Is the Government rationing EHC plans? – Special Needs Jungle

MPs lightly grill the DfE over its SEND Improvement Plan. Are EHCPs being rationed, and isn’t SEND the fault of poor mothering?

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A Minister prepared to provide the answer she wants to, even that is rare usually no answers at all, but really any Minister should fully and truthly answer any question, but that goes against the ‘Code of Conduct, of Ministers. What you find is them not answering the question stated, but a question they wish to answer, the one they have prepared for, even then not truthfully providing an answer.

Really providing a part truth or in most instances a completely untrue answer is what Ministers do, the art being trying to make it sound true and not be caught out.

But with demand increasing and funding reducing there is no way there is any sufficiency in any aspects. Now is this because there is a failure to understand the problem, a complete disregard of the problem or not even realising or not wanting to realise there is a problem. For problems can’t have any chance of being solved unless there is an understanding and an expectance to solve a problem, which there isn’t, for in most, if not all instances they want the problem to go away, so they ignore it.

 

Source: Is the Government rationing EHC plans? – Special Needs Jungle

The Economist

Yes, the way language is used could be a problem, especially within education, but there are many more problems.

What will happen when AI starts thinking for itself and not to responding to Human questioning.

For then AI will really be in control, just as some SiFi moves have shown, then fiction will become reality.

The world is the survival of the fittest and the brainiest, which has dined human kind sice the inception.

When anything gets more intelligent than ourselves then human kind is doomed, either to be taken over or fail to exist.

While we can we need to get control of AI, well before it comes too late and long may not be too late, so now is the time and yesterday would have been much better.

Source: The Economist

Teachers are quitting – here’s what could be done to get them to stay

Reducing working hours might encourage teachers to stay.

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This article is just related to teachers and could relate to many more professions, health and social care to name but 2, but there are many others.

Due to many instances of pay restraints remunerations have reduced in real terms as increases have in no way kept up with the increases in the costs of living, let alone were the salary levels sufficient at any time. This is evident in virtually all employments in the UK, no matter what work is being done.

How UK remunerations compare with other countries.

But it is not just remunerations but welfare benefits also and in welfare benefits the comparisons appear worse than for remunerations.

However, with teachers, many are looking to leave and receive better in other employments, but how could they be encouraged to stay?

Well, a remuneration increase of at least 10% would help but this is highly unlikely to occur, especially with this government and maybe the next.

So, a reduction in working hours could be considered, but with the shortages of teachers wouldn’t that increase the workload, which teachers already say is excessive.

One that is not mentioned is extending the working hours by reducing holidays, which compared to other professions appears to be very generous and would so help working parents but that would be drastic alterations to teachers working terms and conditions.

What would help in the future is governments not imposing pay freezers and automatically allowing remunerations to rise with inflation for everyone.

The other would be to include compulsory independent pay arbitration for all pay settlements where agreements are not being reached, for effectively taking strike actions helps no one and increases resentment in many areas.

 

Source: Teachers are quitting – here’s what could be done to get them to stay

Assaults, neglect and a Taser revealed in ‘deeply shocking’ BBC care home investigation – BBC News

Residents assaulted and a staff member ordered Taser for protection – more care firm failings found by BBC.

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Social Care in the UK is a disgrace, well it was in care home company – Hesley Group, and also at their special school Hesley Village and College.

This was from 2018 – 2021 and

Hesley says changes were made in response to the 2010 investigation and “poor outcomes” it was aware of at the time – and regulators were “satisfied”.

But the report’s author, Kevin Stolz – a social worker who ran Doncaster Council’s investigation team – says lessons have not been learned. When we tracked him down he told us that reports of abuse at Hesley homes nearly a decade later, was “history repeating itself”.

“[The 2010 report] doesn’t seem to have had any impact at all. Local authorities just continue to feed people into this system and Hesley continues to make these massive profits.”

Why are lessons not being learned, could it be that for lessons to be learned there needs to be a wish for lessons to be learned?

Where were CQC and Ofted from 2010 to 2021 are they too not fit for purpose or is it down to funding.

Social care has never been sufficiently funded and since 2010 the funding has been much worse, due to the severe austerity cuts imposed on Local Authorities, (LAs) by various Tory governments and still to this day. During that period Education funding has also been insufficient.

Is this the ‘tip of the iceberg’ well maybe?

While there are many different crises in the UK, many down to severe lack of funding our most vulnerable have to be safeguarded.

