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Warnock (1978) Notes on the text
Appendices Appendix 1 List of contributors
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The Warnock Report (1978)
Special educational needs Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young people London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1978
ISBN 0 10 172120 X
Chapter 10: The transition from school to adult life
INTRODUCTION 10.1 The transition from school to adult life can be difficult for many young people. For those with special educational needs it is likely to be a period of particular stress. Unless skilled support is available to them and their parents at this stage all the efforts made to meet their special needs during their school career may come to nothing. Indeed, the more successful their school has been in meeting their needs, the worse the experience of leaving school may be for them. The support they must have will obviously vary according to the nature and extent of their individual requirements. It may be temporary and specific, for example to bridge the immediate transition from school to a place of further or higher education or to employment; or it may take the form of continuing arid comprehensive help with all aspects of life. In this chapter we start by emphasising the importance, well before a young person is due to leave school, of reassessing his special needs, of guiding him in the choice of a career, and of preparing him at school for the demands of adult life. We go on to describe the pattern of educational provision and the opportunities for vocational training and employment required by young people over statutory school leaving age who have special needs. We then examine the contributions of the various services towards meeting their needs for counselling, health care, financial assistance, accommodation and other aids to living and working. Finally, we consider ways in which the most severely handicapped, who are unable to enter any form of employment, may be helped to achieve significant living without work. 10.2 Provision for young people over 16 with special educational needs has received little attention in the past, as our historical review in Chapter 2 clearly indicated. The field is relatively uncharted and is extremely complex, not least because of the very disparate needs of the young people themselves. The young people with whom we are concerned in this chapter include those with special educational needs of long standing which continue to the time of school leaving and beyond, and also those whose special educational needs become apparent only as they prepare to leave school or after they have left school. They are thus a wider group than those described as 'handicapped' in the traditional sense (requiring separate special educational provision while at school), or 'disabled' in the employment sense (being registrable as such for employment purposes, under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Acts). However, in the context of employment and of supporting services, we have been particularly concerned with young people with more severe or complex disabilities. In this chapter we seek to put forward a framework within which the very disparate needs of the individual young people may be met as flexibly as possible by a range of different services. 10.3 We believe that the young people with whom we are concerned have much to contribute to society, although society has so far all too often failed to recognise this. Our approach to preparing such young people for adult life, whatever the nature or degree of severity of their disability, disorder or other difficulty, is based on the view that they should be given the chance to reach the highest level of achievement possible for them. All young people, whether or not they have special needs, must learn to accept and work within their limitations, but an unduly pessimistic expectation will discourage them, their parents and their teachers from making efforts to succeed. This approach does not ignore the fact that many people will need extra help, a number of them throughout their lives, and some in an intensive form. Rather, it implies that not only should their disabilities be recognised and accommodated, but they should also be helped to use their abilities to the utmost. Though such an attitude is often adopted towards a child at school, in the world beyond school it is regrettably far less common. 10.4 It is in society's own interest to invest more in opportunities for education, training, and other forms of support for these young people in order to minimise their disadvantages. Our own experience and impressions from visits to schools, colleges, training establishments and other institutions suggest that people with special needs are often unemployed or under-employed, simply because they are not provided with the right help at the right time. We are convinced that resources spent on further education and training facilities and on support for these young people before and after they leave school will in the long term reduce their dependence on the social and health services, and thus the cost to the community of supporting them. For example, a small amount of extra help for school leavers with moderate learning difficulties or emotional or behavioural disorders may enable them to hold down a job and reduce the chances of their entering a cycle of frequent changes of job, leading to long-term unemployment and dependence on social and psychiatric services. Responsibility for providing whatever extra help a reassessment of needs dictates should be clearly assigned to one or more services before the young person leaves school. 10.5 At the same time, we are aware that greater independence, particularly for those with more severe disabilities, will not be achieved simply by administrative measures or the injection of more resources. In the end, changes in the nature of education, training and supporting services and in opportunities for work and other forms of personal fulfilment will depend on changes of attitude. Teachers and parents can be over-protective and expect too little; many employers who have never had any seriously handicapped employees imagine that a single disability will mean all-round incapacity and incompetence; and the community at large regrettably tends to think of people with obtrusive disabilities as less than human in their emotional and social needs. We cannot overemphasise the urgency of finding ways of changing attitudes so that such people are accepted as ordinary people who merely have certain special needs.
I ASSESSMENT AND CAREERS GUIDANCE Assessment and reassessment 10.6 The procedure for assessment outlined in Chapter 4, involving five possible stages each requiring a wider range of expertise than the last, applies to pupils who are nearing the end of their school career no less than to others. Thus, special educational needs which become apparent only in the last years at school should be assessed at the appropriate stage of the proposed procedure. In some cases they may arise from conditions which first become apparent during adolescence; in others they may result from illness or from injuries sustained in accidents. It should be a feature of the assessment of special needs in the last years at school that, whether the assessment is school-based or external to the school, a member of the careers service should be involved. 10.7 Where a young person has been found to have special educational needs earlier in his school career, it is essential, as we stressed in Chapter 4, that careers guidance should start early and that his special needs should be reassessed well before he leaves school. We recommend that a pupil's special needs should be reassessed with future prospects in mind at least two years before he is due to leave school. A range of different professions may be concerned if all the implications of the young person's particular difficulties for his future are to be considered and the suitability of the opportunities available to him for continued education in school, further or higher education, vocational training or employment fully explored. We therefore recommend that the process of reassessment of special needs at this stage should always involve a careers officer and should usually include other professionals in the education, health and social services. All the available information about the young person's progress and needs should be taken into account as well as his own and his parents' aspirations for and apprehensions about the future. A compact source of information about his progress will be the personal folder which should be maintained in school, as we recommended in Chapter 4. Wherever possible, the process of reassessment should be carried out in the school. In the light of the outcome, the need for any special programmes of study or therapy should be discussed with specialist teachers or other professionals and the different services concerned should be informed of the young person's future needs so that continuity of support can be ensured. 10.8 Where a young person with special needs, who is about to leave or has left school, experiences particular difficulty in obtaining employment, more specialist assessment specifically directed to employment may be necessary. Indeed, unusual difficulty in obtaining employment may be a sign of the existence of special needs which have not previously been identified. We have observed or learned of a number of examples of specialist assessment. At the Work Orientation Unit of the North Nottinghamshire College of Further Education at Worksop, for example, which caters for young people with a variety of disabilities and learning difficulties, a full programme of assessment of the student's needs and of his prospects for employment is undertaken. It deals with all the qualities required to do a job and hold it down. At Banstead Place the Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for the Disabled now provides residential assessment as well as training for severely physically handicapped and immature young people previously regarded as unemployable or untrainable. 10.9 We consider that, wherever possible, assessment of a specifically vocational kind should be carried out locally so that the young people and their parents have easy access to advice. The school, college or establishment which the young person is attending is likely to be the most suitable setting, but if he is not attending any such institution or if the advice of scarce specialists is required the assessment may have to be conducted elsewhere. In particular, regional assessment centres are likely to continue to be necessary to provide specialist facilities for the intensive vocational assessment of young people with severe impairment of sight or hearing or severe, multiple physical disabilities. 10.10 The normal procedures for professional assessment and consultation may need to be supplemented by case conferences to deal adequately with the needs of young people in special or ordinary schools who have severe disabilities. The conferences need not necessarily be very large. Their professional composition will vary, but they will normally include members of the education, health and social services; and both the parents and young people should usually be invited to attend. Members of the Employment Medical Advisory Service may also be included in some conferences. The head teacher of the school should be responsible for calling the conference. Careers guidance* *We use the term 'careers guidance' to cover careers education as well as guidance, though we recognise that these can be distinct activities, carried out by different people. 10.11 Our strong impression is that existing arrangements for the provision of careers guidance for young people with special needs generally fall far short of what is required. Evidence we received from young people with a variety of disabilities and disorders suggested that even in schools where careers guidance is readily available, fixed ideas are usually entertained about occupations suitable or unsuitable for young people with particular disabilities, irrespective of the degree of disability or other factors. Other contributors to the evidence complained that specialist advice on the problems associated with different disabilities or disorders is often not readily available, particularly to handicapped pupils in ordinary schools. As a result, at one extreme, potential difficulties may be ignored: at the other, badly informed teachers and members of other professions, or parents with inadequate knowledge, may discourage a pupil from attempting a job which is within his or her capacity. It is not always recognised that even if a pupil with a disability or significant difficulty is successfully integrated in an ordinary school, he may still need specialist help with decisions about further or higher education, training and a career. 10.12 The findings of the research project conducted for us by the National Children's Bureau on the employment experiences of a number of handicapped school leavers (1) confirm our own impression. According to the recollections of the young people themselves, the proportion of young people in the sample ascertained as handicapped who had attended schools without a careers teacher was three times that of the non-handicapped. Moreover, a greater proportion of the handicapped than of the non-handicapped young people in the sample said that they had not heard of the careers service or, if they had heard of the service, had not talked to a careers officer in it. 10.13 Careers guidance of a high standard needs to be available in schools, whether ordinary or special schools, for young people with special educational needs. We welcome the request to local education authorities in England and Wales, as part of their review of curricular arrangements, to report on the policy in their areas for careers education, the appointment of careers teachers, and relations with the careers service. (2) In Scotland, formal systems of guidance - personal, vocational and curricular - have been introduced in secondary schools, and the recommendation in Circular 826 for the establishment of approximately one promoted post in guidance for every 150-200 pupils has been generally accepted. (3) It was pointed out in evidence to us, however, that the guidance staff in the schools need more specialist training if they are to be able to provide suitable advice and guidance for pupils with special educational needs. 