Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Teather and Richard Graham

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

8. What progress he has made on extending support for children with special educational needs.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We have finished consultation on our Green Paper, “Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability”. Twenty pathfinders, covering 31 local authority areas, are under way and will be testing proposals set out in the Green Paper. We will publish details of how we will respond to the consultation and take forward the development of special educational needs and disability provision by the end of the year.

[Richard Graham]

Some of the experiences of my constituents suggest that adopted children are especially vulnerable to developing special educational needs as a result of trauma. Would the Minister consider extending support to adoptive parents, especially information and advice, so that any latent special educational needs of adopted children can be identified as early as possible?

[Sarah Teather]

The critical issue is that children in care have particularly high levels of special educational needs. We need to get better at picking up those needs at an early stage and putting in place the right kind of care and support package for those children so that their needs are not latent and not picked up by the time the children are being put up for adoption. I announced in September which areas would begin the pathfinders. Some of those local authorities will be looking specifically at how they can improve that process of assessment for children in care. I hope that will make significant differences as we begin to learn the results of that for families who adopt a child.