Social care is in a severe crisis not just in Doncaster but throughout the UK and this is also severely affecting the NHS.

Austerity cuts have to be reversed and this requires an immediate and very urgent relook at all Government spending.

The UK should be a good place to live for everyone not just a select few who have the financial means to be safe, in the top 1% or maybe the top 5%, we need ‘Levelling Up’ in many ways in all parts of the UK and in some areas much more than others.

All Human Rights have to be respected.

 

Source: Assaults, neglect and a Taser revealed in ‘deeply shocking’ BBC care home investigation – BBC News

Give teachers in England a deal similar to nurses to avoid strikes, says union | Teaching | The Guardian

Patrick Roach of NASUWT calls on education secretary Gillian Keegan to reopen pay talks

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There are many in the UK who are deserving of good pay rises, some, perhaps, even more so than Teachers, Nursers and junior doctors, but, if these others went on strike many in the UK would not notice and many wonldn’t care. This is because, just as we tend to do, we are taking on the American culture of me, me, me to be first, second and third and others way down.

Yes, these workers have suffered by previous too small pay increases and perhaps even no increases and that also is totally wrong for, especially a government should not enforce pay freezers. For that is abuse of power.

Rather than strike, no matter how justified a pay claim is the claim should be put to independent arbitration, such as ACAS and this should the Law in every case as many strikes affect innocent parties much more than the strikers, and those who employ them.

Why should the innocent suffer when they have no say in what occurs for this is total punishment on the innocent.

This so much more so when the employer is the government as governments don’t care, no matter which political party they represent.

So all Parties to pay claims go to arbitration and not make the innocent suffer.

 

Source: Give teachers in England a deal similar to nurses to avoid strikes, says union | Teaching | The Guardian

More than money: the logic of slavery reparations | Slavery | The Guardian

It’s not just about payment. It is about engaging in good faith with the descendants of enslaved people and addressing inequalities – to make a better future possible

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Exactly, no matter what is done to right the wrongs of the past will never be sufficient, but acknowledging these wrongs will go some and then ensuring these wrongs and others never occur again will extend that way.

So, in the present day why are some descendants from slavery still being dealt with so incorrectly, have the lessons not been learnt. Well for lessons to be learnt there has to be a willingness to learn and this is possibly the problem.

In the UK there is Windrush where after the Second World War the UK had major shortages in the labour market, so it was decided by the then government to go to the UK colonies and ask for volunteers to come to the UK to enter the UK employment market and many did so. Originally on the NMT Empire Windrush, but over the years from 1948 to 1970 many other ocean vessels were used and some came by air, normally the children of the parents who came over first. Being UK colonies they had no need for any documentation as technically it was just as anyone traveling within the UK. They were more than happy to come as many, if not all believed in the UK as many called it their ‘Mother’ country. They expected to be welcomed and while the government may have done so, there was much resentment in some areas of the UK leading to many racist acts against them, but they still wanted to stay for they wanted to help and they had been educated to do, as they had gone through the UK education system albeit some great distance away.

But, eventually some of these colonies wanted their own independence and in many respects this was granted, and when granted the persons residing in these far countries were no longer British Citizens.

None of this was disclosed to the person who came to the UK and they well believed they were still British Citizens, but had no documents to say they were.

During the years to come there were many changes to immigration legislation which should not have affected those who came over between 1948 to 1970. If they had applied for passports to visit other countries then they had legal documents to prove they were entitled to live in the UK. Some did apply for current British Citizenship, my own wife did and she guarded that document as she knew it was her proof that she could stay in the UK. She was a child of parents who came over to work and live in the UK and she then followed with her brother and sister later in the 1950s.

But many who did not apply for any documents had no real proof of when they came to the UK and in 2018 the ‘Windrush Scandal’ started to surface. Even though the Tory government of the day knew there were persons legally entitled to be in the UK and that they had no documents to prove so, the legislation that became law to no account of this

Over the next few years the Home Office started to illegally detain these people of the Windrush Generation and many were then illegally deported to a country they had left many years previously, some of whom had been here for 50/60 years and had no real knowledge of the country they were being deported to.

This was and still is a very major scandal and those to whom it happened to were eventually entitled to compensation, if they were still alive, for some were not. But the process of allocating compensation was from as good as it should have been and many had to wait years to receive it, if they ever did.

But has a lesson been learnt, I very much doubt it as this current government is still making major mistakes the Afghanistan evacuation to be one currently and the lack of legal immigrations routes to the UK being another, but there are others.