10.14 We believe that in all secondary schools and all-age special schools there should be at least one careers teacher with special understanding of the particular problems facing young people with special educational needs. He should be enabled to acquire and, at intervals, update this understanding in a variety of ways; for example, through short full-time courses, part-time courses or courses organised on the basis of distance teaching. We therefore recommend that a teacher with special responsibility for careers guidance should be appointed in every special school which caters for older pupils and that in every ordinary secondary school there should be at least one careers teacher with additional training or expertise in understanding the careers implications of different types of disability or disorder. Moreover, these teachers should have very close links with members of the careers service in their area: they should ensure that information about pupils with special educational needs is directed to the careers officer in good time and that the careers officer is aware of the need to collaborate closely with them. 10.15 We have recommended that the careers officer should always be concerned in reassessment of the special needs of young people which should take place at least two years before they leave school. It is important that the officer, or a specialist colleague, should then work closely with each young person before and after he leaves school. If this is to be practicable, information about young people's special needs must be given to establishments of further education or training centres to which they move. We consider the dissemination of such information more fully in Chapter 16. It will also be necessary for the careers service to be considerably strengthened and the number of careers officers increased. We recommend that, as a general guide and on the understanding that adequate support will be provided, at least one full-time specialist careers officer should be appointed for every 50,000 of the school population (or for a substantial proportion of 50,000). This ratio of staff to school population, however, will leave specialist careers officers with a manageable case load only if there are sufficient careers teachers with suitable training in ordinary and special schools, as we recommended in the last paragraph, and if all careers officers are trained to be aware of special needs and their implications, to start working with pupils with such needs well before they leave school, and to know when to call in their specialist colleagues. We return to the training of careers officers in Chapter 14. 10.16 Where children are attending boarding special schools outside their own local education authority area and some distance from their home, it is often difficult for the home careers officer to visit them and regularly consult other professionals in the education, health and social services about their special needs. If the case-loads of specialist careers officers make it impossible for them to maintain contact with children from their area who are away in residential schools, other solutions must be sought. Current procedure is for the specialist careers officer in the area where the school is situated to have responsibility for the children in the school and to ensure that careers service colleagues in the home area of the children are well informed of their special needs. Another solution, where a school has appointed a home-school liaison teacher, might be for that person to have responsibility for ensuring that information is passed to the responsible careers officer in the home area. 10.17 It is important that careers teachers and careers officers should find time to see, and if necessary visit, parents of children with special educational needs and discuss with them the opportunities for their child to undertake further or higher education or training or to enter employment. In doing so they will be able to influence parental expectations, which in our judgement are more often too low than too high and which may dissuade young people from taking advantage of the best opportunities open to them. Moreover, as we explain in paragraphs 10.92-94, we envisage that the careers officer or his specialist colleague will be the person who either provides a single point of contact for young people with special educational needs and their parents, or ensures that someone else does, during the transition from school to adult life. Close links between the careers service and the parents of young people with special educational needs should therefore be established at as early a stage as possible. Preparation at school for the transition to adult life 10.18 It is obviously important that pupils with special educational needs, whether they are in ordinary or special schools, should acquire the basic educational skills. It is equally important that they should develop social competence as well as vocational interests, which will give them a realistic awareness of employment opportunities and help them to achieve personal satisfaction in their future life. In the case of pupils with disabilities so severe that they may never be able to work, basic education and instruction in the skills of daily living such as shopping or using public transport should go hand in hand. Moreover, a special effort should be made to enable pupils who have spent their entire school career in special schools to overcome any feelings of isolation and to cope with adult life, in particular to share as closely as possible in the everyday activities of other people without disabilities. 10.19 There is a variety of ways in which pupils with special educational needs can be helped to gain some experience of and prepare themselves for further education or employment and we consider below linked courses and different forms of preparation for work. Particular care needs to be taken, however, in planning the curriculum for such pupils to ensure that their career opportunities are not unnecessarily narrowed by any restriction of educational opportunities. The range of school courses available should be carefully reviewed in the case of individual pupils and we suggest that this should be carried out at the time of reassessment of special needs which, as we have already recommended, should be at least two years before the end of schooling. We recommend that both ordinary and special schools should give pupils with special educational needs more help to acquire the basic skills and to develop social competence and vocational interests. Linked courses 10.20 Linked courses, which are courses planned and conducted jointly by schools and colleges of further education and in which pupils spend between half a day and two days a week at the college, can be a useful way of introducing pupils to the possibilities of further education and of widening their horizons. It is important, however, that the courses should have clear objectives and should not be focused too closely or narrowly on vocational subjects. They should be planned by the school and college in concert as part of the school leaver's programme and be closely linked with the rest of the curriculum. Both the children and the school and college staff need to be adequately prepared; and arrangements must be made for school and college to exchange information about individual children's special needs or aptitudes. We recognise that the organisation of linked courses may present difficulties, particularly in the case of pupils at special schools who have examination commitments and also need special transport arrangements. We therefore suggest that some linked courses should be organised in the early evening or during school holidays. The importance of providing opportunities for linked courses for pupils with a wide range of ability and the need for careful planning were emphasised in a Circular issued by the Scottish Education Department in 1976. (4) Preparation for work 10.21 In the case of those young people with special educational needs who are likely to seek to enter employment immediately after leaving school significant elements of work preparation, designed to enable them to gain some insight into the demands of employment and conditions of work, should feature in the concluding stages of the curriculum. Work preparation can include arrangements in which young people are placed in simulated working conditions; works visits or 'work tasting' to provide pupils with opportunities to see at close hand a number of different jobs and different working conditions; and work experience in the form of a planned period of supervised employment in industry, commerce or the public service. It is important that, whatever form it takes, work preparation should be positively and carefully planned as an integral part of the school curriculum and in relation to the particular needs of individual pupils. In a number of special schools work preparation is part of a wider programme which includes training in a variety of aspects of everyday life, including use of the telephone and public transport, and talks from members of the careers service and speakers from a range of different occupations. In the best of these schemes the pupils are expected to keep careful records of their activities and experiences; and, through discussions within the school, they are encouraged to recognise both their strengths and limitations. Pupils with special needs in ordinary schools could well benefit from participating in such, a scheme, where one has been developed in a nearby special school. At the same time, however, we should like to encourage ordinary schools to develop their own schemes for school leavers with special needs. 10.22 Facilities for work preparation for people over statutory school age are made available by the Employment Service Agency at 14 Employment Rehabilitation Centres (ERCs) and we consider these in Section III. We are aware that there can be overlap between the work preparation courses offered at an ERC to young people over the age of 16 and the work preparation programmes provided for pupils in their final year at school by the local education authority. In Sheffield, for example, the work preparation programmes provided for pupils in their final year by the local education authority are very similar to parts of the work preparation course at the ERC, to which the authority seconds a full-time teacher. Under present legislation on school leaving dates in England and Wales, however, pupils of compulsory school age cannot enter regular full-time employment or transfer to further education, and thus work preparation courses in ERCs cannot be made available to them. We have considered whether to recommend that the legislation in England and Wales should be amended to enable young people below school leaving age with special educational needs to attend such courses in their last year at school. We recognise, however, that there is already a heavy demand for ERC places by older people and that any appreciable intake of school children could be achieved only at the expense of reducing the intake of young people over statutory school age for the special courses and of adults for normal courses. Moreover, some of those under 16 may not be sufficiently mature for the organised setting and pace of work in an ERC. We do not therefore propose any change in the present arrangements for the provision of work preparation for young people of compulsory school age. In Scotland education authorities have discretion to allow exemption from school attendance in exceptional cases in order to allow a pupil to begin a full-time course of formal further education. We have noted the guidance in the Scottish Education Department Circular 956, however, that where there is any restriction on the number of places available, pupils should not generally be admitted to further education courses at the expense of those who have already reached the leaving age. (5) 10.23 Work experience provided under the Education (Work Experience) Act 1973 is not intended to be a substitute for the provision of induction training by employers. It seeks merely to increase a young person's understanding of industrial or commercial life. It must be integrated with the school's educational programme, and schemes with appropriate safeguards must be approved by the local education authority. While some of us question the value of work experience for young people under 16, most of us think that it has positive benefits and should be increasingly developed. We recognise that work experience can never be entirely realistic for school children since they cannot be paid wages or be subject to industrial discipline and can be placed only in jobs for which no previous training is required. Nevertheless, we accept that work experience can, in appropriate cases and when properly linked with the rest of the curriculum and well organised and prepared, help to bridge the gap between the sheltered world of school and the harsher world of work; and we also believe that it may lead to a more realistic choice of occupation. We hope that more and more employers will be able and willing to offer satisfactory facilities for work experience for school children with special educational needs. 10.24 It is a prerequisite of the effective organisation of linked courses and the different forms of work preparation that schools should have the closest possible links with local establishments of further education and with local industry and commerce. The local education authority careers service has a very important part to play in promoting them.
