working as a whole school approach to, support needs in this way.

And then another SENCO has told us that they’ve arranged a meeting with the head teacher to cascade this approach to staff.

Other schools have asked how this approach fits with other documents such in the e EHCP and the ESA support plan.

So we feel that a needs led approach document is useful for identifying very specific areas of needs at any particular time.

As we said, if a child has got another support plan in place, it’s a good idea to reference that in the action plan. We know that lots and lots of work goes into plans, but we found that sometimes parents and carers aren’t sure what’s happening.

So the needs led approach can help reassure the parent as we’ve talked about what’s already happening in school.

We do also ask you to consider that if there are wider support needs in the family, it might not be the right time to also consider a needs led approach.

Primary Senko, on the pilot project said that they found it more parent friendly than the IEP that they were using. They felt it was more accessible and paras are more part of it, which is fantastic to hear.

This question is around a diagnosis required for an EHC, needs assessment.

And the answer is that, no, a diagnose diagnosis is not required for an EHCNA because support needs to be needs led rather than diagnosis led.

If you think a child needs a diagnosis to meet a very specific need, how can you find out more? And we’ve said that, please, can you contact us if you think that a lack of diagnosis is impacting on your ability to meet a child’s needs.

We’ve had some questions about assessment with the ND pathway.

And one question here is that if a needs led approach indicates that a referral to the ND pathway is required, do we stop the plan do review cycles? We’ve said no because the support is still required whether they are on an assessment pathway or not. Their support is related to needs, not a diagnosis. So if they’ve still got unmet needs, then we would recommend that a needs led approach is still followed.

We also want to emphasize that not all children who’ve got a diagnosis or suspected diagnosis or differences will require a needs led approach because their needs might be well understood or their differences might not be creating any needs at that time, and they might just be well supported.

We’ve had lots of people on the pilot asking whether they can complete a needs led approach for a child who’s already got a diagnosis or is on an assessment pathway, we say, yes. Fantastic.

Trying to understand needs and offer support regardless of diagnosis is the aim.

Another SENCO has said to us that they don’t have enough time to complete profiles for all the children in their school who need a referral.

What shall I do?

We want to encourage you to think carefully about why you feel a referral is needed. Why is it needed? What are the needs of the child and the family? Can these be met without a referral? Think about other members of the team who might be able to develop skills in an ease led approach. This training is available for all.

I’m just going to end there with our contact details and, a reminder to please email us for those links to the drop ins, which happen at least weekly. And we’d we’d love to see you there and work together, to offer support and to help you, implement a needs led approach in your school.

So that’s it from me. Thank you very much for watching our webinar on understanding and supporting needs associated with possible neurodivergence considering the needs led approach.