Families hold the key to ‘Every Child Matters’ predicts leading professor

Families have a crucial role to play in helping to achieve the Government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes it was revealed by one of the sector’s leading authorities.
Dr Barry Carpenter made the announcement at a major partnership conference that took place in Solihull last Friday and immediately encouraged everyone involved in special educational needs to work together to harness information and learn from best practice.
The Professor of Early Child Intervention at University of Worcester was one of a number of key speakers organised by the British Institute of Learning

Disabilities (BILD), nasen (the National Association for Special Educational Needs), autism.west midlands and Sunfield Professional Development Centre in what was described as the largest event of its type this year.
“Every Child Matters focuses on ensuring that young people – from the age of 1 to 19 – can be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being and everyone in our sector has a role to play in making this happen,” explained Lorraine Petersen, Chief Executive of nasen.
She continued: “The conference looked to raise and debate the wide range of issues concerning how families with a child with a disability can be supported to ensure that they have every opportunity to reach these five goals. This included four workshops on training parents to manage challenging behaviour, inclusive storytelling, pupil participation in school and the community and personalised learning support.”
Dr Carpenter, who is also Chief Executive of Sunfield School in the West Midlands, provided a fascinating insight into harnessing the knowledge and expertise of families when looking to help support the development of children with special educational needs.
This could range from tapping into their knowledge of their son/daughter’s unique condition to making sure the right diet is provided to encourage good behaviour and effective learning.
“Parents will always be the best source of information on a child, as they will be living with them every day and will often have spent hours researching disabilities and how they can improve the life of their son or daughter,” explained Dr Carpenter.

“Every practitioner – be it involved in education, health and social care – needs to make sure that we take this expertise and build it into what we do best and this should be carried on through the child’s development right up until they are 19.”
He continued: “This approach, which is already being employed to great effect, will place us in an ideal position to give every child the best possible opportunity to lead an ordinary and fulfilling life.”