II EDUCATIONAL PROVISION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE OVER STATUTORY SCHOOL LEAVING AGE 10.25 For the great majority of young people with disabilities or significant difficulties the year in which they are 16 marks the end of formal education. In January 1977 only 5,945 16 year olds and 1,069 17 year olds were attending special schools in England and Wales compared with 15,019 15 year olds. In Scotland in September 1976 758 16 year olds and 168 17 year olds were attending special schools compared with 1,447 15 year olds. Moreover, of the 18 year olds in the sample studied in the research project carried out for us by the National Children's Bureau, five times as many of the non-handicapped as of those ascertained as handicapped were still at school or in further education. (Further details are given in paragraph 10.56.) 10.26 A considerable number of contributors to the evidence submitted to us stressed the need for education to be available to young people with disabilities or significant difficulties beyond the age of 16. It was argued that far more encouragement needs to be given to pupils to remain at school beyond 16, and a handful of contributors suggested a return to a higher statutory school leaving age for handicapped young people. There was very wide support for an expansion of opportunities for such young people in further education. 10.27 We recognise that relatively few young people with disabilities or significant difficulties have achieved by the age of 16 either their full educational potential or an adequate degree of maturity to make a smooth transition to adult life. Some young people with handicapping conditions will have experienced interruptions to their schooling for health or other reasons; some will be slow in developing personally as well as educationally. Educational provision must therefore be far more widely available to such young people beyond the age of 16. This is a principle of which we are firmly convinced. It applies to all young people with special educational needs, and particularly to those with language problems, including young people whose first language is not English, those with impaired hearing, those with specific speech problems and some of those with learning difficulties. Their needs obviously vary, but the importance of intelligible speech and adequate language skills as components of social competence cannot be overemphasised. Parents must be strongly encouraged to seek continued education for their children and the children themselves strongly encouraged to undertake if, either in schools or in establishments of further education. 10.28 Local education authorities have a duty, which is not widely recognised, to provide for all young people who want continued full-time education between the ages of 16 and 19, either in school or in an establishment of further education, though not necessarily whichever of the two the individual prefers. It is essential that they should fulfil this duty and ensure that adequate numbers of places in schools and establishments of further education are available to and taken up by young people with special educational needs. In practice a flexible range of arrangements is required, as we explain below, if an educational setting appropriate to the young person's special needs is to be provided. 10.29 The need for continued education does not stop when young people with special needs enter work. In their case, however, opportunities need to be provided on a part-time basis. Evening study may be impracticable for many of these young employees, but day release from work could provide an ideal basis for continued education. The TUC has for many years urged the case for universal day release for further education for all young workers up to the age of 18 years and in their evidence to us both the TUC and Scottish TUC supported the case for compulsory day release, whether for continued general education or for vocationally orientated courses. We considered recommending compulsory day release for further education for young workers with special needs but concluded that compulsion would be likely to deter employers from engaging them. At present employers are willing to contemplate day release when the qualifications or training will benefit the firm, for example where the employees have entered apprenticeships or where improved qualifications will lead to their promotion. Many employers will, however, need a great deal of persuasion to release employees for continued general education. Any substantial improvement in the opportunities for young people with special needs to continue their education will depend on general developments in the provision of opportunities for further education, and an extension of the present arrangements for day release. In the meantime, we urge that a sustained effort should be made to convince employers in both the public and private sectors that courses of continued general education will significantly enhance the general competence of those young employees with special needs. To this end there should be much closer links between local industry and commerce and establishments of further education, and joint discussion of the courses provided for young workers with special needs. Provision in school 10.30 Until the statutory school leaving age for children in ordinary schools was raised to 16 from the beginning of the school year 1972-73, the school leaving age for children in special schools was higher by a year than that for children in ordinary schools. We would not wish to see any such special provision reintroduced since it would have the unfortunate effects of reinforcing the division between the handicapped and the non-handicapped which we are determined to see eliminated and of making for rigidity in the arrangements for continued education beyond 16. At the same time we should like to see a much higher proportion of young people over 16 with special needs continuing in full-time education. We recognise that for some children with special needs a change of educational setting may be preferable at the age of 16, but there are others who will benefit from staying on at school, particularly where the school offers specially designed programmes for those over 16. We therefore recommend that, where it is in their interests, children with special educational needs should be enabled to stay at school beyond the statutory school leaving age. Since some parents may be deterred by financial considerations from encouraging their children to stay at school, it is important that local education authorities should look sympathetically on the families of pupils with special needs who remain at school beyond 16 in deciding whether to make an educational maintenance allowance. We return to this in paragraph 10.104. 10.31 Our comments in the previous section on the need for the inclusion in the final stages of the curriculum for pupils with special needs of elements of preparation for the next phase in life apply equally to the curriculum for young people over statutory school leaving age, whether in schools or in establishments of further education. There is considerable scope at this stage for the organisation of all forms of work preparation and, indeed, work experience in particular might be offered more appropriately at this stage than previously. We recognise that our recommendation that pupils with special needs should be enabled to stay at school where it is in their interests will have considerable implications for many special schools and special classes which at present cater only for pupils up to 16. They will need to extend the scope of their provision and ensure that suitable courses for young people over 16 are developed. 10.32 At present some pupils in special schools who would benefit from taking a sixth form course are precluded from doing so because their school does not have a sixth form. We believe that wherever possible arrangements should be made for them to pursue their studies with any necessary support in the sixth form of an ordinary school or a sixth form college in the vicinity. We therefore recommend that, where it is in their interests and possible to arrange, pupils with special educational needs should have access to sixth forms or sixth form colleges. We discuss the need for adaptation of examination syllabuses to suit pupils with particular disabilities, particularly impaired vision, in the next chapter. Further education 10.33 A variety of arrangements is needed for young people with special educational needs in establishments of further education. In all cases it is essential that careers guidance should be readily available and that careers officers should participate in the construction of educational programmes. For many young people an establishment of further education will be a more appropriate setting than a school in which to continue their general education. The need for the provision of courses in further education directed towards helping school leavers of low educational achievement and social competence, many of them deficient in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy, was identified in the Holland Report (7) and was emphasised in a Joint Circular by the Department of Education and Science and Welsh Office in September 1977 and a Circular by the Scottish Education Department in October 1977. (8) Courses of this kind will clearly be of great value to many young people with special needs and we hope that they will be made widely available. As the Holland Report pointed out, young people tend to respond better when courses are related to the world of work, and we therefore hope that they will be planned with close reference to local industry and commerce. 10.34 We believe that a positive effort should be made by colleges of further education to develop day or block release courses suited to the requirements of young workers with special needs. We are pleased to know that young people with disabilities are able to take part in the pilot schemes of unified vocational preparation introduced by the government in 1976. (9) These are designed to help those young people who leave school with few or no qualifications to assess their potential and think realistically about jobs and careers, to develop basic skills which will be needed in adult life, to understand their society and how it works, and to strengthen the foundation of skill and knowledge on which further education and training can be built. 10.35 For those young people who, for whatever reason, are unable to take advantage of such courses in further education, we note here the opportunity which exists for them to develop basic skills through adult literacy classes. We were interested to learn that, of the young people ascertained as handicapped in the sample studied in the National Children's Bureau's research project who had undertaken some form of further education since leaving school, over half were receiving tuition in adult literacy classes. The actual number of people concerned was small (13) but it included all ten of the young people classified as ESN(M) who had taken some form of further education. While we hope that curricular developments in schools will result in far fewer young people leaving school deficient in literacy and numeracy, we believe that more encouragement should be given to those who do so to attend adult literacy classes. 10.36 In addition to courses designed to help school leavers to acquire basic skills, a range of courses of a more vocational nature is required for young people with special educational needs in further education. In practice far more young people with special needs are likely to take such courses than to take courses of higher education. Existing provision in further education, however, has developed in a piecemeal and uncoordinated fashion. We consider that opportunities in further education should be increased and a coherent pattern of provision developed. We describe below what this should be and examine the conditions for its effective development. 10.37 In line with the principle we have supported in schools of the development of common provision for all children, we recommend that wherever possible young people with special needs should be given the necessary support to enable them to attend ordinary courses of further education. The support required may take the form, for example, of adaptations to premises, special equipment or help from advisory teachers with specialist training. We recognise that not every establishment of further education will be able to provide the different forms of support necessary. Consultations will be needed between local education authorities within a region on the support which can be provided in individual establishments and on the sharing of special equipment and specialist staff between different establishments. Moreover, area health authorities and social services departments will need to be consulted on the supporting services required. In many cases, however, the most important factor will be the attitude of the staff. We are convinced that a deeper and more sympathetic understanding on the part of staff in colleges of further education could enable many more young people with special needs to take part in and benefit from ordinary courses without the requirement of substantial additional resources. 10.38 Some young people with special needs will be able to master the content and attain the standards of ordinary courses of further education if some modification is made in, say, their duration or presentation. It may be desirable, for example, to extend a course or alter the entrance requirements, say, for the benefit of students with learning difficulties. We therefore recommend that some establishments of further education should experiment with modified versions of ordinary further education courses for young people with special needs. 10.39 Some special courses for young people with special needs will also be required, particularly special vocational courses at operative level. It is important that such courses should not be based on traditional school methods but should take advantage of the adult environment and the range of facilities available in a college of further education. We also referred in paragraph 10.33 to the need for special courses designed to help school leavers of low educational achievement to attain basic skills of literacy and numeracy. In the case of young people with disabilities or disorders, training may also be needed in social competence and independence. We therefore recommend that some establishments of further education should provide special vocational courses at operative level for students with special needs and special courses of training in social competence and independence. 