Kent SEND Support

One of the first things we learn at school is that learning means being still.

At primary school it’s about sitting on your bottom and not fiddling with your pencil. Walking not running, and putting your hand up before you speak. Staying in your chair, even when you’re desperate to crawl under the table or lie on the floor.

At secondary school it carries on. Some schools insist that young people track the teacher with their eyes, and won’t allow them to reach into their bag for a water bottle without asking. Every move is choreographed and on command. They say this maximises learning.

We tell children that to learn they need to listen, and to listen they need to keep still. That’s particularly hard for children, and so a lot of their energy is spent trying to conform with that. For some, it’s much harder, and they get in trouble for bouncing and jumping. The movement bursts out of them, and we tell them they can’t learn like that.

It’s not true. If you watch children learning out of school, they move and twirl and jump. They lie on the floor whilst listening to stories and hang off the monkey bars whilst they think. They ask unexpected questions at inconvenient times. They make new connections whilst sitting on the toilet, bouncing on the trampoline or when watching TV. They run around and then come back to a story. They express their feelings through their body.

Schools need to control children’s bodies to manage large numbers, but that doesn’t mean that stillness is the best way to learn. As adults, many of us must work hard to reconnect to our bodies. We’ve learnt to ignore our urge to move and we can’t understand why we feel so terrible after hours at a desk.

The things we learn at school run deep. But learning is about connection, not disconnection, and we can’t leave our bodies out of that.

Let’s reclaim our right to be active.

We need to move to learn, and that goes both for our children and ourselves.

I can highly recommend Laura Kerbey and Eliza Fricker. I am sure this will be a great webinar. :-)

New webinar: A Guide to Teenage PDA ⭐️

We are delighted to invite you to our latest webinar with Eliza Fricker (Missing The Mark ) on all things teen and PDA

Being a teenager is tricky at the best of times. Changing bodies and raging hormones are tough - adding PDA to the mix makes this even harder!

This new webinar will take you through 6 key areas of life with PDA teenager from the latest book and is suitable for parents, carers and professionals responsible for demand avoidant teenagers.

1. Introduction to PDA
2. Understanding anxiety and the need for autonomy in demand avoidance
3. Supporting PDA teens with friendships and relationships
4. Demand Avoidance and family life
5. Demand Avoidance and Education
6. Transitioning into Adulthood

After the presentation there will be time for Q&A where attendees can ask Laura, and Eliza questions.

Monday 9th September - 7pm (BST)

The cost of the webinar is £15 and this includes the recording.

Who’s joining us?

Register today: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-guide-to-teenage-pda-tickets-948981257487?aff=oddtdtcreator

What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time.

We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them that these things are vitally important.

Then we sit them in rows and make them write about the things they can remember for an intense few hours. We compare what they have written down with everyone else of the same age, and then we rank them.

We make them wait a couple of months and then we tell some that they are the successes, and others that they are the failures. We encourage them to hang their self-worth on how they performed. Newspapers publish pictures of the delighted, whilst the disappointed hide their heads in shame.

We tell them that these results will determine the rest of their lives – and then we set up systems that make this true. We provide fewer opportunities for those who did not succeed. Those who did well can take their pick of courses, whilst those who did not are made to take the same tests again and again, just to hammer it home.

We make sure that young people spend the majority of their adolescence focused on exams and under pressure. Every summer, they sit in rows and try to remember. Each year, they’re told that their whole future rests on this.

Many of them inevitably cave in under the pressure. They become anxious and depressed. They show signs of burnout by the age of 16. They lose their spark, and just go through the motions. Some of them retreat altogether.

Then we pathologise them, say that they need mental health treatment or to become more resilient. We send them for therapy or give them medication. We say that they are the problem, whilst the system carries on unchanged.

What if instead we stopped to think about what we are doing to our young people?

Adolescence is a time of opportunity and vulnerability. It’s a one-off stage of life. What if we asked ourselves, should our young people really spend these years on a conveyor belt of high stakes exams?

Imagine we allowed ourselves to look beyond this time and place, and to see just how strange this really is. What would we do then?

Looking forward to a day providing training for HomeStart in Dover today :-)

Online Teen Programme.

⭐️The PAST Mentoring Team are excited to announce our new Programme for Neurodivergent Teens.

⭐️We hope that this programme will provide neurodivergent teens a safe place to explore their neurodiversity and understand their unique set of strengths and needs, and their unique sense of self. We also hope that the programme will give attendees the confidence to self-advocate in a variety of environments.

⭐️Each session will lead by Archie and Kirsty, our brilliant mentors, who will also be joined by Laura Kerbey. Participation in sessions is flexible with no pressure to turn on cameras or mics so that attendees feel safe and comfortable.

⭐️Each session will include a Q&A session where attendees can ask questions either using cameras or mics.

⭐️Sessions will be recorded but will only be sent to attendees who have signed up for the full programme. Please note that the Q&A part of the session will not be recorded.

⭐️The guide age for the programme is 14 – 18 years.

⭐️The cost of the six week programme is £50. Sessions will be recorded in case they cannot all be accessed live.

⭐️Places are limited to fifteen only so please register your interest by emailing [email protected]

The dates for the first programme are as follows:

Wednesday 15th May
Wednesday 22nd May
Wednesday 5th June
Wednesday 12th June
Wednesday 19th June
Wednesday 26th June

All sessions will take place from 4.30pm - 5.30pm

So the powers that be Meta decided to suspend our old page :(
We managed to accumulate 1.4k followers - as we are a charity this was really huge for us.

