Leap Submission to EPSEN Review

Leap Submission to EPSEN Review

Leap is an organisation that supports families who wish to create an inclusive life for their family member with a disability. Our work is concerned with the steps that families can take to make it more likely that their family member will grow up to experience the good things in life.?When we talk about a good life for people with disabilities, we mean an ordinary life, a typical life, built on relationships, belonging and socially valued roles.?We use the phrase ‘the good life’ because so often in the past people with disabilities have struggled to achieve the good things in life that most people want - such as a job, friends and a home of their own. ?We focus on how to strengthen people’s roles and relationships and to create greater opportunities for belonging. ?We focus on these areas as these are the things that ultimately really matter to people in their lives.?We believe that a good life starts with an inclusive education and that inclusion is the foundation for a lifetime of belonging. ?

"Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health, safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives."

Bessel van der Kolk

Children identified as having ‘special educational needs’ are children first and their primary needs are not special but ordinary.?Like all children they need to love and be loved, to make a contribution, to be valued and to belong. ??We support the goal of inclusive education and the abolishment of all forms of segregated educational provision.?We believe that all children should be educated in one common classroom in their local school and that educational support should be provided for children from that classroom.?Inclusive education foregrounds concerns for a child’s personal happiness, social connectedness, and sense of hope and wellbeing.?Inclusive education is about peer relationships and belonging rather than a narrow focus on academic achievement.

“The fundamental principle of inclusive education is the valuing of diversity within the human community…. When inclusive education is fully embraced, we abandon the idea that children have to become “normal” in order to contribute to the world…. We begin to realize the achievable goal of providing all children with an authentic sense of belonging.”

Norman Kunc

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We do not believe that being defined as having ‘special educational needs’ and being provided with segregated special education supports children’s belonging or their contribution as full members of the community. Using ways and means that are outside of things that are typical, valued and familiar lead to children being marked as even more different, being less worthwhile and leading them into a life of exclusion.?We know that some children require additional resources or benefit from different approaches to meet educational learning objectives. However, we feel that current methods are counterproductive and are premised on culturally held low expectations of what it is possible for children labelled as having ‘special educational needs’ to achieve.?

What are we educating our children for??Is it for a life in a day centre? A life on benefits? If it is to thrive and to take their place as contributing citizens, then we are demonstrably failing the large and growing cohort of children labelled as having special educational needs.?It is time that Ireland’s vision of the purpose of education becomes that all children will enjoy meaningful and satisfying lives.?We need to focus on whether the massive growth in special education classrooms and SNA’s is resulting in better life outcomes for young people with special educational needs leaving school.?Moving to a model of inclusive education underpinned by universal design for learning will not only benefit children with disabilities or special educational needs; it will benefit all children. This shift is about reimagining schools as places of sanctuary and welcome for all our children.?Segregation early in life leads to greater risk of segregation later in life.?A sense of belonging is one of a child’s greatest needs.?To belong is to matter, our sense of belonging enhances meaning in life.?The paradox of belonging is that to belong you have to be present! If we are not included, we never get a chance to develop and practice these skills. Children learn these skills through modelling and imitation.?This is the paradox – We learn how to belong by belonging.

The UNCRPD allows us to focus on the ongoing development of children’s social citizenship rights as students and people in their own right. ?We need to recognise that inclusion is a school reform issue, not a special education issue.?From there, we need to work collaboratively to transform schools into educational settings that welcome everyone, all the time, everywhere.?