CEY1474

Written evidence submitted by KIDS

About KIDS

KIDS is a national charity, founded in 1970, that provides a wide range of services to disabled children, young people and their families in England. We support children from babies through to young adults, whatever their disability. We provide support, advice and information for families with disabled children and young people. Our services include: drop-in crèches and nurseries for the under 5s to youth clubs, short breaks and support in transition to adulthood. In 2021-2022 we delivered over 225,000 hours of support to around 15,000 disabled children, young people and family members. Commissioners and users appreciate the high quality of our information, advice and mediation services. KIDS is the only organisation in England dedicated to providing such an extensive range of services to disabled children and young people, aged 0-25 years, irrespective of their disability.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to respond to the Education Committee’s inquiry on support for childcare and the early years. Given our area of expertise, this response focuses on the improvements that could be made to better support young children with SEND within early years – an area of policy that is frequently overlooked by policy makers and successive Governments. The SEND Green Paper is a case in point. While early years was referenced and highlighted as important, most of the core investment later described started in primary school.

Importance of appropriate early years education

There is vast evidence that confirms that what happens in the early years of a child’s life lays the foundation for their future health, wellbeing, learning and earnings potential. Research shows that good quality pre-school education can result in children at age 5 having better language skills, a better conception of numbers as well as improved social and behavioural skills.[i] There is also evidence that early years’ childcare settings have an important role to play in a child’s physical development.[ii] Given that children with special educational needs or a disability (SEND) will need additional support to help them in their development in one or more of these areas, it is therefore even more important that they can access quality childcare.

At KIDS, we see every day just how lifechanging the right support in early years can be. For example, we run two nurseries, where we are able to provide specialist support for children with SEND. At our specialist SEND nursery in the Midlands, we have been able to set up dual placements so children can spend part of the week with us and part of the week in a mainstream nursery. We provide support to the child and to the mainstream nursery to make sure the child can get the right help. A family we are currently working with is now looking at mainstream primary as an option because of how their child has been supported to thrive by this arrangement – something they would not have been considering before. It is clear that being able to access this specialist setting was right for that individual’s child’s development. If this type of support was available more universally, significant money could be saved to the public purse, through avoiding the need for more specialist and expensive support in school.

The significant practical and emotional support that early years’ practitioners can provide to families should also not be underestimated. Working alongside families they can ensure parents better understand their child’s needs, access the benefits they are entitled to and in turn reduce stress and mental health issues among parents.

“In more ways than one, we have found the staff at KIDS extra supportive, always ready with a listening ear, patient, kind, thoughtful and always ready with an approach to make the load lighter for us as a family with a child with learning difficulties. This is huge and not something that you can find in a lot of places!” Parent with a child at our Basingstoke nursery

Lack of access to appropriate childcare for children with SEND

Unfortunately, we know that all too often, children with SEND are not able to access childcare that meets their needs and supports their development appropriately.

In England, all three- and four-year-olds are entitled to what is commonly called “15 hours of free childcare”, which amounts to 570 hours per year. Some children, including those with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or who receive Disability Living Allowance are entitled to their 570 hours of free childcare from the term after they turn 2. In addition, children aged 3 of working parents with an income up to £100,000 may also be entitled to an additional 570 hours child care per week. The latest statistical release on early years education sets out that 4.1% of two-year-olds registered for the 15 hours entitlement, 6.7% of three and four year olds registered for the 15 hours and 3.3% of those registered for the 30 hours have a special educational need.[iii]

What is unclear from these statistics is the number of children with SEN and with a disability that should be eligible to the entitlements, although Government analysis has shown a link between a child’s SEND and lower take up of the free entitlements.[iv] In addition, Coram Family and Childcare Trust found a lack of capacity in the system to support disabled children.  In their annual survey of childcare provision, just 21% of local authorities reported having sufficient childcare options for children with SEND in their area.[v] This means that the vast majority of councils are not meeting legal duties under the Childcare Act 2006 to secure sufficient childcare for children with SEND and the system is letting down some of the very children who could most benefit from attending a childcare setting. It is also clear that better data is needed from the Department for Education, so we can better understand who is and isn’t accessing childcare entitlements and why.

