Inclusion Now Volume 4

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MICHELINE MASON & CHLOE BOWLES 2002

A voice for the Inclusion Movement in the UK

Volume 4

Summer 2002

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Editorial

Contents Editorial

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esterday I was told for the umpteenth time that the time is not

Competition - An inhuman activity

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Many Rivers to Cross

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Letters

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Poem - Inclusive Education

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The Medical & Social Models of Behaviour 10 NUT Moves Backwards

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One Voice

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really right for inclusive education. “It could be the straw that breaks the camels back” she said, thinking of the despairing teachers with whom she works.

But what is this camels back which is about to break if we open our hearts and minds to the inclusion of disabled children? Or if we decide that schools must find ways to support children who are showing signs of distress? Is it a

Because We Can Change the World

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Jowonio School

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Beyond my Wildest Dreams 16

false God of Standards and Performance Tables over-riding the reality of people’s lives?

Who loves this camel? No one I have met,

The Evaluation Game

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except the politicians who have created

Helen Flint

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it, yet everyone wants inclusion to work,

Who We are

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to be resourced properly, to be understood and celebrated.

That is why we must keep writing,

Inclusion Now is also available on tape, disc and via email. Contact the Alliance for Inclusive Education for details (address on back page)

speaking and living the hopes and dreams we are constructing together so that when the camel collapses, as surely it will, there is something better to replace it.

Micheline Mason, Editor

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COMPETITION

An inhuman activity

Competition is two or more people trying to achieve a goal that cannot be achieved by all of them.

One of the most common reasons given to justify the segregation of disabled or distressed young people, is that mainstream schools are highly competitive, and such children will fail, and their self-esteem will be shattered.

I would like to briefly uncover four myths about competition.

By Perry Saidman

Another way of looking at it is to say that the exclusion of young people who cannot win in a pre-set climate of standards, tests and ranking by results, is allowing us to continue to pretend that competition is a good thing for human development by removing from our sight the evidence that it is not.

The following article is one person’s reflections on the nature of competition. What do you think?

I’

d like to tell you a story that embodies the essence of competition. Two friends were hiking in the wilds of Montana, near Glacier National Park, and they came upon a grizzly bear, about one hundred yards away, and the bear started lumbering towards them. One fellow sat down and pulled his running shoes out of his backpack, threw himself on the ground, and furiously started pulling off his hiking boots and putting on his running shoes.

Now, his friend was watching this amazed, and said “you don’t think those running shoes are going to help you outrun that bear, do you?” The first fellow looked up at him and said “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I only have to outrun you”.

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We need a working definition of competition:

f you can imagine a spectrum of competition, at one end are societies that function without any competition at all, and at the total opposite end is the United States of America. Our entire economic system is predicated on competition. Our

schooling trains us to beat others and regard them as obstacles to our own success.

Even in our own families there is rivalry for attention and love and approval......we can’t even go dancing without getting involved in a dance contest.

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Competition is part of human nature

Competitive behaviour is not the way we want to be. It is not the way we were born. We were born as completely good human beings, wanting to love and be loved and to cooperate and be close to one another. There is evidence of this all around us. The great popularity of Barney (an American cartoon character) is because Barney relates to their natural way of being, of sharing, of hugging, of loving and co-operating with each other and having fun doing it.

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Competition is more productive

The question really is, do we perform better when we are trying to beat others, or when we are working with them?

The evidence in the literature is overwhelmingly clear. The answer is we perform better when we work together. The key to understanding why competition does not promote excellence is to realise that trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things.

Paying attention to who is winning distracts one from the

MANY RIVERS TO CROSS J ACKIE D OWNER

Taken from an interview with Caroline Goffe at Parents for Inclusion

Early Years My mum was a single parent surviving in a country that was not hers. She came here in the nineteen sixties. She was very protective towards me. She showed love in a different way. I missed the hugging and kissing but she still loved me. She made lovely West Indian food and I really miss that now.

My mum has been a rock for me as a black woman. She never judged me.

She has been my lifeline. If it had not been for my mum I would not be where I am today. She went back to Jamaica two years ago. She lives with my niece Cheryl. She’s a lifeline for me too. I still miss my mum. She was there for me; I try to be there for her when she rings.

Primary School I went to Caldecot Primary School near Kings College Hospital. It was a mixed ordinary school. It is closed now and is part of Kings College Hospital. You can still see part of the brickwork.

I was like any so called normal child at Primary school. I was happy doing things that so called

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normal children do at Primary school. I remember playing in the playground, eating dinner together, playing in the sand, and having fights.

I was happy there.

I knew that I was slow at certain things, slower than other children in the school.

I felt the other children were a bit better than me. I used to avoid schoolwork and just do practical things. I don’t know if the teachers thought I was slow or anything. They hid it from me in a good way. They were nice to me.

