Equality impact assessment - early intervention team

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1. What is the name of the policy or service that is being assessed?

Early Intervention Team, Early Years & Childcare, Schools & Learning

2. What are the aims of the policy or service? Whose need is it designed to meet?

The Early Intervention Team is part of the Schools and Learning Branch. The service supports the inclusion of vulnerable children 0-5 years and their families in all early years’ (EY) settings across the early years foundation stage, including pre- schools, nurseries, childminders, and reception classes in primary schools, in line with the Equality Act 2010.

The team is led by an Early Intervention Team Manager and two Co-ordinators for Inclusion who supervise nineteen inclusion advisers and three early support development workers.

The early years inclusion advisors provide support of vulnerable children through their early years setting via training, information, advice and funding for a range of needs which are diverse and include physical needs, communication needs (speech and language), emotional and sensory needs. Access to specialist equipment (e.g. ICT, mobility/communication aids); differentiation of the curriculum, role modelling for the support worker, are all strategies employed to promote positive outcomes for vulnerable children.

The team support early identification by signposting to appropriate professionals e.g. paediatricians and other health colleagues. Early years’ settings use WIPD to identify any concerns and setting Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCos) are well trained and supported by the Early Intervention team to enable this to happen and make sure robust identification is in place.

EYIA co-ordinates services for children and their families, working together with other agencies, through a range of TAC meetings.

There is a rolling programme of training in place for early year’s SENCos of joint training delivered with health and education colleagues to make sure there is  a good level of knowledge within the early years’ workforce and to give consistent messages.

Parents can receive an early support programme offering support and training for parents whose children have severe and complex needs by the early support development workers. The ESDW’s also work to make sure that the early support ethos and materials are embedded in all early years’ provision including Children’s Centres.

3. In what ways might this policy or service affect some groups of people differently? Might some groups find it harder to access the service? Do some groups have particular needs that are not well met by the current policy or service?

Ethnicity – The Early Intervention team receives referrals to support individual children making sure of inclusion in their local EY setting. We collect and use data to support settings and deliver bespoke training where needed. We work closely with our colleagues in EMAS and the Traveller’s service. We can arrange for a translator to be present at TAC meetings for parents for whom English is an additional language.

There are areas within the county where there are comparatively large populations of Fijian and Nepalese families, particularly in military areas. This may present with a language barrier which may make access to specialist provision, materials and services difficult. An issue identified is translating health assessments and other educational materials into appropriate languages and ways of identifying accessibilities for all.

Disability – This is where our expertise is. We promote disability and inclusion in all areas of our work and the wider community through, training, good practice, examples, policies, key working, support and advise, professional development within our own teams following equality guidelines and liaising and sharing information and training with other agencies. The team makes sure that early years settings are and remain compliant with the Equality Act 2010.

Gender – Early Year’s settings are encouraged to develop Inclusion policies that respect and reflect the diversity. We collect and use our data to identify vulnerable groups and target training and support to promote positive outcomes for those identified e.g. boys may be more at risk to underachievement in writing skills – by promoting the use of the team’s ‘hands on box,’ the use of pre-writing fine motor skills can be encouraged.

Sexual orientation - we are an inclusive service and support and train settings to include all children. Our team has access to a range of resources which can be used to meet the individual needs of children and their families. To date, there are no reported difficulties by early years’ settings or by the team in this area.

Religion and belief – All families’ religions and beliefs are valued by the Early Intervention team. This in turn is then championed and monitored by the team when supporting the inclusion of children into settings, the team support children’s transition carefully making sure any needs or potential barriers are removed. Appropriate training can be provided.

Socio–economic - Affordable childcare can be a barrier for some children with disabilities, especially in rural pockets, transport for these children to access specialist provision and other services can be expensive Services need to be provided near to where the children live, families may feel discriminated against because of this. Solution – hub based services

Age – The service supports vulnerable children 0 -5 and their families, Early Support only 0-5 needs to be extended as we have identified some barriers to inclusion around accessing services. Solution - there may be a national move to use Early Support for older children as identified in the SEN green paper which may therefore extending this ethos to a wider age range

4. What evidence do you have for your judgement? Is there evidence of public concern (e.g. complaints)? Have staff raised concerns?  Is there local or national research to suggest that there could be a problem?

• Evidence through visits (NOV) Ofsted reports.
• Questionnaire survey conducted by QI Manager – early years’ settings responded positively to support and information/help they have received from the Early Intervention team.
• Qualitative feedback from early years’ settings, head teachers and parents which demonstrates good practice on behalf of the early intervention team.
• Feedback from the Wiltshire Parent/Carer Council
• ESP pathfinder evaluation
• Quality Assurance; monitoring of the service we provide
• Working collaboratively with other services to identify gaps and work to improve the service provision.
• Traveller service, Army rural areas, still some gaps identified by our service.
• National research from SMHS meeting 5 outcomes not always happening in some ethnic groups.

5. Who have you consulted with as a part of your assessment? What were the results? Have you published the results of that consultation? If so, where?

Listening to young children; Thomas Coram Institute (training in ways to listen to all children) working with other services, ESP EMAS co working within our LA.  Pathfinders website, Sure Start website DCSF information and website materials.

6. If you have found that the policy or service might have an adverse impact on a particular group of people, can you justify this?

We have identified some gaps that we need to address as a service to make sure that there would be no adverse impact on a particular group of people. 3) see box link with DDA reasonable adjustments, accessibilities for all children to services needed.

7. If the impact cannot be justified, what do you intend to do about this? Are there changes that you could introduce which would make the policy or service work better for this group of people? Is further research or consultation required?

Look at materials and resources to make sure they are accessible to all children and families - audit and adjust where necessary; signpost to relative services i.e. (ESP national materials).

8. How will you monitor the take-up or impact of the policy or service in future?

Through training, staff development and promoting good practice, valves and attitudes and recognising and responding to situations of discrimination, making services accessible

9. What actions do you plan to take as a result of this equality impact assessment? Please state any resource implications

• As a whole team we will continue to raise awareness of approaches to anti-discriminatory practice.
• We will continue to follow all guidelines, legislation and policies to reflect and improve service provision
• Encourage hub provision of services through review of contracts with District Specialist Centres and Portage.

10. There is a legal requirement to publish the outcomes of Equality Impact Assessments. Please outline how / where this will happen

Through the Wiltshire Council web site and the Schools and learning branch plan

11. Name of person completing form

Early Intervention Manager

Date

July 2011

Last updated: 5 March 2012