FOCAS Redar & Cleveland, 2007
FOCAS campaign - Focusing on 'unstructured' school time
Parents and carers from FOCAS met with Mariana Ware, Parent Support Project Officer on Friday 13th July 07 to review the progress of the Parent Support Project in Redcar & Cleveland and look at ways of taking it forward in the next twelve months.
FOCAS parents and carers are finalising their campaign for better education for children with autism. The group are keen to highlight the difficulties children with autism have in unstructured time including lunch time and playtimes. They plan to engage local councillors and MPs in their campaign.
Some schools in Redcar and Cleveland have already adopted autism-friendly strategies such as providing designated ‘safe havens', implementing effective bullying policies, and established successful buddying systems. FOCAS would like to find out what parents and carers think about the support provided to children and young people with autism during unstructured time at school by means of a survey. The
results of the survey will be used as part of their constructive campaign for better autism provision in Redcar & Cleveland. The survey will be distributed to all special and mainstream schools within Redcar & Cleveland including 51 primary schools and 11 secondary schools, to ensure a representative response from parents and carers.
Various members of the campaigning steering group are looking forward to taking the survey into schools, and act as ambassadors for the FOCAS campaign.
EDCM Local Authority Charter
English Local Authorities can get involved in the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign by signing up to the EDCM Local Authority Charter. The Charter, produced with the support of Children Now magazine, encourages local authorities to commit to providing a range of services for disabled children and their families by January 2008, and also to addressing the needs of disabled children in their strategic planning and local area agreements.
63 English Local Authorities are currently signed up to the charter. These include six of the areas covered by the Parent Support Project - Ealing, Lambeth, Lincolnshire, Oldham and Poole. We are delighted that these Local Authorities are committed to the charter, which highlights their positive attitude to children with disabilities. We encourage parents in the remaining four areas covered by the PSP project to contact their local authority to sign the charter, and push for its successful implementation within their area.
For information on how to contact your Councillor to support the EDCM campaign please visit the EDCM website.
Thank you for all your ongoing efforts, and good luck with your constructive campaigning!
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