When I was 11 years old an Educational Psychologist came to see me at Primary School. They took me out of my classroom into a small room and let me play with some bricks. My mum was there and that was when I knew there was something wrong with me. I was a bit tearful. The Educational Psychologist was a man in a threepiece suit. He did little tests on me. He judged me for a couple of hours. He never said goodbye. Because of the power he had as a psychologist and a white man he put me into a Special School called Highshore School in Peckham. He’s got his wages and lives in a

Now When I talk about the past the tears still flow and run down.

If it were not for my mum, my support workers and the love of God I would not be where I am today. My mum said to me Jackie you can do it. It does not matter. We do make mistakes. It’s going to take time and its not going to be easy. She did her best. She never shoved me into the daycentre. I have nothing against daycentres but she did not send me there. I will love her until the day I die or until the day she dies.

I think I am blessed. I’m so lucky. I’m still struggling to be an independent person. I would love to learn to drive a car. I would like to be in a relationship and have children. One day I’ll tell you if my dream comes true. Let me be myself and don’t discriminate or label me.

Sometimes dreams scare me because they often don’t come true. But you must hope and hope and dream and dream. If I was told that my child was a disabled child I’d be scared that I could not fight for the rights of my disabled child. I worry that I could not speak the jargon. I’d want to know what they wrote about my child. I think I would have to take one day at a time.

My dream is to see Disabled people, especially people with learning difficulties in good jobs and respected. I want Disabled people to live where they want to live, to have relationships and to have rights.

There is a song called ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ - that says it all for me........

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Jackie Downer is on the Steering Committee of the Black and Ethnic Minority Parents Group at Parents for Inclusion Caroline Goffe is the Helpline and Inclusion Group Co-ordinator at Parents for Inclusion.

“Many Rivers to Cross And it’s only my will that keeps me alive I’ve been ripped, washed up for years And I merely survive because of my pride” Joe Cocker

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s r . e .. t t e

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ear

I’m just writing to give you an update on the success of Rosie’s placement in mainstream.

Rosie was 11 on 14th February and received many birthday cards both from her classmates and other children in the school, along with a valentine card from her closest friend. The response to invitations to Rosie’s party was overwhelming and of the 22 who said they would be coming from her class, the turnout was not far short of this. Rosie had the best birthday ever surrounded by her friends, who enjoyed themselves and made Rosie feel very ‘special’ indeed. Friends of the family volunteered help and did nails, make up, face painting, tattoos, hair braiding and coloured spray for the girls and the boys as an alternative to traditional party games, the kids did the rest, and more.

The parent of a very close friend at school also tells me that when her son goes out with his parents he notices and gets very upset about the barriers which would get in the way of giving his friend, Rosie, access. (as his mum can give you the best account of this, I’ll ask her to write it up for inclusion in Inclusion Now!) It’s great to see that ‘children’ take it upon themselves to point out the barriers which exist to adults, who they expect ‘to do something about it’, to give their disabled friends access too. In my experience, having asked a bus full of adults what they think when we are asked to ‘get off the bus (having got on) because the wheelchair goes over the line on the aisle on a low level bus, they have sat in silence and made no objection to the bus driver. Clearly kids have a greater sense of injustice and unfairness, along with taking it on board and voicing their objection everywhere they see it, once they realise how it affects their friends.

When I wrote up the invitations to Rosie’s party, I myself did not feel able to leave anyone in the class out, because I am only too aware as the parent of Rosie how much it hurts when you get ‘left out’. (Fortunately we live in part of a big house - thanks to grandpa, which puts me in a very privileged position), nor could I have done it without the help of my sisters.

Anna Jeronymides

The greatest thing our education system could achieve would be to turn out emotionally healthy young adults despite the inequalities in their family lives, or their physical or intellectual endowments. The following two articles look at how we are beginning to apply all that we have learned from the struggle of disabled people, to the issues of emotional and behavioural difficulties.

THE MEDICAL AND SOCIAL MODELS OF BEHAVIOUR O

n 25th January 2002, thirteen members of the Alliance for Inclusive Education met to share our thoughts about our position as an organisation in relation to children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. We listed eight different ‘groups’ of young people who might attract this label, recognising that each group may require a separate response: Children who challenge authority and do not have any impairments, Children who become disruptive because their needs are not being met, Children with mental health difficulties who need help, e.g. children who have been bereaved or traumatised, or who are depressed, Children whose challenging behaviour is part of a condition, e.g. Tourettes Syndrome or Autism, Children whose lives are impossible for them to manage, e.g. chaotic home-llives, ill parents, abuse and fear, Children who have had little exposure to socially acceptable behaviour, Other groups or situations in which the child may be labelled as the problem rather than their circumstances.