10.40 There is also a need for special courses designed more specifically for young people with moderate or severe learning difficulties or physical or sensory disabilities. These must be backed up by special facilities and support, if necessary of an intensive kind, from different services. If specialist resources for this purpose are to be deployed as effectively as possible, they will need to be concentrated in a number of special units. We therefore recommend that within each region there should be at least one special unit providing special courses for young people with more severe disabilities or difficulties which would be based in an establishment of further education. The special unit would also act as a supporting base for handicapped students following ordinary courses of further education in the college. Some special units already exist, but others will need to be established. The criteria for selecting the colleges in which the units would be based should include the facilities available, the interests and experience of the staff, and the ease of access within a region. In many parts of the country residential accommodation will be a crucial element of the special facilities which need to be provided. This should be organised flexibly, with opportunities for students to return home at weekends if they wish. 10.41 A number of conditions will need to be fulfilled if the development of further education provision for young people with special needs is to be as effective as possible. First, such provision requires a higher status. At present the high level of understanding and skills required to teach students with special needs is not sufficiently recognised and work with such students has a low professional status in further education. We believe that provision for young people with special needs should be clearly recognised as an integral and very important part of further education. Secondly, all teaching staff in further education must be aware of and understand the special needs which many young people have; and those teachers specialising in work with them must have specialist training for this purpose. We make proposals for the training of teachers in further education in Chapter 12. Thirdly, more attention needs to be given to curriculum development in further education, and we return to this in the following chapter. Fourthly, any necessary adaptations to premises must be made and special equipment together with help from supporting services, including financial support, provided as required. 10.42 It will be important, if the necessary support is to be provided, that there should be a member of staff in every place of further education to whom students with special needs, whether they are taking ordinary, modified or special courses of further education, can turn for help and advice on any problem which they face. Moreover, this person should be able to advise other members of the teaching staff about the students' special needs. We therefore recommend that every establishment of further education should designate a member of staff as responsible for the welfare of students with special needs in the college and for briefing other members of staff on their special needs. 10.43 A fifth condition of the coherent development of provision for young people with special needs is a coordinated approach by local education authorities. We have already pointed to the need for local education authorities within a region to consult each other on the provision of the necessary facilities and to consult the area health authorities and social services departments on the supporting services required. We recommend that a coordinated approach to further education provision for young people with special needs should be adopted and publicised by the local education authorities within each region against a long-term plan within which arrangements for individual institutions will take their place. Further, the institutions themselves should publicise their policy on the admission of students with special needs as well as the courses and special facilities which they provide for them. 10.44 There are some national colleges which at present provide further education and vocational training for young people with particular disabilities. With the exception of Hereward College at Coventry, they are run by voluntary bodies. They were intended to provide vocational training, and became engaged in further education only because prospective students could not acquire their minimum entrance qualifications. We consider that most of these colleges will eventually perform a more useful function as part of the pattern of further education provision in their region rather than as national centres catering for particular areas of disability. Experience at Hereward College, for example, has shown that, after completing their foundation year, some 50 per cent of its students continue at local colleges. Moreover, as we have already emphasised in Chapter 3, special educational needs are not necessarily determined by the particular disabilities of the young people. It follows that more emphasis should be placed on making provision for common educational needs than for particular disabilities. We therefore recommend that the national colleges which currently provide further education or training for young people with disabilities should in time all become part of their regional patterns of further education for students with special needs. Indeed, we understand that one or two of the colleges are already moving in this direction. We recognise that, in the case of the colleges run by voluntary bodies, the extent to which changes can be made may depend on the terms of their trust deeds, as in the case of non-maintained special schools. 10.45 It is impossible at present to predict accurately the likely level of demand for further education on the part of young people with special needs, since there is little experience to go on and it may be expected that demand will grow with provision. The best guide will be the experience of local education authorities and other bodies who provide places for such young people in further education, and we therefore suggest that they should monitor carefully the extent to which places are taken up and whether a waiting list is formed. 10.46 There is also scope for young people with special needs, particularly those with disabilities which restrict their mobility, to pursue courses of further as well as higher education through distance teaching; using the medium of broadcasting or correspondence. We have noted that the Scottish Business Education Council runs correspondence courses in business studies, with some tutorial sessions, which were originally intended for the Highlands and Islands, where the distance between establishments of further education makes day release schemes impracticable, but which now cater also for physically handicapped students. Distance teaching offers a useful way of extending further education opportunities to young people with disabilities who might be unable to continue their education by other means, provided that it is accompanied by a significant amount of group work and tutorial sessions, which can help to avoid the sense of isolation that the young people might otherwise feel. Higher education 10.47 Some universities and polytechnics have taken steps to enable students with disabilities to pursue courses of higher education. The University of Sussex, for example, provides facilities for deaf students, as well as a small purpose-built residential unit for physically handicapped students with medical facilities and support staff. We welcome these initiatives and hope that other establishments will emulate them. 10.48 The Open University has always made special arrangements for disabled students. They have been exempted from the usual 'first come, first served' basis of admission and from the normal minimum age limit of 21. Some are excused summer school and receive extra tuition locally instead; some have taken examinations at home or in hospital. A Liaison Committee with the Disabled was set up in 1970 which includes representatives of national organisations and assessors from the Departments of Education and Science and Health and Social Security. In 1972, the University appointed a senior counsellor with specific responsibility for disabled students and we understand that it is planning to introduce improvements in assessment, counselling, special facilities and teaching methods when additional resources are available. The report of the Open University Committee on Continuing Education (10) recommended that the University's concern for the special needs of disabled students should extend to those who enrol for new courses as part of a continuing education programme outside the University's undergraduate programme, and we hope that this recommendation will be implemented. 10.49 We recommend that all universities and polytechnics as well as other establishments of higher education should formulate and publicise a policy on the admission of students with disabilities or significant difficulties and should make systematic arrangements to meet the welfare and special needs, including careers counselling, of those who are admitted. Because of the relatively small numbers of students, it will be desirable to concentrate special facilities and skills. Where institutions have already developed a bias towards certain disabilities (such as the facilities for deaf and physically handicapped students at the University of Sussex) these should be strengthened; and similar centres should be established for other disabilities. On the other hand, we do not wish to see prospective students deprived of any choice between institutions because of their disability. While this may be difficult to avoid for students who suffer from a relatively rare or particularly complex disability, we wish to see as many institutions as possible equipped to deal with students who are less severely handicapped. 10.50 The National Bureau for Handicapped Students has taken a valuable initiative in encouraging all establishments of further and higher education to become more aware of the needs of handicapped students and in providing information on facilities available for such students throughout the United Kingdom. We hope that it will receive adequate financial support to continue its valuable work. Adult training centres, day centres and hospitals 10.51 Young people at the age of 16 who are currently described as severely educationally sub-normal may be at a critical stage in their development, both educational and social, and unless suitable educational provision is made for them they may not only fail to make any further progress but actually fall back. Continued education in a special school will be right for some, but it may be difficult for others to mature in such a setting, particularly if the school caters for children of all ages. At present the only other option may well be an adult training centre, run by the social services department of the local authority. In parts of the country where there is a shortage of places in adult training centres, however, some young people may have to wait at home for a period of up to two years after leaving a special school before they can enter an adult training centre. We regard it as essential that a range of provision should be available to them on leaving school. It should include not only adult training centres and day centres but also intermediate centres with a strong educational bias, such as that provided by the local education authority in Clwyd for the 16-21 age group: and full-time courses of general education in places of further education such as those lasting two to three years provided in Leeds. The latter type of course would probably best be offered in special units on a regional basis, as we envisaged in paragraph 10.40. Enough places should be available in these different establishments to enable all severely handicapped young people to be accommodated after leaving school without a waiting period. Time wasted at this stage may make all the difference between a life of total dependence and one of reasonable freedom and purpose. 10.52 As a survey carried out for the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children showed, in practice there is very little agreement as to what the purpose of adult training centres should be. (11) Although there were some examples of successful educational projects being carried out in adult training centres, these were generally the result of local initiative rather than of systematic planning. The Report of the Melville Committee (12) recommended that teachers should be employed in adult training centres to provide a programme of continued education, and we endorse this proposal. We are convinced that, in addition to providing training in vocational skills, to which we return in paragraphs 10.88-89, all adult training centres should provide instruction in basic educational and social skills as well as a variety of imaginative and creative activities, particularly for young people in the 16-19 age group. A similar educational programme should also be provided in day centres run by the local authority social services department or voluntary bodies. As we explain more fully in Chapter 15, it is important that arrangements for young people should be made separately from those for older people in the centres. 10.53 The need for the provision of education in its broadest sense in adult training centres was urged in a recent pamphlet by the National Development Group for the Mentally Handicapped which suggested that adult training centres might in future be known as social education centres. (13) We consider that the most effective way of ensuring a specifically educational element in adult training centres as well as day centres would be by the local education authority's assuming responsibility for its provision whilst leaving responsibility for the general management of the centre to the social services department. This should have the additional advantages of promoting continuity when young people move from a special school to a centre and making special schools more aware of the educational programme which their leavers will be offered in the centres. Moreover, it would make for closer links between adult training centres and establishments of further education. We therefore recommend that there should be a specifically educational element in every adult training centre and day centre and that the education service should be responsible for its provision. 10.54 The assumption by the education service of responsibility for the educational element in these centres should also help to keep the staff more closely in touch with developments in the mainstream of education. We believe that they should have access to the same range of training courses as teachers in further education establishments, and we return to this in Chapter 12. Developments on these lines would also help to increase the awareness of members of the education service of some of the long-term problems of the young people attending these centres. 10.55 A very few young people with physical disabilities or severe learning and other difficulties require long-term hospital care. They too need opportunities to continue their education, and to maintain links with the world outside hospital. Their individual needs will vary, from those of intelligent young people with very severe physical disabilities to those of young people with profound learning and other difficulties. We recommend that local education authorities should provide programmes of continuing education to meet the individual needs of young people who require long-term hospital care. These programmes would be made available by appropriately qualified visiting teaching staff, for example from an establishment of further education in the vicinity, or, where the young people were able to attend a local college if transport was provided, at a further education college in the vicinity.
III TRAINING, PREPARATION FOR EMPLOYMENT AND SPECIAL MEASURES FOR UNEMPLOYED YOUNG PEOPLE 10.56 Our recommendations for improved careers guidance and increased educational opportunities for young people with special needs are designed to enable them to develop their potential and to prepare them for employment suited, as far as possible, to their individual aptitudes, interests and preferences. Unemployment amongst young people has, however, been high in recent years and has risen much more rapidly than unemployment generally. The scarcity of jobs and factors such as employers' attitudes make it difficult for young people with special needs to achieve their aspirations for employment. The extent to which young people ascertained as handicapped are at a disadvantage in the labour market was indicated by the findings of the research project on the employment experiences of handicapped school leavers which was undertaken for us by the National Children's Bureau (see following table).
