Department of Education, fix your inaccessibility || Education and Health Care Plan [CC] [BSL]

Kirsty Jade

Why the Education and Health Care Plan is inaccessible to deaf and hard of hearing people

Video transcript

Hi guys, welcome back to my channel.

If you are new here and don't know who I am, my name in Kirsty Jade, KJ for short, that’s how 'That Deaf Girl KJ' came about. If you are new here, please hit the subscribe button, make sure that you check out some of my other videos as well and, yeah, you know what to do.

So in today's video, I wanted to go through something called the EHCP document. Personally, I feel like whenever I come across content, whether it is videos, podcasts or like written documents, written legislation, written policy, a lot of it is not captioned and a lot of it is not translated into sign language.

I feel like when it comes to education and deafness, there's a lot of resources out there, but they aren't accessible in terms of YouTube videos, caption content and signed videos.

Many of you will know that I am a Deaf studies and Education student, and I'm currently in my second year, which means that I do come across a lot of education policies, legislation and of course, I am deaf too, which means that I do have my own personal experiences with the EHCP. So, let's get started.

The EHCP stands for Education, Health and Social Care Plan, but how did the EHCP actually come into place and does it benefit students across the UK?

So in 2014, the Children's and Families Act came into place, and basically started a SEN reform. Now SEN, stands for Special Educational Needs, and when that act was introduced it then brought the EHCP (Educational Health and Care Plan).

Which before it was called the EHCP, it was actually called a 'statement of special needs'. So just thinking about that, was this transition from, a 'statement of special needs' to an EHCP, was it a way to improve meeting the needs of students with SEN or was it just a fancy name change of a document. Has any real or transformative change happened since the EHCP came to place?

So, let's take a look, but first, I thought it would be good to give you guys some background on the EHCP, and who it is actually catered to. So the EHCP document can be given to those from birth to 25 years old , so if you are within that age range and you are under SEN, then you qualify for an EHCP.

Obviously that age range means that the EHCP will follow an individual through nursery, primary school, secondary school, college, university and so on. EHCP is drafted and finalised with the cooperation of the person themselves, who the EHCP is for and professionals involved, the parents or the carers.

It seems like it is a very holistic approach, and tries to involve as much of the people, involved in that young person or child's life as possible, which I guess can be beneficial, because, when you're doing a document like the EHCP, you do want to know as much as possible about that young person or that child to be able to meet their needs, and put the right things in that document, so I guess that is one of the good things about the EHCP.

The EHCP procedure also notes that those who are between 16 and 25 years old, now as you can imagine, when you are between 16 to 25 years old, you're gonna be more assertive, more confident, more aware of the things you need as an individual. So professionals that are involved in the EHCP, ideally do want young people to be involved in that process, and give them, sort of, more control over what goes into that EHCP.

It also does fall in line with the Children and Families Act, because the Children and Families Act puts young people, children at the centre of their assessment and planning process, so that the outcomes of whatever they're creating, whether it is the EHCP, or another sort of document that they need. The outcomes are then co-produced with the parents, carers, children or young people themselves. Especially those who are 16 - 25 years old.

An ECHP document ranges from 20 pages to 40 pages long. Now when I saw this, I was a bit like [confused] because. Now you will understand why. So before the EHCP came into place , there was actually a document and it was called the 'statement of special needs' which I said before, and that document was only about 8 pages long. I don't know, I just think that 20 to 40 pages is really really unreasonable, and if you had to think about it, it puts more pressure on the students and the teacher, the professionals involved, to have to go through 20 to 40 pages of information just to find relevant information they are looking for.

Say for example they wanted to find out about a child or young persons, classroom adjustment requirements. They could easily with the previous statement of needs, find that in the second page or the fourth page, but with the EHCP they are gonna have to go through like 20 to 40 pages, that’s a lot,

I thought, why not go through the document. So in this document, there are 11 sections and I'll go through each section.

ECHP DRAFT DOCUMENT COMES UP ON SCREEN, HERE IS THE LINK: https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/microsites/local-offer/media-library/documents/policies-and-procedures/education-health-and-care-plan-template.pdf

So as you can see here, from the document that's on the screen, in section A, it says that it will contain information that gives the views, interests and aspirations of the child and their parents, or the young person. So in simple terms, that would be that, that section A is all about that person, their hopes and their aspirations.

Then in the next 3 sections, which is B,C and D, it will just be summary of the child and young person's special educational needs and their health and social care needs and in section E, it will be a description of the outcomes that have been identified, which means that, like, what they want from their education, what they want when they leave college, when they leave Uni and so on.

So section G includes the health provision that Is required to support the learning difficulties and disabilities , which have resulted in the child, young person having special educational needs.

Then section H which has 2 sections, which is H1 and H2. So H1 says it is a description of the social care provision which must be made for those under 18. Now I'm interested why that doesn’t go over 18? Okay. And then H2 is any other social care provision that may be required, which - Oh okay guys so, this says it includes adult social care provision, okay, so that makes sense, so it will cover anyone who is over the age of 18 all the way to 25. Cool, makes sense.

Then in section I, it will list information of the name and the type of school and where they are gonna go after their transitioning. So, currently they might be at a secondary school, but then they are going to transition to a college, so all that information needs to be included.

Then in section J, we have a personal budget that links any funding provided with this specific outcomes - Oh okay, so it's basically like all the sections before J is listing what support, what provision that person will need and then section J is saying, okay so this person needs this because of x,y,z, and then this is how much they are gonna need to put this in place. Okay, that’s cool.