Lonely or insecure young people wanting to gain status in the eyes of their peers.

We looked at the national picture in which there is a strong tension between the Governments support for inclusion and the growing tendency to demonise and punish children and their families who have

problems coping with school, or indeed life itself.

Our fundamental belief in the social model of disability looks to a structural and communitybased response to supporting children with impairments. We agreed that the same model needs to be developed for children with emotional needs. The social model recognises the factor of oppression in shaping a child’s experiences – racism, classism, adultism as well as disablism – and argues that each oppression will put barriers in the way of the child’s safety, development and inclusion. The identification and removal of such barriers is a vital piece of work, and now seems to be the time to begin.

We acknowledged that there are many existing examples of good practice and committed practitioners. We are planning to draw together the thinking we are doing into a discussion paper.

This we hope Some facts: will be the basis for a strong Since the Education Reform A group to develop exclusions rose from 2,910 in 1 the ideas and to campaign for an Reductions in this number whic education years have masked the increas system which in-school units or 'sin-bins'. can help rather than reject PRUs and EBD special schools e children with the than mainstream schools- beca greatest needs.

Children as young a six are bei If you would like from school to be part of this Prescriptions of Ritalin to trea group, please c o n t a c t jumped from 3,500 in 1993 to Micheline Mason is a pattern wherever in the w at the Alliance There is no agreed consensus a address.

ADHD is, or if it even exists. (back page)

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N.U.T. MOVES BACKWARDS Inclusion, SEN and Behaviour Richard Rieser

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t the NUT Conference in Bournemouth this Easter, the Executive managed to pass two reactionary motions that reverse the Unions progressive policies on Inclusion and Behaviour. A promising amendment from Hackney, maintaining the Unions positive approach was never discussed. Instead a procedural manoeuvre to move to the main question ‘to save time’ by members of the Campaign for a Democratic and Fighting Union (CDFU) and Socialist Teachers Alliance was carried.

A number of powerful speeches were then made against the Executives motion.

ct numbers of permanent 1991/92 to 12,700 in 1997

ch have occurred in the last four sed use of Pupil Referral Units and

exclude children at a greater rate ause of their behaviour.

ing permanently excluded

at ADD or ADHD 126,500 in 1998. This orld Ritalin is marketed

as to what ADD or

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This was eventually put to Conference and declared carried, though many thought it lost. This occurred despite CDFU backing for the Hackney amendment.

So we now have a policy that talks of being ‘practical and not dogmatic’ about the human rights of disabled children, arguing for the maintenance of a continuum of provision, including special schools, even where inclusion has been properly funded and people locally have determined they want all children educated together i.e. comprehensively. Would we adopt such a position for Black or Minority Ethnic children?

The position on Behaviour was even worse.

The uncontested policy calls for Headteachers to have the power to veto the admission of children if they think they have EBD and to refer a child for assessment instead. This seemingly attractive measure to protect teachers comes from the stable of demonising the child.

What qualifications do Heads have to discriminate against this group of disabled

children? We should be fighting for the resources and training needed - counsellors in every school and a flexibility of placement while children remain on the roll of their mainstream school. This was the policy that Hackney successfully got carried overwhelmingly, at the Cardiff conference in 2001.

Teachers must be protected from assault, but schools must also develop ways of including the disaffected. However, it appears in the rush for popularism the Union has failed to implement this coherent s t r a t e g y .

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Because We Can Change the World Chris O ’ Mahony This Nottingham conference was set up by the Inclusive Solutions team, Colin Newton & Derek Wilson, to highlight the work of Mara Sapon-Shevin from Syracuse, U.S.A. and Doug Fisher from San Diego, USA. The first morning session was called “Inclusion as Social Justice”. Mara Sapon-Shevin spoke of how inclusive schools are our best hope for achieving a socially just world and how school communities are responsible for ensuring that every single child is socially included in that community.

She ran us through a variety of resources, poems, stories and activities that include everyone and that focus on issues of inclusion, particularly around friendships and social inclusion in the classroom.

My favourite was “Hey Little Ant” by Phil and Hannah Hoose – a dialogue song between a boy who is just about to crush a tiny ant and the ant itself. This song can be used as an allegory of many situations in which big guys get to do things to little guys just because they can, including the war in Afghanistan. She read her own beautiful poem “What the Children of Jowonio Know” which describes what it is like attending a school that has been inclusive for thirty years.

She had us all sing the responses to “I won’t Shut Up”

by Bob Blue, a song which challenges us to keep on saying what we know to be right even when other people want us to shut up about this inclusion thing.

Doug Fisher took over for the second morning session and told story after story of solutions to apparent ‘problems’ around inclusion.