In considering these findings it has, of course, to be recognised that the sample contained a large number of young people categorised as ESN(M) or ESN(S), as the details given in Appendix 7 indicate. 10.57 The findings of the research project also revealed that there were considerable differences between the young people ascertained as handicapped and the non-handicapped young people in the control group in the type of job held; almost 60 per cent of the handicapped who had entered employment were in industrial jobs (including construction), compared with less than 40 per cent of the non-handicapped. Within the industrial sector, the handicapped were more likely to work as packers, warehousemen and labourers; the non-handicapped were nearly three times as likely as the handicapped to have jobs in engineering trades. There were further differences between the handicapped and non-handicapped young people in the sample in terms of their share of unemployment. Excluding those young people categorised as ESN(S), 64 per cent of the handicapped school leavers in the sample had experienced some unemployment compared with only 30 per cent of the non-handicapped who had applied for jobs. Moreover, nearly one third of the handicapped had been out of work for six months or more over a period of two years compared with only 3 per cent of those non-handicapped young people who had left full-time education. 10.58 We recognise that with the present high level of unemployment young people with special needs, particularly those seeking unskilled jobs, will inevitably find it very difficult to get a job. Moreover, increasing demand for skilled workers and decreasing demand for the unskilled may well tend to depress the prospects of employment for young people with special needs still further. They will therefore depend increasingly on opportunities for further education and vocational training to improve their qualifications and skills for employment. Training 10.59 Arrangements for vocational training have become increasingly complex and young people with special needs may understandably face difficulty in finding their way through this complicated field. Responsibility for vocational training is now shared mainly between employers, Industrial Training Boards, the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) and its two executive arms, the Training Services Agency (TSA) and Employment Service Agency (ESA), and the education service. The education service is represented on the Industrial Training Boards and on the MSC and its agencies, and many local education authorities work closely with the Industrial Training Boards and the TSA. Cooperation between the education and training services has steadily grown, although some serious problems remain to be solved, such as the differing levels of financial allowances and awards paid by local education authorities and by the TSA respectively to young people attending courses. In the following section we identify the responsibilities of the different bodies and make suggestions for improving the opportunities for young people who need special help with work preparation or vocational training. 10.60 The principal responsibility for training both adults and young people rests with employers. We consider that many more employers in both the public and the private sectors should recognise that people with disabilities or significant difficulties can make a full contribution to the organisation in which they work, provided that they receive not only guidance about the nature of the job but also proper induction and training, sometimes for a longer period than other new employees. Employers must be prepared to invest in the training of such people in order to reap long-term economic gains. 10.61 The Industrial Training Boards, which have very close contacts with employers, are responsible for encouraging the development of training policies within industries and for devising schemes which help employers both to analyse and to meet the training needs of their employees. The provision made by employers for the induction of young people with disabilities and for their training in requisite skills leaves much to be desired. This was borne out by the evidence which we received. All too often, as a survey undertaken by one of our co-opted members of 16 companies in East Anglia showed, young people with disabilities are recruited into areas of unskilled work and have no opportunity to acquire the skills which lead to progression within the company or industry. We recommend that Industrial Training Boards should play a much greater part in encouraging employers to provide employment and training opportunities for people with disabilities or significant difficulties. 10.62 The Training Services Agency, which is responsible for the development of an efficient national training scheme, seeks to promote training by employers either through Industrial Training Boards where they exist or directly where industries are not covered by such boards. The TSA additionally runs the Training Opportunities Scheme (TOPS), which is designed essentially for adults who for whatever reason need training for new employment. So far as disabled people* are concerned, the TSA seeks to satisfy the needs of those who are suitable for vocational training for open employment. The arrangements whereby this policy is applied are under review but, at the present time, the TSA tries to help disabled people in the following ways. *Disabled here and in this section means 'disabled in relation to employment'. This definition is derived from the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944. 10.63 Disabled young people over school-leaving age who are considered able to take up open employment may be trained under the TOPS scheme. (Young people who are not disabled cannot enter TOPS schemes until they are aged 19.) There are over 500 different types of courses available: these are either exclusively TOPS courses (at skill centres, establishments of further education or private colleges), or are provided on an in-fill basis at colleges of further education or private colleges. Individual disabled people of any age can also be trained with TSA financial help by employers willing to provide employment after training. (This is known as the training with employers scheme.) Where residential provision is needed, young people with disabilities can take a variety of vocational courses at the four residential training colleges run by voluntary organisations, again with TSA financial and technical assistance. The colleges are: Finchale Training College, Durham; Portland Training College near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire; Queen Elizabeth's Training College, Leatherhead; and St. Loye's College, Exeter. Together, these colleges train 800 disabled people a year. The TSA also provides special courses for unemployed young people under 19 which are included in the Manpower Services Commission's new programme. 10.64 We note with approval that the TSA's services for disabled young people are currently being expanded and that several new courses are being mounted. TSA regions are being encouraged, in cooperation with the local authority careers services, to review the demand for training and to consider providing flexible and extended courses exclusively for disabled young people who are unable to benefit from normal provision. It is intended that all courses should include training in personal and social skills and, where necessary, basic English and arithmetic. Some courses will provide for students to be assessed specifically for training and employment and will lead to further courses where desirable. 10.65 TSA regions have also been asked to consider with local education authorities the joint funding of some courses so as to ensure continued education throughout training. Such courses will clearly be beneficial to many young people with disabilities or significant difficulties and we urge their early development. A major expansion of the training with employers scheme is under way and local careers services are being encouraged to exploit this form of provision with its assurance of employment at the end of training. Procedures for the entry of disabled young people to courses are under review and a campaign to publicise the courses is in progress. The TSA hopes that some courses will cater for some young people with moderate learning difficulties who at school were categorised as ESN(M). 10.66 Unfortunately the use made by young people with disabilities of the facilities provided by the TSA has so far been limited. TSA statistics show that during the twelve months ending 30 September 1976 only 273 disabled young people were trained by the TSA (although according to the TSA many disabled young people prefer not to be identified as such). Moreover, a survey conducted by one of our co-opted members in East Anglia produced very few examples of such young people receiving training in skills at about operator level under TSA auspices. The reasons for the low use of TSA facilities are complex; they probably include the geographical distribution of the facilities, lack of information about them and the educational qualifications required for entry to some courses. 10.67 We have noted that in the recently published Development Programme, (14) which was prepared by the MSC in consultation with the National Advisory Council on Employment of Disabled People, the MSC indicated that following the publication of our report it would review what, if any, additional special provision was needed in the existing vocational assessment, preparation and training provision for young people. We hope that the TSA will carefully consider ways of spreading training facilities more evenly throughout the country and we recommend that more opportunities should be provided for young people with disabilities or significant difficulties to take locally-based TSA courses suited to their needs. We recognise that some of these young people may require a period of continued education before entry. Much wider publicity needs to be given to TSA training facilities for disabled young people and we understand that the TSA has taken measures to achieve this. 10.68 The TSA is also currently giving special attention to certain aspects of the training of disabled people, including the contribution that it could make to the preparation for open employment of those classified as mentally handicapped, the integration of people with and without disabilities during training and the use of residential courses. We hope that this attention, particularly as it concerns young people with learning difficulties or sensory disabilities, whose requirements are inadequately met by present arrangements, will lead to substantial improvements. 10.69 The contribution of the education service to training is provided mainly by means of courses arranged in colleges of further education or in cooperation with the Industrial Training Boards and the TSA. As we explained in paragraph 10.44, there is a number of establishments of further education run by voluntary bodies which provide vocational training for young people with particular disabilities and which we consider should in time become part of their regional patterns of further education. 10.70 Among the further education and training facilities available to young people with special needs are the so-called 'training schools'. These include establishments run by independent bodies; the former senior approved schools, which have now generally been taken over by social services departments but continue to provide training in a variety of trades; and the nautical training schools, some administered by social services departments and others maintained by independent bodies. Some of the pupils attending these schools have previously attended residential special schools for those classified as ESN(M) or maladjusted; others have attended ordinary schools. Some are placed in the schools by local education authorities, others by social services departments. We regard it as essential that the staff of these schools should have access to the same range of training courses and the same sources of advice and support as staff dealing with young people with special educational needs in schools or establishments of further education. Special measures for unemployed young people 10.71 In June 1977 the government asked the MSC to introduce a new programme of opportunities for unemployed young people aged 16-18 years. The programme, which is based on the MSC Working Party Report Young people and work, (15) is designed to alleviate the worst effects of unemployment among young people. The report predicted that high levels of unemployment would persist into the 1980s. We describe the new programme of special measures below and make some suggestions regarding the educational component. 10.72 The two main elements of the new programme of special measures for young people are COURSES TO PREPARE YOUNG PEOPLE FOR WORK, including employment induction courses, short industrial courses and remedial and preparatory courses; and WORK EXPERIENCE of various kinds, including work experience on employers' premises, training workshops, community service and other special projects. The programme will provide some 130,000 places for unemployed young people aged 16 to 18 and it should be possible for at least 234,000 young people to benefit from it each year. The MSC has undertaken 'that sufficient places will be made available over the year to ensure that no one leaving school at Easter or in the summer who fails to get a job by the following Easter will remain without an offer of a suitable opportunity under the programme'. We hope that this means that a suitable opportunity will in practice be provided for every such person. A uniform flat rate allowance of £18 per week is payable to those taking part in the programme and this will be reviewed in April 1978. Its present level is much higher than that of most educational maintenance allowances made to parents in respect of school children over statutory school leaving age and of most discretionary awards paid to students undertaking courses of further education. (We return to these educational allowances and awards in paragraphs 10.106-107.) Arrangements similar to those made under the MSC's new programme are in operation in Scotland, where school leaving takes place at Christmas or in the summer. 10.73 The MSC is concerned that, so far as is possible, young people taking part in the programme should not be typecast by being channelled into particular forms of provision, since this would affect how they see themselves and are seen by others. The intention is that the programme should cater for young people with different needs and abilities, many of whom may be disadvantaged in various ways. We are impressed by the MSC's determination that its programme should be sufficiently flexible, both in its approach to recruitment and in the design of opportunities, to accommodate this wide range of young people. Some concern has been expressed about the lack of schemes specially designed for young people with particular disadvantages but we understand that the MSC proposes to review this programme in the light of our report. Moreover, special provision for young people already exists in TSA courses and in Employment Rehabilitation Centres - soon to be expanded as part of the new special programme (see below paragraph 10.75): further, the MSC considers that in addition to its basic programme, certain elements such as work preparation courses and training workshops may be particularly suited to young people with disabilities. 10.74 As we pointed out in paragraph 10.33 young people tend to respond better when education courses are related to the world of work. We urge those who are designing individual schemes under the new programme to ensure, through cooperation with establishments of further education, that the education elements are related to work and that provision is made for tutors to visit young people where they are working or training. We recognise that the further education of young people, especially those of low educational attainment, and the organisation of peripatetic teaching will present many colleges with new challenges. They are challenges to be met and not avoided. Preparation for employment 10.75 The Employment Service Agency maintains 26 Employment Rehabilitation Centres (ERCs) which offer individually tailored courses for people who, following injury, illness or prolonged unemployment, find it difficult to obtain a job. The centres have professional and technical expertise which enables them to carry out vocational assessment for all their clients and identify skills, aptitudes and interests. Their clients include young people: in 1976 2,250 out of 15,500 were aged 16 to 18. As part of the new MSC programme referred to above the assistance provided by ERCs to young people is to be substantially increased. The number of places for young people aged 16 to 18 on normal rehabilitation courses will be expanded from 1,500 in 1976 to 2,500 in 1978-79. The number of places on short assessment courses will rise from about 200 in 1976 to about 1,200 in 1978-79. Young persons' work preparation courses, which are currently available in 14 ERCs and which assist young people to grow accustomed to work, enable them to adjust to a working environment and give them the opportunity of working with other people, will have around 1,000 places in 1980-81 compared with 550 places in 1976. Those of us who visited the Sheffield ERC were impressed by the help given to handicapped young people on the young persons' work preparation course and the success of the young people who had taken the course in obtaining employment. We therefore welcome the recent decision by the MSC to extend the courses to all ERCs over the next few years and we recommend that this development should be brought about as quickly as possible.