Planning and funding

The lack of capacity demonstrated by the Family and Childcare Trust survey reflects our experience that getting the right funding in place in the right placements for children with disabilities can be a significant challenge. For example, we have had parents referred to our nurseries who needed 1:1 support, but the settings they spoke to said they couldn’t provide this. This is despite a number of funding pots that should be available locally from the council to support those with SEND. In a survey of providers by the Early Years Learning Alliance, 87% said the funds that they were provided with were insufficient.[vi] Moreover, nurseries often aren’t able to apply for additional funding until the child had started with them. Delays in getting the funding once they have applied for it are also widespread. All of this presents a significant risk for the provider, as one explained in the Early Years Leaning Alliance research:

“It’s not really the delay in receiving the money that causes the issues …it is more the lack of information on whether or not the panel have decided to honour our application or at what rate until well into the term that it is needed. How do we know whether we can afford to take on additional support staff for those with significant needs or not?”

This demonstrates a clear need for councils to introduce better planning mechanisms, so that they can ensure funding gets to settings swiftly and gives providers confidence that the funding will be in place, so they can put in place the support needed for children with significant additional needs.

In developing stronger planning mechanisms, it is important to note that local councils have a poor understanding of local need. As well as a lack of overall data identified above, there is also no data on the numbers of children with SEND whose parents would like to send them to nursery or to a childminder but haven’t been able to find an appropriate placement, whether that’s because they have been turned away or because they don’t have confidence in the provision available. We regularly hear from parents who are discouraged by providers, who suggest that the setting isn’t for children ‘like them’.

We also know that for some children with SEND a busy, noisy nursery won’t be the best setting for them and so even if the funds are put in place in that nursery to support the child, the environment of the setting is unlikely to work. The need for smaller, quieter settings, whether specialist or universal services with extra support also needs to be looked at by local authorities as part of their planning processes and facilitated Government in funding formulae.

Training and workforce

The broader challenges in early years in recruiting and retaining staff has a significant knock-on impact on the quality of provision available for disabled children. It is our experience, that consistency of support from well trained staff is vital for disabled children to progress in their development.

Some providers may not be confident in their own ability to meet the needs of children with SEND.   Councils need to provide training and specialist equipment to early years providers. They also need to make sure that all providers within their area have access to advice and guidance and good practice examples on how to support the inclusion of all children. More widely, better planning by the local authority on what need there is for placements for children with SEND would help settings plan for the staff they need. Ratios may need to be higher so that an individual’s needs can be met.

SEND Navigator role

Parents are often sent from ‘pillar to post’ in trying to find childcare that can cater appropriately for their child’s needs. Too much responsibility can be placed on them to find what is needed and what they are entitled to, rather than there being the right support in place for parents to help them navigate a complex health, social care, benefits and education system. In response, we are piloting a SEND Navigator scheme in Birmingham. The SEND Navigators we employ work in partnership with the family to build a personalised support plan, before providing practical and emotional support to access the right provision. The Navigator delivers support directly, connects families with local services and the community, and works to secure entry into a nursery, childminder or other appropriate setting. This need can be particularly acute when placements fail. We worked with one parent to get the help her child needed at one nursery only for that nursery to realise it couldn’t meet the child’s needs. We were able to get the funding ‘frozen’ while we helped find a new setting, which was eventually secured. The Navigator service was particularly invaluable with knowing how to get the funding ‘frozen’, so that it could be redeployed to the new setting enabling the child to start nursery.

The SEND Navigator Service also has wider benefits helping parents with a whole range of support from implementing strategies at home that can help with behaviour issues, to signposting to relevant health services to supporting them to access welfare benefits in turn promoting improved emotional wellbeing for the whole family.

“Thank you KIDS, I am very grateful for all the support you have offered. I was lost not knowing where to turn to. My child is now attending nursery and it feels like things will fall into place for her now.” Parent who has received support from our SEND Navigator service

The SEND Navigator Service can be delivered at relatively low cost, but our experience to date suggests we can achieve significant benefits to the families we support. We are expecting to be able to support a very high percentage of families to secure an early years’ placement for their child with SEND. We know there are similar services being provided elsewhere and would urge the Department for Education to work with us and others to look at the feasibility of rolling out this model nationwide.

