Children with Special Needs in Full Day Early Learning

Margaret van BeersLeeds Grenville Lanark Special Needs Reference Group

September 28, 2010

“The smartest thing we can do right now – to make a major contribution to Ontario’s future – is to ensure that all Ontario children have an even-handed opportunity to succeed in school, become lifelong learners, and pursue their dreams. Our best future depends on it!” Pascal, 2009

• The LGL Special Needs Reference Group formed in February 2010

• It is associated with the Best Start tables of Lanark and Leeds and Grenville

• Purpose: to take a tri-county approach to identifying concerns and questions around full day early learning and children with special needs, to act as a reference to the three local school boards, and to determine how best to advocate for children with special needs throughout the implementation process of full day early learning.

• Membership:School Boards, Infant and Child Development Programmes, Preschool Speech and Language, Association for Community Involvement, Children’s Mental Health, Children’s Treatment Centre, Best Start Planners, Southeast Autism Program, Special Needs Resource Programmes

• As a group of service providers we are very excited about the introduction of universal full day learning for ALL four and five year olds in Ontario, thus marking the government’s commitment to a strong early learning system in Ontario.

Why is inclusive education important?

Inclusion assumes that children with special needs are part of the regular stream and should be treated as such. Inclusion is based on Wolfensberger's principle of normalization (i.e., all persons regardless of ability should live and learn in environments as close to normal as possible)

The basic idea behind normalization is that people with special needs should be viewed in the ways in which they are the same as other people rather than in the ways in which they are different. School can be seen as a microcosm of the larger society. As Canadian society has moved toward a more inclusive view of all individuals, so too have schools moved toward inclusion.

www.edu.uwo.ca

• Modified days and suspensions

• Deemed not “school ready”

• Encouraged to go back to child care provider

Challenges- 1.Reduced hours in Schools

2. Decreased Capacity of Child Care Centres

• Some child care settings may close due to loss of revenue

• Potential challenges retaining ECE staff- wages

3. Ratios

• How will children with special needs cope in an environment with higher teacher/child ratios?

• School ratios of 1:13 even higher than child care settings where currently the ratio for children at age 4 & 5 is 1:8

“To fully benefit from full-day early learning for 4- and 5 year-olds, we must deal with the chaotic mix of child and family services we currently have in our communities. It would be ineffective and costly to layer a new program on top of a web of unsolved problems. We must turn a jumble of children’s programs into a child and family service system that closes the gaps and offers a continuum of services for children from birth to age 12.” Pascal 2009

4. Current Services for Children with Special Needs Concern about the role that current providers

of service to children with special needs will have in the early learning program

Concern about space in schools to provide treatment

How to integrate services that currently exist for children with special needs with the new early learning program in schools

5. Parent engagement

We operate out of a family centred care framework, and our services are community based. How does this translate into the new early learning program?

6. Community Agency Capacity

• As more children in full day learning are identified with special needs, we anticipate an increase in referrals to community agencies and increase in wait time

Family Centred Care• Respect and dignity. Health care

practitioners listen to and honour patient and family perspectives and choices. Patient and family knowledge, values, beliefs and cultural backgrounds are incorporated into the planning and delivery of care.

• Information Sharing. Health care practitioners communicate and share complete and unbiased information with patients and families in ways that are affirming and useful. Patients and families receive timely, complete, and accurate information in order to effectively participate in care and decision-making.

• Participation. Patients and families are encouraged and supported in participating in care and decision-making at the level they choose.

• Collaboration. Patients and families are also included on an institution-wide basis. Health care leaders collaborate with patients and families in policy and program development, implementation, and evaluation; in health care facility design; and in professional education, as well as in the delivery of care.

www.ipfcc.org

Recommendations

• There must be a community protocol for transition planning from pre-school services to school building on what currently exists.

• Accommodations will need to be made as necessary regarding the environment, including physical space, the routines, and the curriculum

• Support by policy

• Families must be included in the early learning program

We need to learn about each other’s models and workplace cultures, and incorporate the best of what we have to offer for families.

• We believe that current programming that benefits children with special needs should be maintained, if not expanded.

To be successful many of the existing community services for children with special needs will need to be integrated into the school day.

Build on what currently exists and so a variety of services providers may need to come into the school.

Flexibility for the child to attend appointments away from school

“Early Development takes place in the context of families and communities and is shaped by the day-to day experiences and environments of early life. The steady drip of daily life establishes pathways for lifelong learning, behaviour and health that are inextricably linked to the development of the whole child” Early Learning for Every Child Today, 2007

Questions?/Thank You