A charity has urged ministers to ensure schools can support children with brain injury after the government’s SEND reform consultation.
The UK Acquired Brain Injury Forum (UKABIF) said one child in every classroom is estimated to have experienced a brain injury, underlining the scale of the issue across the UK.
NHS data suggests about 40,000 children and young people acquire brain injuries each year in the UK, although this is likely to be an underestimate because of coding problems and cases that do not present at hospital, such as mild concussions or non-accidental injuries.
The current teacher training curriculum and training for special educational needs co-ordinators rarely includes acquired brain injury, despite covering other less common conditions such as hearing impairments.
Unlike those conditions, which have specialist advisory teachers within local authorities, there is no dedicated support system for pupils with acquired brain injuries.
Baroness Estelle Morris, the former education secretary and vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Acquired Brain Injury, said: “I welcome the SEND proposals in the Government’s White Paper.
“It gives us a chance to bring about significant change for the tens of thousands of children across the country who desperately need better support in their schools or colleges.
“For too long the needs of those children with an acquired brain injury haven’t been addressed and this is a chance to remedy that.
“Educational Authorities need to develop comprehensive brain injury training for teachers, while the DfE should evaluate the establishment of specialist advisory services for brain injury support and ensure that there is far better integration of brain injury awareness into teacher and SENCO training programmes.”
Children and young people with brain injuries are at higher risk of poor outcomes throughout their lives, including overrepresentation in exclusions and alternative provision, overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, being less likely to progress to future study or work, being more likely to receive welfare benefits and being more likely to become homeless.
Despite this, there is no consistent national measurement of data relating to children and young people with acquired brain injury, and ABI is not included as a category on the SEN census.
There is no mandatory training for teachers or SENCOs on ABI, and the current SEND system is unable to respond with the urgency or flexibility required for sudden, acquired needs such as ABI, leading to long delays in pupils returning to school or accessing appropriate support within school.
UKABIF said it welcomed the new SEND reform proposals and planned to contribute to the recently launched government consultation on SEND.
Following the launch of the consultation, UKABIF called for the new national SEND training programme to include dedicated training on children and young people with ABI, and for the new “Experts at Hand” service to include professionals with expertise in ABI in every local area.
It also welcomed the intention to make targeted support available without an EHCP, supported the principle of individual support plans, backed the integration of SEND outreach into Best Start Family Hubs, and called for ABI to be included as a category on the SEN census in England.
Chloe Hayward, executive director of UKABIF, said: “Schools play a critical role in rehabilitation for children and young people with acquired brain injury, and under the current system far too many have struggled to access the support they need to return to education.
“These proposals have the potential to bring about a meaningful, positive change, but they must be properly funded across every area of the UK to tackle the current postcode lottery of provision for children and young people with brain injuries.”