And then, section K is, the advice and information gathered during the assessment, so that’s probably things like, what the professionals involved, or what the school, college, universities, needs to be aware of. And it will also contain all the reports and assessments that have been used to write this plan. Interesting guys, interesting.

So then we just have general information on that part [indicated on screen], yeah general information and then, oh this is interesting, this part says people who attended 'My education healthcare plan meeting'. Yeah so it just goes through all the sections. So I'll put this link to this document in the description box so that you can have a look at that and just have an idea of what it looks like.

DOCUMENT COMES OFF SCREEN

So you have seen the sections, so now if we really think about the EHCP, unfortunately, even though the EHCP is claimed to have been set up, in order to become a document that provides better and improved holistic care for pupils.

There's actually been numerous complaints from parents about the EHCP. Basically they have made formal complaints about it which is mad, in fact in a report, these guys, I don’t know who he is. Michael King said that in a report, 2 years on since the EHCP came into place, children with disabilities are being increasingly failed by the system that is designed to support them.

To put that into perspective, it’s even worse, when you think about the fact that 57% of complaints that are made about the public services are about the EHCP and SEN. That is just mad, like if you think about it, 57%, that’s more than half.

And just in case you are wondering what those issues are , they range from delays in having an EHCP, and the actual time length that you are supposed to receive an EHCP is 20 weeks. But people are having delays up to 2 years. 2 years guys, 2 years to receive a document, that could potentially increase the support, the provision, the awareness of staff and pupils in an educational setting, 2 years.

So yeah, the delay and then we have the fact that they are listing requirements in the document but they don't actually - but they haven't actually reflected or thought, okay so, this is the support requirements that this person needs. Do we actually have the resources to provide and meet those requirements? That’s what a lot of these councils and professionals, schools are doing. They are saying "oh this person has a requirement of", I don't know," a level 6 interpreter" and then when they come to it, they actually realise "Oh have the provision", "We don’t have the resources to be able to provide a level 6 interpreter".

So that's when the problems start to come in, because they are saying, this is what the person needs, this is a legal document by the way guys. The EHCP is a legal document. So they are looking at this document, and I'm sure that parents, when they receive the document, they think "oh perfect, that means that my child is going to get a level 6 interpreter in school, perfect". Then when it comes to that provision actually being implemented, it’s a different story.

And I'm sure, and I can definitely empathise with that, that can be frustrating, especially if you have been waiting for over 20 weeks to receive the document and then when you get the document you're being told that what's in the document is not going to be implemented into your child's education. So yeah, you have got the delays and the basically, poor execution of the plan.

So the next one, is the 3rd one. So those are the main points, so we have done 2. Now the 3rd one is, communication and lack of preparing for meeting, so this either means that the professionals involved in creating the EHCP are either missing the meetings, they're not attending or they keep cancelling, delaying it, or there is paperwork that hasn't been submitted on time, or they just put no paperwork into the EHCP or a document from the Teacher of the Deaf was needed on a certain date and at a certain meeting and they haven't brought that. That can affect and it can slow the process of getting an EHCP into place.

Now personally as someone who has an EHCP, now, this is where the opinions start coming in guys. I haven't really found it useful, since I was 18, I haven't really found it useful since I transitioned to university.

I also find that, obviously as we mentioned before, the ECHP is 20 to 40 pages long and I find that a lot of the EHCP isn't BSL accessible, like I've never come across any content and resources, videos, I don’t know, that is BSL accessible, so I think that’s something that needs to be improved on, within the local councils, the government and schools in general. This government, the local councils, the education system, schools, colleges, universities, need to take a step back, look at their internal and external policies and processes and actually think to themselves, are we the problem? Because the answer is yes, you are. You and the system are the problem. I mean, if you want facts and statistics. You cannot ignore that statistically, disabled people are 3 times [more] likely not to hold a qualification, like GCSE's, Btec, A-levels, than non-disabled people.

I actually think that’s so sad, we are 3 times more likely not to have qualifications, that’s just sad. How can you as a government, how can you as an education system, the Department of Education, look at that statistic and think, "We're doing a good job of education in the country".

I'm curious, for those of you watching this video, do any of you have an EHCP and does it benefit you? If you are 18 plus, are you using your EHCP in education? I am just interested to know.

Please do share this video to any parents, children or young people, that you think would benefit from knowing this information. Maybe you want to share it to deaf parents who haven't come across any BSL or captioned content about the EHCP.

You never know who needs information like this, so please please do share this. If you have any questions. Please do comment below, whether it's relating to the EHCP in general, or about the deaf experience in education. I'm not an expert on education policy legislation, but I can try and answer questions through my own personal experiences.

So yeah, please do not forget to subscribe. I hope you found this video useful and please, please, please share it to anyone that you think would find it beneficial.

Thank you for watching this video, bye.

END

Example of EHCP Document PDF Link: https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/micr... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please consider contributing to my PayPal pool which will go towards paying my translator, Amrit: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8todV6qr1l ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Donate to Black Deaf People UK via: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8qAzOr4L3y Follow their social media here: https://www.instagram.com/blackdeafuk...https://twitter.com/BlackDeafUK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RESOURCE LIST: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThatDeafGirlKJ MY SOCIAL MEDIA: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatdeafgir... Twitter: https://twitter.com/thatdeafgirlkj