IV EMPLOYMENT 10.76 We firmly believe that there is much greater scope for employing in open occupations many young people with disabilities or disorders who are at present unemployed or in some form of sheltered employment (which we consider further below). The possibility of successfully employing even those people currently described as severely mentally handicapped in open occupations has been demonstrated in a food processing factory in East Anglia. The handicapped were originally recruited from an adult training centre at a time of acute labour shortage, when others were reluctant to do important but repetitive work such as loading, unloading and packaging. They receive the same treatment as other employees and have proved that they are able to work no less effectively. Provided people with severe disabilities are not exploited through being made to work in poor conditions or for low wages, open employment even in occupations which are repetitive and low in stimulus is infinitely preferable to diversionary activities in adult training centres or day centres, both because it actually provides a basis for independent living, and because it is seen to do so by the young people themselves, and their families. 10.77 We consider that there is scope for the extension of opportunities for the employment of young people with disabilities or significant difficulties not only in routine, repetitive jobs but also in a range of other, more demanding work. At present the range is unduly restricted, principally because of stereotyped ideas about the kinds of work that people with particular disabilities can perform and the common assumption that certain jobs are intrinsically unsuitable for anyone who is disabled in whatever way or degree. In our view the public sector has a special responsibility to give a lead in widening the opportunities available to people with disabilities for employment and, where they have the requisite qualifications, for professional training and entry into the professions. We recommend that the public service and nationalised industries should urgently review their policies with a view to opening their doors more widely to and providing more imaginative opportunities for work for people with disabilities. 10.78 There are already sources of skilled advice for people with disabilities or significant difficulties seeking professional jobs. The Employment Service Agency's Professional and Executive Recruitment's candidate consultants, helped by Disablement Resettlement Officers as necessary, assist such people. Moreover, many local authorities employ careers officers to specialise in advising young people on the vocational opportunities available through further and higher education; and their advice may also be sought by specialist careers officers for handicapped young people. In the last analysis, however, handicapped young people will be able to start their chosen career only if suitable opportunities are made available to them by employers. 10.79 Under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944, employers of 20 or more work people are required to employ a quota (at present 3 per cent of their total work force) of registered disabled persons. The quota system has the disadvantage that it may lead to undesirable pressure on people with disabilities to register as disabled in order to enable their employers to meet the quota. We concur, however, with the view expressed in evidence by representatives of the CBI, TUC and the Scottish TUC/CBI joint committee on the employment of the disabled that the quota has a part to play as one way of encouraging the employment of people with disabilities, but that it needs to be complemented by other, more positive measures. We have been impressed by the efforts of the Scottish TUC/CBI joint committee on the employment of disabled people to promote the creation of more opportunities in Scotland by urging employers to discuss with local Disablement Resettlement Officers the problems of the disabled and possible ways of helping them. We also welcome the Employment Service Agency's developing strategy of ensuring that employers are aware of the employment needs of disabled people and of ways of meeting them. This was brought into prominence in May 1977 by the publication of Positive policies, a guide to employing disabled people. (16) It marked the beginning of a programme of visits, carried out with the support of the TUC and CBI, by ESA Managers and Disablement Resettlement Officers to employers throughout the country to bring to their notice the employment needs of those who are disabled. We recommend that the ESA's strategy of alerting employers to the employment needs of the disabled should be further developed and that there should be more contact at local level between employers or, where the management of large companies is decentralised, local managers and both ESA officers and careers officers. 10.80 It is sometimes argued that, since employees who are disabled take longer to train than other workers, some form of financial incentive should be offered to encourage employers to engage them. In evidence to us the suggestion was made of an employment subsidy for young people with disabilities on the lines of the various types of employment subsidy schemes which have been operated to prevent redundancies or to encourage recruitment of young people who have been unemployed for a considerable period of time. We welcome the experimental Job Introduction Scheme for disabled people, under which employers can be paid £30 a week for a total of six weeks to give a disabled person a trial period in which to show that he can do a job. We have, however, found a general lack of enthusiasm for the idea of a long-term subsidy in respect of young employees with disabilities, on the grounds that it would serve to emphasise their disability rather than their ability and could adversely influence the attitude of other employees. We agree that it would be retrograde to institute such a payment and think that resources would be better spent on rehabilitation and training and on grants to employers towards the adaptation of their premises. We welcome the scheme introduced by the Employment Service Agency under which capital grants of up to £5,000 may be paid to cover all, or part, of the costs incurred by employers in altering their premises or equipment in order to engage or retain a disabled worker. 10.81 It has been suggested in evidence by representatives of employers' organisations that the requirements imposed on employers by recent industrial legislation have among other things inhibited them from recruiting disabled young people. We urge all employers in the public and private sectors to adopt a positive attitude to the employment of young people with disabilities and not to be deterred by legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. This Act does not, in our view, prejudice wider employment opportunities for such people and, indeed, in some cases it provides for assistance to be given to employer and employee. 10.82 The most effective way of encouraging employers to take on more young people with disabilities or significant difficulties and to employ them in a wider range of occupations is, in our view, to give them more information about the practical implications of doing so. Those who submitted evidence to us emphasised the need for employers to be educated to accept such people as employees. The enquiries of employers made in the course of the research project carried out by the National Children's Bureau revealed that many of them had little idea of the type of work which people with disabilities could successfully undertake and were unaware of the support available. We consider that both the TUC and CBI should seek to increase employers' knowledge of the needs of those with disabilities or significant difficulties and support the government's efforts to do so. The Employment Service Agency already produces leaflets for employers containing practical information about the employment of disabled people, some of which include success stories. We particularly welcome the publication of Positive policies issued jointly in May 1977 by the Manpower Services Commission and the National Advisory Council on Employment of Disabled People. (17) This guide, which was sent to those employers who employ 20 or more workers (about 55,000), has the full support and encouragement of the government, the CBI and the TUC. It represents a major new initiative, intended to focus attention on the needs and aspirations of all disabled workers. The guide encourages employers to develop policies on the recruitment, training and career prospects of disabled people. More consideration needs to be given to ways of extending the opportunities for employment open to people with disabilities or disorders and we recommend that local education authorities and their careers services should play a greater part in promoting discussions with employers' and employees' organisations about how best to persuade employers to take on young people with disabilities, in conjunction with the MSC and, where necessary, the social services. 10.83 Other workers as well as employers need to understand the implications of disabilities for employment. We suggest that discussions should be held between employers and workers before disabled people, particularly those with severe disabilities, are employed in normal jobs, to ensure that the implications are clearly understood. These include any special arrangements to meet the disabled employees' needs and agreement on the conditions under which they are to be employed. An approach that combines compassion with a business-like attitude, rather than one grounded in sentimentality, is most likely to provide the disabled young person with the opportunity to give of his best in a job and to lead to the removal of those obstacles which arise simply from ignorance of his needs. Sheltered employment 10.84 Sheltered employment is provided in sheltered workshops for disabled people run by Remploy, local authorities and voluntary bodies. Although some of the work provided in sheltered workshops is highly skilled, much of it is routine contract work. We regard sheltered employment as very much a second best to open employment, but we recognise that it is preferable to unemployment or inactivity. It can be constructive and satisfying, and by helping handicapped young people to develop their manual skills, social competence and self-confidence can point the way to open employment for some. 10.85 At present the provision of sheltered workshops is inadequate, especially in rural areas, and more resources and effort are required to extend the facilities. We consider that young people with disabilities or disorders should be encouraged more strongly to take advantage of the residential facilities where these are available. 10.86 We hold that the range of work in sheltered employment also needs to be extended if people with disabilities are to gain wider experience, in skilled as well as unskilled work. We support the government's policy of increasing the rehabilitative element in sheltered workshops and consider that opportunities for people to progress from sheltered provision to open employment should be increased. Some sheltered workshops actively promote this progression but others are insufficiently ambitious. The fact that earnings in a sheltered workshop can often be almost as high as in open employment is a disincentive to movement from the workshops; so too is the security which they provide. We would naturally deplore any worsening of conditions in sheltered workshops, but would point out that unless there is progression out of them, they will have no room for new entrants. We therefore recommend that sheltered workshops should introduce progressive programmes of activities designed to enable as many people with disabilities as possible to enter open employment. 10.87 Those of us who visited West Germany were very much impressed by a workshop for the disabled at Dusseldorf, which is one of two run by the Association for Mentally Handicapped and is jointly funded by that Association and the Association for Cerebral Palsied, the government and the municipal authority. It aims to provide work experience and training for a full range of handicapped young people and to develop their independence so that they are ultimately able to maintain themselves in the community. Following an introductory course during which their needs and abilities are assessed, entrants are allocated to a specialised training group where they learn to perform specific operations under skilled craftsmen. When ready, they join a working team. Part of each week is allocated to the development of leisure skills and social competence under the guidance of two social workers. Medical and nursing support is also provided. We consider that the approach to work, training and personal and social development in this workshop could very usefully be followed by staff in sheltered workshops in this country. Adult training centres 10.88 Although some adult training centres for mentally handicapped people may provide routine contract work similar to that provided in sheltered workshops, too many of them offer only diversionary and social activities. Some try to inculcate basic skills and equip handicapped people for greater independence but all too often these are seen as ends in themselves rather than the means of achieving rehabilitation. For example, the staff of one adult training centre which some of us visited had rejected any form of industrial production and placed their main emphasis on craft activities. While their programme was clearly more imaginative than that of some more traditional adult training centres, there was little pressure on the trainees and the atmosphere was lethargic. 10.89 Adult training centres, like sheltered workshops, should provide progressive programmes of activities which encourage as many people as possible to enter open employment, and we urge their development as soon as possible. We think that consideration should be given to the development of a new course for instructors in adult training centres, on the lines recommended by the Report of the Melville Committee, possibly lasting two years with up to half consisting of supervised experience in various centres. (18) Moreover, as we have recommended in paragraph 10.53, there should be a specifically educational element in every adult training centre, and the education service should be responsible for its provision. It is important that the educational and training needs of young people attending the centres should be regularly reviewed and arrangements made for their transfer to another establishment where this is considered appropriate. Other work centres 10.90 The experience of some of our members has revealed a growing number of young people who are too severely physically handicapped to be accepted by sheltered workshops run by Remploy or local authorities but who are intellectually unsatisfied by attendance at a day or adult training centre. They want to work and to be rewarded for their work in the usual way by receiving a weekly wage. There are also growing numbers of young people who at school were categorised as ESN(M) and who are socially and emotionally immature, and of maladjusted young people who do not fit into adult training centres and, unhappy and under-challenged, cause disturbances within them. They too would benefit from an industrially orientated but sheltered environment before proceeding to open employment. The work centres pioneered by the Spastics Society and its local groups are helping to meet the needs of some of these young people. Their main aim is to give those who are not ready for employment or who are too severely handicapped to earn a normal living an opportunity to work and receive a small wage and to gain experience before moving on wherever possible to sheltered or open employment. Day release and other educational facilities are available in some of the centres and the Society hopes to extend them. We see considerable scope in future for the development of work centres on these lines, whether by social services departments or voluntary organisations or in other ways, to help meet the needs of those handicapped young people for whom sheltered employment or an adult training centre is not for the time being appropriate.