The UK is bad enough, but from what I hear and see America is so far worse and that is from a country that was founded on immigration, but as history shows the early immigrations had little or no respect for the persons already there, the indigenous population who were there from around 15000BC and not the 1600s when the ‘Mayflower’ landed the first European immigrants.

So, slavery repatriations is so much more than money for the lessons have really to be learnt. Respecting Human Rights also needs to be seen to be done.

Source: More than money: the logic of slavery reparations | Slavery | The Guardian

Government has no plans to review level of social work bursaries despite nine-year freeze – Community Care

The government has no plans to review the level of social work bursaries despite them having been frozen since 2014. Care minister Helen Whately said the government did not intend to “assess the adequacy of social work bursaries for the forthcoming academic year”, 2023-24, in response to a written parliamentary question from Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck. Whately […]

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Yes, bursaries frozen again, but the word coming forth is ‘A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting social workers in their education and training. We invest in Think Ahead – a graduate fast track programme to become a qualified social worker supporting people with mental health needs – and we provide financial aid to students to qualify through the social work bursary and education support grant [which funds practice placements].” ‘

This to some extent is true, but not the whole truth for support has to be sufficient, but that is not part of the promise, so student social workers are let down by the government while studying and when qualified again let down as the salaries to be received are also not keeping pace with inflation.

Government lies or half-truths or is half being generous, which this government will never be.

 

Source: Government has no plans to review level of social work bursaries despite nine-year freeze – Community Care

Inside the mysterious spate of ‘poisonings’ of Iran’s schoolgirls

Female students have recently been hospitalised en masse after reporting smelling gas – so what is really going on in Iran’s classrooms?

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Whatever the problem is there is certainly a problem and this is down to the regime attitude to females, be they young girls or any age.

Lets look at the reverse, if this was occuring to young boys every avenue would be looked at, like yesterday not assumed to be looked at days after.

 

Source: Inside the mysterious spate of ‘poisonings’ of Iran’s schoolgirls

ADHD in Girls: The Symptoms That Are Ignored in Females

While this article is relating to America, it will be so relevant anywhere as many diagnosis are not only being missed, they are not even at the forefront of anyone looking at childhood behaviours and especially so in females.

So many pressures are on children these days, not that there haven’t been pressures well before, but how Society is progressing and especially within the media and other areas, it is so much more important that children are not made to feel being victims and have beliefs they are worthy. There are some fears about ADHD and also Autism, but this is mainly because of ignorance.

Parenting is also far from easy and getting required diagnosis could well help. Education authorities also need to be aware and look out for possible instances where children could well be ADHD or autistic, but care is needed in dealing with these situations, so as not to cause alarm and other feelings.

Done right it will be advantageous to all concerned.

However, financing of health and other areas could be a drawback, especially as these areas are generally well underfunded. But, as demand increases and political notice is taken, one has to hope that the political interventions will be forthcoming along with the much needed finance.

Many great people have been believed to be ADHD, some celebrities with ADHD, but there are many others.

 

Source: ADHD in Girls: The Symptoms That Are Ignored in Females

DfE pledges action on ‘excessive’ workload pressures for children’s social workers – Community Care

The government has pledged action to tackle “excessive” workload pressures on council children’s social workers as part of its response to the care review. The Department for Education said it would set up a national workload action group to identify solutions to “unnecessary” pressures on practitioners, while also promising steps to reduce the burden of […]

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Some good intentions, but I will believe it more when I see actions and even more so appropriate actions, for Government involvement so far as not been that encouraging, perhaps, even more discouraging.

For none of this will be possible without much more funding, which we see this government is not prepared to do and is claiming that the current climate is the reason. But that climate in most areas has been caused by government inactions or inappropriate actions and not by Local Authorities (LAs) and certainly not the workers within those authorities.

The years since 2010 with the introduction of Tory Austerity cuts are to be blamed to a large extent, but also the total inability for all governments to look after social care and even education.

The austerity cuts were supposed to be funded by making savings, but in effect very little savings were there to be made and have been and are being funded by extensive cuts to many services, if not all LA services, by virtually all LAs, if not all of them and with some, so much more so than others.

LAs have been bearing the brunt of all these problems, when in many instances the blame should have been at the doors of the Tory Governments and some others before.

While I so hope all the problems will be solved, I feel not many will be, if any.

 

Source: DfE pledges action on ‘excessive’ workload pressures for children’s social workers – Community Care