Supporting the Wellbeing of Children with SEND

Essential Ideas for Early Years Educators

Kerry Murphy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000528329
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

As an early years practitioner, you will educate and care for children with a range of developmental needs and differences. This essential book introduces you to a play-rich approach providing both universal and targeted ideas that will support social and emotional development and ensure that children feel safe, secure, and nurtured.

Using the four broad areas of need as a guide, each accessible chapter positions wellbeing at the heart of an effective approach to inclusion and offers meaningful and responsive teaching practices that create a sense of belonging and acceptance. Founded in the latest research, the book presents key knowledge alongside ideas and activities to support wellbeing, which can be embedded into the child's everyday experiences and adapted to meet their individual needs.

This book offers:

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• Evidence-based strategies and techniques that have a positive impact on the long-term social and emotional wellbeing of children with SEND.

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• Guidance through the four broad areas of need, with a focus on play, learning, and developing an emotionally healthy early years environment.

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• Examples of practice in action.

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• Case studies, reflective questions, and activities that will upskill the reader and empower them in their role.

Providing up to date, transferrable and essential knowledge on SEND in the early years, this is an essential resource for any practitioner looking to expand their repertoire and enrich the wellbeing of children with SEND.

1 Introducing wellbeing and SEND

DOI: 10.4324/9781003138365-1

Starting points

Before we begin, it is essential to reflect on the language of wellbeing and SEND. According to researchers, the term “social and emotional wellbeing” is often used instead of “mental health.” This is potentially due to the stigma of perceived mental illness (Frederickson, Dunsmuir and Baxter, 2009). However, the 0–25 SEND Code of Practice (DfE, 2015) clearly outlines social, emotional and/or mental health (SEMH) as a broad area of need. Educators should be alert to emerging concerns within this area. While some children will have SEMH as an immediate and distinct need, it is not uncommon for other types of SEND to co-exist with SEMH needs. As a starting point, consider the following reflections:

• What are your thoughts on mental health terminology?
• Do you feel comfortable talking about the different components of mental health, including social and emotional wellbeing?
• Why do you think it is vital to establish a shared consensus on the language of mental health and wellbeing?

Introduction

One of the most important messages throughout this book is that childhood takes time and is not a race to some imaginary finish line. Magda Gerber states, “Earlier is not better. All children accomplish milestones in their own way in their own time.” Learning and development is a lifelong pursuit, and children need our availability, advocacy and love for learning. Children are competent and far more capable than we often realise, and this fact remains true when we think about children who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The result of an educators work should be to provide a springboard for children to thrive, but we must acknowledge that the concept of thriving is diverse and its meaning will vary. In the early years, we are often told to meet children where they are and to scaffold up their learning and development appropriately. We will build upon this fundamental principle within these pages and consider how we can do this effectively for children with SEND who can become overlooked when we think about play, learning, development and wellbeing. SEND support is so often dominated by paperwork, planning and procedures that time to actually implement holistic support can become disrupted. And so, this book will encourage you to prioritise time with children and to expand your repertoire of knowledge, skills and strategies so that you can fully support wellbeing and thriving in a personalised way.

You will notice many different chapter features that will make this an easy “dip-in-and-out” book, particularly if you are looking for ideas, activities and strategies for children’s wellbeing. When you utilise these strategies, it is essential that they are embedded into the child’s everyday experiences and adapted to meet individual needs. On their own, they can become tokenistic, and so throughout the book, you will have opportunities to think about how you can build celebratory profiles for your children with SEND. Things to look out for across the chapters:

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  Reflections and activities
  There are individual and collective points in which you can consider your current practice and areas of development. These would be useful in team meetings or virtual CPD sessions.
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  Research snippets and “Did you know?”
  There are lots of examples of research for you to consider when developing your approach to wellbeing. It is important to remember that our understanding and evidence-base evolves, so “hold your knowledge lightly” and be open to adaptations in practice as we come to understand more about SEND and wellbeing. There are also “Did you know?” boxes that challenge some of our current perceptions around SEND.
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  Wellbeing strategies and strategies to avoid
  Throughout the book, you will see lots of evidence-based and anecdotal strategies. You must think about these in the context of children’s everyday experiences and play. There are also strategies to avoid due to being ineffective, controversial or harmful to wellbeing and mental health.
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  Case studies and “voice”
  The chapter includes examples of real case studies that will help you develop your practice and children’s, families and professionals’ “voices” because all perspectives count.
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  Read, watch and listen
  At the end of each chapter, you will find signposts to other resources for your professional development. These signposts will help you to strengthen your practice.
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  The wellbeing scales
  Also included in the book is the scales symbol. This will be a moment for you to reflect on the risk and protective factors that can tip the wellbeing scales. We will discuss these in more detail across this chapter.

Defining SEND and inclusion in the early years

Before we consider the formal definition of SEND, we should acknowledge the Early Years Foundation Stage (DfE, 2021), which states that all children are unique, constantly learning and that learning occurs in different ways. The child should be centred as competent and capable, and we should view SEND through a strengths-based approach. The image below places the child at the centre of a hierarchy of good practices, and as we progress through this book, the different levels will become further contextualised.

The 0–25 SEND Code of Practice (DfE, 2015) provides a general definition of SEN, but as you will see, it is relatively basic and doesn’t necessarily provide a holistic description:

• A child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability, which calls for special educational provisions to be made for him or her.
• A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:
  • has significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or
  • has a disability that prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions

(SEND Code of Practice: 0–25, 2015, p. 16)

As you will have noticed, the current definition is aimed at children of compulsory school age. Within our everyday practice, we are required to anticipate whether a child would fall under this definition by the time they enter compulsory education. It is also important to acknowledge that special educational needs and disabilities can require transient or permanent support, and similarly all children may have specific needs at different points (Sandberg et al., 2010). Generally, however, the definitions of disability are much broader than educators realise. Disability is defined under the Equality Act (EqA) (2010) as;

a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.

It is vital to be aware that the EqA (2010) has a wider coverage of nine protected characteristics include disability, gender and ethnicity. (A detailed guide can be found under “Read, watch and listen” in Chapter 1)

Is the term SEND fit for purpose?

Another discussion point in research is that the term SEND can imply that the child is a burden because they require something additional to or separate from the everyday provision. According to Kathryn Underwood (2019),

thinking about some children as part of a special group who have particular n...