V SUPPORTING SERVICES 10.91 If young people with special needs are to make full use of their abilities they will require support in several ways. This is true whether they are being educated or trained, are in open or sheltered employment or are not actively engaged in any work. In this section we examine the various forms of support that may be required, particularly by those with more severe or complex disabilities. We start by considering the needs of young people (or of their parents acting on their behalf) for a Named Person who, during the transition from school to adult life, will be able to help them take full advantage of the available opportunities for further or higher education, training or employment. A Named Person 10.92 There is a danger that, at the moment of leaving school, young people, particularly those with more severe or complex disabilities, may find themselves receiving far less support than at any time before. The Court Report, which drew attention to the need of many handicapped adolescents for psychiatric, genetic and psycho-sexual counselling to prepare them for adulthood, recommended that these services should be available through school and hospital but that, like all other adolescents, the handicapped should be able and encouraged to seek help and guidance on their own initiative. (19) We agree that handicapped young people should have direct access to professionals in the different services. At the same time we consider that someone should be designated as Named Person to whom they can turn for advice on which service or which professional to approach for help. 10.93 Moreover, at the school leaving stage, as much as at earlier stages, parents of young people with special needs require advice and practical guidance on the arrangements for their child's future. Like the young people themselves, they need a Named Person to be their point of contact and to arrange access to the professional best placed to offer them advice and support. 10.94 The careers officer or, in the case of young people with more severe or complex disabilities, the specialist careers officer, is likely to be the person best placed to provide a continuing link for young people with special needs and their parents during the transition from school to adult life. Guidelines issued by the Department of Employment suggest that the careers officer's responsibility for a young person should continue for up to two years after he has left full-time education (whether at school or in further or higher education) or longer if he left full-time education while still in his teens. There is no statutory upper limit to the age at which the careers officer may help and advise a young person, and in the case of a handicapped young person the point at which the Disablement Resettlement Officer rather than the specialist careers officer assumes the main responsibility will be decided by mutual agreement between the two officers following a period of cooperation. The careers officer or his specialist colleague should therefore be able to provide a single point of contact for a sufficient period of time to help the young person with special needs until he is settled in employment. We recognise, however, that a young person may well choose to go for advice or help to someone with whom he has developed a special rapport, such as a teacher at his old school or a social worker. We therefore recommend that the careers officer or, in the case of young people with more severe or complex disabilities, the specialist careers officer should act as Named Person for young people with special needs and their parents or should ensure that another professional takes on the function of providing a single point of contact for them during the transition from school to adult life. Counselling young people 10.95 Young people with special needs may require advice on a range of personal matters including health, and personal and sexual relationships. Counselling on these subjects needs to be readily available, and it should be a function of the Named Person to make the necessary arrangements for a young person with special needs to receive appropriate counselling where this is required. Where a young person is receiving treatment from a psychologist or psychiatrist or help from a social worker, that professional should be consulted by the Named Person on the arrangements to be made. We believe that there is room for using both professionals and non-professionals in counselling. A professional may be most expert at recognising and appreciating the young person's various needs, and some social workers, health visitors and teachers make excellent counsellors provided - and this is vital - that they have time to do the job effectively. Non-professionals are generally less constrained by time, and with adequate training and supervision many of them are able to give wise and experienced counsel to handicapped young people. If they are themselves handicapped they may be particularly well-placed to offer advice and support to others with disabilities or disorders. 10.96 Young people with disabilities or significant difficulties may need counselling on various aspects of personal relationships, and we see this as a very important part of health education. Those who are in employment may need counselling on, for example, the development of good relations with their fellow workers, while those who are trying to achieve significant living without work may need counselling on personal relations with those who care for them. Health education in general needs to be improved for all young people, particularly those with disabilities or disorders, and should include aspects of personal hygiene and subjects such as the effects of alcohol, smoking and drugs. Much greater emphasis should be given to personal counselling not only for young people with special needs themselves but also for their parents. We therefore recommend that better counselling on personal relationships should be available to young people with special needs and their parents from a variety of sources, including the health and social services and voluntary groups. 10.97 One important aspect of personal counselling is counselling on sexual relationships. At present sex education and counselling on sexual relationships tend to be badly handled generally. This is unfortunate for all young people, but it is particularly serious in the case of young people with severe disabilities, whose opportunities for personal development through self-education are so limited compared with those of other young people, and for whom the problems of adolescence are likely to be increased by their disability. Problems of sexual relationships are compounded for them by the attitude of society, which tends not to appreciate the sexual identity of handicapped people. The general public, many professionals working with handicapped people and also the families of the handicapped people themselves often fail to recognise or to understand that young people with disabilities undergo the normal biological and psychological changes associated with sexual development and have normal needs. We consider that sexual counselling and advice on contraception should be readily available to young people with special needs and their parents. Advice on sexual relationships should be both realistic and humane and should always be planned within the broader concept of education in personal, social and moral responsibility. We see a need for the inclusion of some reference to sexual counselling in courses of training for all professionals working with adolescents with disabilities or disorders so that as many professionals as possible are able to recognise signs of personal problems and give advice on where appropriate counselling might best be sought. In particular, the careers officer or his specialist colleague should be able to advise young people or their parents on whom to approach for guidance on sexual problems as part of his function of being Named Person. In this as in other fields handicapped people can often be helped by others who are also handicapped. We recommend that more research should be carried out into how sexual counselling can best be provided for young people with special needs, including the training of counsellors and other staff. 10.98 Genetic counselling needs to be readily available to handicapped young people and their parents. This requires expert knowledge of the risks of transmitting different kinds of disability and disorder. Those engaged in health education should be able to refer handicapped young people to professional experts in this field, whose work needs to be more widely recognised and supported. Health care 10.99 It is essential that continuing support from the health service should be provided for all young people who require any form of treatment or care. In the case of those with serious handicapping conditions, arrangements will need to be made for continuing care at a local hospital or, where specialist treatment and care are necessary, in regional or supra-regional centres (for example spinal units). A very small number of physically handicapped and more profoundly mentally handicapped people may require long-term hospital care. However, we welcome the change of emphasis towards care in the community which has taken place in recent years. Those concerned in providing primary health care, particularly general practitioners, district nurses and health visitors, together with social workers, have a major part to play in enabling people with severe disabilities to live in their own homes or in residential homes in the community for as long as possible. 10.100 As the Court Report indicated, the prevalence of psychiatric disorders rises in adolescence. Some forms of disorder dating from childhood or early school years may continue, while others begin to appear only after the age of about 16. For disturbed adolescents who require psychiatric treatment, a range of out-patient, day-patient and in-patient psychiatric services is provided through the National Health Service. As older adolescents become less dependent on their families, facilities such as 'walk in' advisory centres, provided usually by voluntary bodies and sometimes funded by health authorities, are useful for those who seek psychiatric help for themselves. We have noted the recommendation in the Court Report that there should be a greatly increased provision of residential facilities such as hostels, schools and hospital units for severely disturbed adolescents. (20) We recognise the need for residential placement for young people over 16 who have attended boarding schools and who, on leaving school and returning home, present their families with severe behavioural or other problems. Wherever possible, however, we think that these young people would be most suitably placed in semi-independent hostels, which we consider further in paragraphs 10.111-112. 10.101 The transition from school to adult life can be a period when the health of young people with disabilities or significant difficulties presents many problems and, paradoxically, it is often the case that the better the health service that they received while at school, the worse and more difficult for them is this transition. No young person with a disability should be left without anyone professional taking active responsibility for coordinating his health care during this period of transition. Like the Court Committee, we regard it as neither possible nor desirable to draw rigid demarcation lines between the child and adult sectors of the health service. Rather, we regard it as essential that close links should be maintained between the two and that the major responsibility should at all times be clearly assigned. 10.102 At the time when a young person with a disability or significant difficulty leaves school his general practitioner, who has direct responsibility for his health, will naturally be able to provide an element of continuity. The young person may, however, need more specialist support than his general practitioner can provide. In such cases it is essential that the general practitioner should be consulted over arrangements for the allocation of major responsibility for the young person's health. Where the young person leaves school, the school health service should not relinquish responsibility for his health until he enters employment or until there is an alternative available service which is more appropriate and which will assume this responsibility. In some cases the Employment Medical Advisory Service may be the most suitable service for this purpose. In Chapter 15, where we return to this subject, we recommend that the Specialist in Community Medicine (Child Health) should ensure that arrangements are made for the transfer of responsibility for a young person's health to the appropriate branch of the health service when he leaves school or further education. We envisage that responsibility for the arrangements for his health care at area level would pass to the Specialist in Community Medicine (Social Services) when he leaves full-time education. Financial support for young people to continue their education 10.103 Our recommendations for increased opportunities for young people with special needs to continue their education will be to little avail unless adequate financial assistance is available to attract them to stay on at school or to undertake courses of further education. Financial assistance for this purpose, however, is given at the discretion of local education authorities or, in certain circumstances, as we explain more fully below, the Supplementary Benefits Commission. We consider that this discretion should be exercised as generously as possible, particularly since the provision of financial assistance at this stage for young people with special needs may well have a long-term economic benefit by enabling them to improve their basic educational skills and so attain a greater degree of independence. 10.104 Local education authorities in England and Wales have discretionary powers to pay educational maintenance allowances in respect of pupils who stay on at school beyond the statutory leaving age. The level of notional net income at which an allowance becomes payable and the maximum value of the allowance vary between authorities. We urge local education authorities to look sympathetically on the families of pupils with special needs who remain at school beyond 16 and, where they make an allowance, to ensure that it is adequate. 