Matilda, GEM, Support and Pokemon! 16th July 2016 Dear All Brief news…. A few parents said they didn’t get our last bulletin, so this is attached.
Before Matilda “Matilda the book, Matilda the film, Matilda the musical…’ from a fascination with Roald Dahl’s child prodigy and heroine, a new work comes to our stage. A brand new musical comedy, with the songs and script written by George Griffiths, Before Matilda delves into what went on before Matilda was born. George Griffiths (aka George G, Children in Need Rickshaw star) directs as the production hits the big stage.” Needless to say, this is entirely produced by a young man with additional needs… Date: Venue:
2 September 2016 - 19:30 Langdon Down Centre
https://www.afclocaloffer.org.uk/events/20609-summer-before-matilda?date=2016-09-02
GEM – deadline 21st July GEM = summer holiday club for moderate learning difficulties (MLD) The GEM Summer Holiday clubs have been cancelled in Kingston (due to lack of interest). However, the deadline for Richmond has been extended to 5pm, 21st July 2016 The application form is attached. SEND Family Voices can’t quite make sense of the eligibility criteria - as such, we recommend that you apply anyway!! Let us know how you get on. We would love to hear your comments and feedback on this offer: Does it work for you? What would you like done differently? Would you like activities offered for children younger than age 8? Please let us know: sendfamilyvoices@outlook.com
#summer Search #summer in the Local Offer to find out what is going on in the summer holidays https://www.afclocaloffer.org.uk/site_search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_site%5Bterm%5D=%2 3Summer
Your Needs Have you had any kind of assessment regarding YOUR needs as a parent (and carer) in the last year? Please send us your experiences of any carers assessments you may recently been a part of especially the new Parent, Carer Needs Assessments (PCNAs) or the Team around the Child (TAC) meetings and/or similar. Thank you to all those that have replied so far. If you’ve been thinking about this, but not yet replied, please just reply to this e-mail: sendfamilyvoices@outlook.com Thank you!
Sitting & Befriending Service – Kingston & Richmond Plea for response (just a few minutes, seconds etc)… “In 2014, Ruils* took over the Sitting & Befriending service for children and young people with additional needs across Richmond. Achieving for Children initially helped with funding, but as budgets were cut so was our money. Current raised funds for the service run out in March 2017 and we are committed to securing money beyond this date to keep it going. To have any chance of being successful in our applications we must be able to show how beneficial sitters and befrienders are. This is where you come in!” The Ruils* survey has been broken up into bite size chunks. You can complete one part of any chapter of the survey – or complete the whole thing. It’s up to you – and whatever you have time for. The Sitting & Befriending service is now offered across Kingston AND Richmond – but the funding will decide what level of service. Please give your views. (Ctrl+Click to follow each link) Week
Subject
Ongoing
Complete Survey
Week one
Family and friends
Week two
Socialising
Week three
Sitter & Befriender qualities & impact
Week four
What Sitters & Befrienders do and for how long
Week five
Have your say
Week six
Costs and training
Week seven
Further discussions
Week eight
Signing up to Ruils
Your feedback will help Ruils design a service which meets your needs and will really help make our bids stronger and more likely to be funded. For any queries over the summer holidays, please contact April Clifford on 020 8831 6073 * Ruils = Richmond Users for Independent Living.
http://www.ruils.co.uk/
Friday evenings… What do you and your young people do on a Friday evening? There are a number of options locally, whether that be TAG youth club, swimming or Mencaps’ clubs. What works for your young person? What are their preferences? Is everything running on the same night? What would you change? Let us know… please. sendfamilyvoices@outlook.com
LDAs Learning Disability Assessment (LDA) cease to have any legal status from September 2016. If your young person has an LDA that has not been transferred to an Education, Health & Care Plan – and if it should be – please contact the SEN Team, or go via the Local Offer Contact Us page.
Teacher Training on SEND From Special Needs Jungle… “The biggest news for our SEND community is that autism and teaching children with special needs will be a core part of Initial Teacher Training. About time too - you simply cannot state in the SEND Code of Practice that every teacher is a teacher of children with special educational needs and not give them the necessary training to succeed at it. This reminds me somewhat of where the SEND Code of Practice has fallen down, by leaving too much to be developed by individual providers, rather than having mandatory standards that must be lived up to and inspected by Ofsted, which will only have a role to play in the other two areas of core content and mentors.” http://www.specialneedsjungle.com/special-educational-needs-finally-england-coreteacher-training/
Pokemon Go “Pokémon Go is an augmented reality game app in which you walk around capturing virtual Pokémon in the real world” Some say it helps with depression and anxiety…. Well, one of us has a teenager with asd, chronic anxiety and depression. This teenager has gone OUT OF THE HOUSE three times in the last week looking for Pokemon… It’s a start! https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/urban-survival/201607/the-psychological-pros-andcons-pok-mon-go As ever, if you have any queries at all, please ask and we'll always do our best to find an answer. With best wishes, Romany (for Richmond) and Caroline North (for Kingston) Phone: 07469 746 145 www.sendfamilyvoices.org