Support for children with SEND in early years who do not attend childcare settings

Some parents, regardless of whether their child has SEND or not, will choose not to send their child to childcare for a whole range of reasons. This makes accessing play settings to develop social interaction skills and everything else we learn through play even more important. However, for a child with SEND, there will be a much lower availability of play groups and play settings that they will be able to access.

Our charity runs local playgroups and family groups across the country. They provide opportunities for children with SEND to play in a supportive environment with other children who have similar needs. They also provide a lifeline for parents who can meet with other parents with similar experience to theirs. Parents often tell us how they struggled taking their child to universal services, where staff didn’t understand their child’s needs and they felt judged by other parents for their child’s behaviour.

C’s mum told us that she really enjoys the family group, she has met and talked to other parents who are in the same situation as her and so feels less isolated. She has seen C interact in a session that is more aimed at children with additional needs and has seen him explore different things. She also has stated that she does not feel judged by other parents in the way she was at other play groups she has attended. She had stopped attending these groups after parents said things to her that really upset her regarding C’s behaviour and needs.

These types of playgroup are also critical for professionals to attend and observe an individual child to help identify specific needs and what interventions could be put in place to help them.

Given how important these types of playgroup are, it is clear that councils should be supporting them to flourish in their local areas. We would expect them to include the needs for these types of services in joint strategic needs assessments to feed into Health and Wellbeing Plans, as well making sure the need for them is discussed and planned for as part of the development of local offers.

Home based learning

Disabled pre-school children who are not accessing early years education could also benefit from accessing Portage Home Based Learning, if this was made more widely available. This support involves early years educators with SEND expertise to go into the homes of children with SEND, deliver activities to help support the child with specific development needs and provide strategies for the parents to continue with these programmes themselves. Portage workers work alongside the child and family and adapt their practice to the needs of individual children. Here Karen describes how a KIDS portage worker helped motivate her daughter in her physical development:

“I remember one day while at a play session, my daughter Christina was sitting on her bottom refusing to move. Helen noticed that my daughter loved her red hair so she was crawling around the floor shaking her hair in Christina’s face, getting Christina to reach for it not worrying about her banana covered hands.”

Access to home learning could be expanded for children with SEND by introducing flexibility in how the 15 hour and 30 hour entitlements are spent. We recommend that Government pilot a programme to allow some of this entitlement to be spent on Portage Home Based Learning. Portage is also a core element of our SEND Navigator Service

Our recommendations:

1. As the Government introduces changes to the SEND system following the consultation on the Green Paper, they must ensure that early years becomes front and centre of the reforms
2. As part of the outcomes of the SEND Green Paper consultation, the Department for Education should reform the way the different funding for SEND in early years works to make sure it can be made available to providers before a child starts at the setting, allowing sufficient time for planning and recruitment
3. The Department for Education should remind all local authorities of their sufficiency duties when it comes to ensuring appropriate provision for children with SEND and develop a new strategy setting out how they will support councils to meet these duties
4. The Department for Education should review their data collections through the Early Years Census, so that it is clear what percentage of children with SEND aren’t taking up their childcare entitlements, compared to those without SEND and look at ways to determine what the barriers to uptake are to children with SEND
5. To inform Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, Health and Wellbeing Plans and Local Offer, local authorities should:
1. collect robust data on local need for childcare for children with SEND, including identifying the number of families who would like to access childcare for their child but have either been unable to access any or have only been able to access limited hours and the types of need that aren’t being currently met locally and a plan to meet this need. This plan should include looking at how to support providers to have a sufficient number of appropriately trained staff to support children with SEND.
2. identify the demand for playgroups and activities that are inclusive to children with SEND as well as the demand for separate specialist groups, and plan to meet the demand
6. The Department for Education should pilot a programme to look at how the 15 hour and 30 hour childcare funding could be used towards paying for Portage Home Based Learning.
7. The Department for Education should commission a feasibility study to capture existing practices that achieve the objectives of the KIDS SEND Navigator pilot and assess the viability of providing a Navigator for every family with a disabled child.

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