10.105 Every local education authority has a duty to make an award to any person ordinarily resident in its area who is attending a first degree or comparable course, a course leading to the Diploma of Higher Education, the Higher National Diploma or an initial teacher training course. A disabled student receiving a mandatory award for one of these courses is entitled to a supplementary maintenance grant wherever the authority is satisfied that he is obliged by reason of his disability to incur additional expenditure in respect of his attendance at the course. We recommend that local education authorities should use their discretionary powers generously in making supplementary grants to students with disabilities who are receiving mandatory awards. 10.106 Awards for students attending full-time courses other than those mentioned above are given at the discretion of their local education authority. We have been very much concerned about the difficulty faced by handicapped students in obtaining financial assistance to take further education courses which do not attract mandatory awards, especially as the difficulty is likely to increase given the continuing financial restraint on local authorities. We considered the possibility of recommending the extension of mandatory awards to handicapped students as a group, but most of us rejected it because of the difficulties of definition that would be entailed. We also considered recommending an extension of the range of designated courses which attract mandatory awards to include other specified full-time courses, but most of us rejected this on the grounds that it would be a clumsy and costly way of directing help to certain students and would have the disadvantage of tending to move handicapped students towards certain courses. We believe that, as things now stand, the most practicable way of improving financial support for handicapped students is for local education authorities to exercise their discretionary powers more generously. We therefore recommend that local education authorities should use their discretionary powers far more generously in making discretionary awards to students with disabilities or significant difficulties who enter further education. We recognise that this recommendation may seem to be lacking in weight. We urge local education authorities, however, to bear in mind that support for such young people at this stage may, by enabling them to gain the skills necessary to obtain and hold down a job, reduce their dependence on supporting services and so have a long-term economic benefit. In considering whether to make an award, the local education authority should consult and take into account the views of the young person's Named Person, who will usually be the careers officer or his specialist colleague. 10.107 At present there is often considerable disparity between the level of educational maintenance allowances and that of discretionary awards for young people aged 16-19. We regard it as desirable that the respective levels and conditions of educational maintenance allowances in respect of pupils staying on at school and of discretionary awards should be harmonised in the interests of ensuring that decisions by young people as to whether to remain at school or to enter further education are taken on educational grounds and are not influenced by financial considerations. We have already commented in paragraph 10.72 on the disparity between the level of discretionary awards and that of training allowances. 10.108 In Scotland responsibility for the financial support of handicapped young people who wish to continue their education is divided between the education authorities and the Scottish Education Department. The Scottish education authorities have discretionary powers to assist persons, including handicapped pupils and students, who are ordinarily resident in their areas. There are two main kinds of assistance: higher school bursaries for pupils who remain at school beyond the age of compulsory attendance to complete their secondary education; and further education bursaries for students attending full-time courses of non-advanced further education. The authorities have complete discretion whether or not to grant a bursary in any particular case, but having exercised this discretion they are required to apply the rates of allowances and parental means test prescribed by the Secretary of State for Scotland in statutory regulations. Grants for students ordinarily resident in Scotland who are attending first degree or comparable courses are administered centrally by the Scottish Education Department under the students' allowances scheme, corresponding to the mandatory system of student awards in England and Wales. Under this scheme, a supplementary allowance may be paid to disabled students who incur expenditure on the purchase of special equipment necessary for their studies because of their disability. In addition, expenses may be reimbursed for travel by special means made necessary by disablement, for example taxi between home and the place of further or higher education. 10.109 The Supplementary Benefits Commission has discretionary powers to pay benefit in particular cases where it considers that there are exceptional circumstances. We understand that it takes the view that benefit can be paid to a young person aged 16-19, even though he may be continuing at school or in further education, if he is physically or mentally handicapped and his prospects are so poor that, were he to leave school or college, he would be unlikely to be able to enter employment within a reasonable period of time. We were concerned to learn that in 1976 only about 700 handicapped people were receiving benefit on these grounds. In practice there seems to be a considerable variation between different areas in the way in which the Commission's discretionary powers are exercised and a greater readiness to pay supplementary benefit to young people with an easily recognisable physical disability than to young people with learning difficulties, even though the employment prospects of the latter may be very poor. We recognise that to attempt to define more clearly the group of handicapped people for whose benefit the Commission may use its discretionary powers in this way could in practice restrict it even further than at present. In the interests of greater uniformity of practice, however, we urge local offices to consult the local careers officer and the Disablement Resettlement Officer as to whether or not a handicapped young person is likely to be able to enter open employment. Accommodation 10.110 Handicapped young people, particularly those with severe disabilities, may need help with accommodation. Those with very severe disabilities may need full residential care in residential homes. We are aware that residential units are often unpopular with those who live in them: rules have to be kept; personal choice may have to be severely restricted; invidious comparisons may be made by some residents with the way other residents are treated, for example over the grants they get or the payments they are expected to make for their accommodation; and too much power may rest in the hands of residential staff. We are sure that ways can and should be found to 'humanise' such accommodation and to give individual residents more privacy and personal choice. Moreover, we welcome the increasing tendency on the part of good residential homes to encourage handicapped people to move into the community wherever possible. 10.111 We believe that a graduated range of accommodation is required, with continual encouragement for people with disabilities to move a step further along the range in the direction of full independence. In some cases, accommodation in the community with a progressive reduction in supporting services may be appropriate. In others, we believe that hostels need to be provided, where handicapped people can carry out most of the tasks of daily living themselves but can, in cases of need, seek the help of a warden who has separate accommodation close by. Semi-independent accommodation may be particularly desirable for young people with learning difficulties or emotional or behavioural disorders during the transition from school to work. There is already some hostel provision of this kind in existence but it needs to be considerably increased. The Scottish Society for the Mentally Handicapped, for example, has taken an initiative in offering interest-free loans to local authorities to build hostel units for mentally handicapped young people who are expected, wherever possible, to be able to move subsequently into independent housing in the community. Student accommodation is used to support young adults currently described as mentally handicapped in a project being carried out at University College, Cardiff, in which students and handicapped young people share accommodation and the tasks of daily living. Further, hostels for severely disturbed school leavers are provided by the Richmond Fellowship and the Society of Friends. We see a very important part for voluntary organisations, working in conjunction with social services departments and local education' authorities, in developing this form of provision. 10.112 Those of us who visited Denmark had the opportunity to see a 'half-way house' in Copenhagen, which is one of five financed by the Board for Provisions and Services to the Mentally Retarded, under the Ministry of Social Welfare. These are intended to be staging posts along the road to independent living. We were impressed by the arrangements made for admitting young people, for assessing their special needs and for devising a programme to cover those needs. This usually deals with the personal implications of their handicap, personal hygiene, health care, sex education, the use of leisure time and the management of money. The programme is carried out in the evenings and at weekends. It was however clearly very difficult to persuade the young people to take the final step to independent living; conditions in the hostel were so good that they had little incentive to move on. While we concur with the view that wherever possible young people with disabilities or significant difficulties should live independently, it is clear that a great deal of encouragement needs to be given to those who can do so to move from 'half-way houses' of this kind into independent units. 10.113 The final stage along the road to independent living in this country is that of independent units where handicapped people can live entirely on their own, with access to outside services such as personal counselling. Units are specifically designed or adapted for those with physical disabilities. New units in the public sector may take the form of either 'mobility housing', which is built to the normal standards but provides wheelchair access, or 'wheelchair housing', which is special housing designed to suit the needs of disabled people. Alternatively, adaptations may be made to public or private housing (for example to eliminate steps and widen doorways for wheelchairs, or to lower the level of kitchen worktops and switches) and moveable aids and equipment such as hoists installed. At present both housing authorities and social services departments have powers and functions in relation to adaptations to both public and private housing. This overlap is clearly unsatisfactory, resulting as it does in a wide variation between areas in the division of responsibility, and we welcome the proposal by the Department of the Environment in a consultation paper issued jointly with the Department of Health and Social Security and the Welsh Office to rationalise responsibilities for adaptations for people with disabilities. (21) The accommodation needs of handicapped students in further and higher education require particular consideration and can be met only by close consultation between housing authorities and associations on the one hand and local education authorities, social services departments and educational establishments on the other, as well as between the Departments of Education and Science, Environment, and Health and Social Security and the Welsh Office at national level in England and Wales. Similarly, close consultation of this kind is required In Scotland. 10.114 We believe that more consideration needs also to be given to ways of enabling young people currently described as mentally handicapped to live as independently as possible. In Denmark it seems to be fairly generally accepted that, wherever possible, handicapped young people should leave home at 18 and that adequate facilities should be provided to enable them to do so. Mentally handicapped young people are encouraged to live independently in flats with the support of a home visitor, usually a social worker, who visits about twice a week. We hope that this practice will be adopted wherever possible in this country. Equipment and aids 10.115 A wide range of aids and equipment is now available for use by severely physically handicapped people in their daily activities. If they are to derive maximum benefit from these aids, however, three conditions need to be fulfilled. First, since information about aids is not widespread, centres are needed where the handicapped young people and their parents, as well as the professionals advising them, can go and see the range of equipment and aids available and be fully informed by qualified and experienced staff about their suitability. At present there is only a small number of such centres but they are increasing and in some areas facilities are provided for a selection of equipment to be viewed.* We should like to see this service expanded and a series of specially designed centres set up to act as regional centres. We recognise the importance of the contribution made by occupational therapists to the centres already in existence and regard them as key members of the staff. In Scotland the Scottish Information Service for the Disabled, run by the Scottish Council on Disability, plays an important part in providing information on all types of aids. *The existing aids centres which are known to the Department of Health and Social Security or the Scottish Home and Health Department are listed below. The first seven hold joint meetings on a bi-annual basis. 1. The Aids Centre, Disabled Living Founda | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