We have been locked out of our old page since before Christmas (with no explanation) and we've not been able to contact FB.....

So here is our new page 😍

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SHARE FOR US 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Let's get our followers back

We really appreciate your help 💜🧡💜🧡

#1.4kfollowerslost

Our next group for those with school aged children is on Monday 5th February, where we have Tracy from the PDA Society coming to talk about what PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) is and supporting those with it.

🎄There are so many reasons why this time of year is so challenging for PDAers. For lots of children and young people, receiving presents is an incredibly exciting time, but for PDAers this sets up so many expectations and demands:

🎄The demand to say “thank you” even when you may not be grateful.
🎄The demand to wait to open your presents.
🎄The demand to wait whilst others open theirs.
🎄The demand to “look” grateful and the respond to the attention placed on you as you open your present in front of others.
🎄The demand to find space for the new things you now have.
🎄The demand to then use the present that you may have wanted for years which as one of our amazing teen book contributors explained:

“It is so disabling not being able to do the things I want to do as well as the things I don’t want to do, For a long time I have wanted to play the electric guitar. I love music and it is very regulating. I got a guitar for Christmas when I was 13 and I am desperate to play it but I haven’t been able to pick it up and I am 18 now. (Eliza)

The Teen’s Guide to PDA which is illustrated by Missing The Mark, will be published in the Spring of 2024. For more information on how to support young people with PDA, “The Educator’s Guide to PDA” is available now on The JKP Website, Amazon and all good bookshops.

I didn’t know that Father Christmas could be scary but I found out a stranger coming into our house in the middle of the night could be a massive source of anxiety.

I didn’t know that concerns that logistically Father Christmas couldn’t possibly get to every house in one night could ramp up worry rather than excitement.

I didn’t know just trying to be good was making everything very demanding.

This was before exhaustion and timetable changes.

So we watched as the expectations and the unexpected continued to ramp up..

Join Dr Naomi Fisher and myself next week for our next Art of Low Demand Parenting Webinar on Christmas.

We hope to unpick some tricky bits and talk about our options to make it well, less demanding!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-art-of-low-demand-parenting-christmas-tickets-759858456097?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

There is always more than one path to travel in this world. We are all on different journeys and sometimes it is easy to forget that.

I don’t have a degree.
I didn’t get my maths GCSE.
I didn’t leave home until I was 25 (when I got married)

But here are some of my books and there are more to come 💕

𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 Kent PACT - Parents and Carers Together, Information Advice and Support Kent IASK 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗗 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝘂𝗯 𝗮𝘁 Canterbury Children's Centres 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗬!

𝗜𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲- 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲!

ITV News is looking to talk to parents of children with SEND who are currently not at school because the right provision isn’t available. It’s part of a special TV report that will air over the next month. If you want to share your story please contact [email protected]

Our Parent Information Session will be running tomorrow, our focus will be Autism and ADHD. We would love to see you, no need to book, just drop in.

A great event being held at Lighthouse on The Marsh, Littlestone 🙂

🌟🌟Come and join us at the SEND Roadshow event on Friday 17th November🌟🌟

40 places available on a first come first served basis. Please contact [email protected] to book your place. If you would like support to book, please message us and we are pleased to help.

Presentations from:
Kent PACT - Parents and Carers Together
Information Advice and Support Kent IASK
The SEND Information Hub
PIAS - PRU, Inclusion and Attendance Service
Local Offer
Children and Youth Centres

Plus Home-Start Shepway will be in attendance

Please support this event :-)

***UPDATE***
ALL TICKETS SOLD OUT!!!
Thank you for your support 🙂

Our learners are holding a “Spooky Picnic” this half term!

Book your tickets now, only £5 per a child, using the link below 👇

https://www.cognitoforms.com/TheBeacon1/BeaconPlusCafeSpookyPicnic

October Half Term for ages 8-14!
Book here
https://forms.gle/mijQzFdkLZRXKDHQ7
Or scan the QR code

Had a great morning at Hamstreet Surgery speaking with parents about Sensory Needs. Thank you to all those who attended. :-) Thanks also to https://www.facebook.com/KentPCC for funding this event.

Are you a parent or carer wanting to understand more about PDA?

We run a number of courses every month to provide insight and guidance on how best to support PDA people.

Our courses over the next few months, specifically for parents and carers, have a few spaces left. You'll find all the details in the picture and then courses can be booked via our training pages which are at https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/courses-events-for-parents-carers/

We're looking for schools Youth Endowment Fund More Good Days At School: Building relationships to promote health, happiness and learning KCA is in the process of co-producing a significant training and research project co-funded by the Youth Endowment Fund and the Home Office exploring the impact of Trauma Informed Practice...

Share your thoughts about the supportyou may need with Oak Therapies.

🌟 Attention all parents! 🌟

We need YOUR voice to make a difference! 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Are you a parent who cares deeply about family support services? 🤔 We want to hear from you!

Oak Therapies is conducting a crucial survey to better understand the needs and challenges faced by families like yours. 🌳✨

Your valuable insights can help shape the future of support services for families in our community. 🏡💕

📋 Take a few minutes to complete the Oak Therapies survey for Families Needing Support. Your input matters!

By sharing your experiences, you're contributing to the creation of more effective and compassionate support systems for families here at Oak Therapies. 🌈🤝

Please spread the word and encourage other parents to participate too! 🗣️ Together, we can make a positive impact on our community. 🌟

https://us10.list-manage.com/survey?u=bb8f4dcd5a435736cfac6464c&id=d3d4cc4809&attribution=false

A really great post explaining reasons why autistic people may experience anxiety.