More funding needed to support toddlers and young children   23 Aug 2016

More funding needed to support toddlers and young children with special education needs

23 August, 2016

An increased focus proposed by Government on early intervention for toddlers and children who need extra learning support is welcome, but more funding and removal of a staffing freeze is needed to address already long waiting lists for toddlers and young children, NZEI Te Riu Roa says.

With more children being referred to special education, more resourcing was also necessary to ensure early intervention was not at the expense of older students, NZEI says.

Responding to a Cabinet paper on a review of Special Education, NZEI President Louise Green says early intervention services for under-5s are already under huge pressure.

There has been an effective freeze on Special Education staffing since 2009, while early intervention services are experiencing increasing demand and already have the longest wait time for children needing specialist support.

"More than 44 percent of children under five already wait more than 3 months for specialist intervention," Louise Green says.

"Anecdotally, ECE teachers tell us they are giving up on referring 3-4 year old children for assessment because by the time they receive support they are on their way to school, where they must be re-assessed again."

"More funding is definitely needed for early intervention, but shifting existing funding will simply create new winners and losers among students with additional learning needs unless there is more investment in special education," she says.

For example, she said the implication of Cabinet's decision to review the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) which supports high needs students, particularly for 18-21 year old students, was that funding would be moved from older students to younger ones.

The Ministry's communications and behaviour services will also be reviewed and a new role of "lead practitioner" created to coordinate all the resources for each child with additional learning needs. However there is no extra funding for the "lead practitioner" role.

"Some of the Cabinet paper raises more questions than answers. If there are new "lead practitioners" will these be additional staff, or will some specialist staff such as psychologists and speech therapists take this role on, over and above their existing work?

Does that mean a reduction in services for other children needing specialist psychological or physical support? And for children with moderate needs, how will teachers and schools be resourced or empowered to take on the "lead practitioner" role?"

She says NZEI welcomes the more inclusive approach to children with learning needs taken in the Cabinet paper but the public sector staffing cap that has effectively frozen Special Education staff since 2009, combined with an increase in children with complex needs, meant more resourcing was urgently needed simply to stand still.

ENDS

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