Many of these were technical solutions that had been devised by involving other people in thinking about the

problem. He told the story of asking a class how they could include a child with cerebral palsy. The children thought the child ought to play kickball with them at playtime. As an adult, Doug couldn’t figure out how this child who was in a wheelchair and had no voluntary movement could play kickball. However, one of the young people demonstrated a rudimentary system of using a ruler to flick a ball. Doug took the idea to the Engineering Department of his University as a senior project.

The result was a gadget which X could operate and which meant he got to be included in the playground.

He described a number of technical interventions which eased ‘problems’ in the classroom. One favourite was the use of a signal light for a small child on the autistic spectrum who couldn’t learn not to interrupt when the teacher was talking. Doug’s department bought a very cheap light and fixed it to the child’s desk.

The teacher found this so beneficial that she got signal lights for the entire class and discovered that all children benefited.

Instead of wasting valuable class time frantically waving at her to get her attention, children were able to quietly turn on their lights and get on with their work whilst waiting for her to come round to them.

He described various accommodations and modifications to the core curriculum that would enable

students with significant learning difficulties to learn basic concepts of work readiness within the normal day. One accommodation was to ‘infuse’ specific learning goals into the school day so that the child need not be withdrawn. This included, for instance, working on managing money by buying food in the school canteen, working on time management skills by being on time and with the right equipment for each class attended, etc.

Allowances are made for different learning styles. For instance, the class was studying ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Some students were unable to remember which characters were which. The teacher got the students to produce visual images of the different characters as they appear in the book and to add more detail to the visual images each week as they found out more

about the character through reading the book. A student with significant learning difficulties had modified assignments whilst studying the same curriculum as everyone else, e.g. listening to the book on tape and being given a multiple choice comprehension test, rather than being asked to write an essay on it.

The afternoon workshops focused on “Curriculum Modification and Literacy” (Doug Fisher) and “Cooperative Learning and Friendship Skills” (Mara SaponShevin”.

I attended Mara’s workshop where we learnt to compose songs together, sing in groups, play co-operative musical chairs (Instead of making children leave the game when there are not enough chairs for everyone, the game is to make sure that everyone is on a chair when the music stops. As the chairs

slowly disappear, children have to work out co-operative ways of getting more and more people onto one chair). We played ‘find your partner’ games which can be used to assess learning or learn skills right across the curriculum and at any level of ability, and a game to learn about appropriate touching.

We had short presentations from John Ford of the DfES and Micheline Mason of the Alliance for Inclusive Education. Both were interesting and inspiring, as was the whole day. I came away with my head buzzing with ideas for curriculum developments that would enable teachers to work inclusively and work with their students on inclusion as a curriculum subject.

Chris O’Mahony More information on Lessons Learned in Supporting Diverse Students: www.peakparent.org

✫ HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ✫ "An ideal book for any teacher who dreams of launching a full-scale battle, step by step, to combat intolerance and exclusivity in the school house" Vivien Gussin Paley

This book is a wonderful blend of theory and practice. It offers a large variety of literature, games, activities and songs that can easily be adapted for British schools.

Available by mail order through www.Amazon.com Allyn and Bacon ISBN: 0-205-17489-2

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Jowonio School, in Syracuse, New York, recently celebrated its 25th

anniversary. Jowonio (an Onondagan word that means “to set free”) was the first school in the country to systematically include children who were labelled as ‘autistic’ within regular classrooms with ‘typical’ children. The administrators, teachers, parents and students at Jowonio are solidly supportive of inclusive communities and of the importance of many kinds of children learning to play and work together. At the event organised to celebrate Jowonio’s 25th anniversary, I offered this poem as a celebration of the gifts that Jowonio has given to the community and as my appreciation of the meaning of inclusive schooling.

W H AT T H E C H I L D R E N O F J O WO N I O K N O W The children of Jowonio know – not because they have been told – but because they have lived it That there is always room for everyone – in the circle and at snack time and on the playground – and even if they have to wiggle a little to get another body in and even if they have to find a new way to do it, they can figure it out – and so it might be reasonable to assume that there’s enough room for everyone in the world The children of Jowonio know – not because they have been told – but because they have lived it That children come in a dazzling assortment of sizes, colours and shapes, big and little and all shades of brown and beige and pink, and some walk and some use wheelchairs but everyone gets around and that same is boring – and so it might be reasonable to assume that everyone in the world could be accepted for who they are The children of Jowonio know – not because they have been told – but because they have lived it That there are people who talk with their mouths and people who talk with their hands and people who talk by pointing and people who tell us all we need to know with their bodies if we only listen well – and so it might be reasonable to assume that all the people of the world could learn to talk to and listen to each other The children of Jowonio know – not because they have been told – but because they have lived it That we don’t send people away because they’re different or even because they’re difficult, and that all people need support and that if people are hurting, we take the time to notice, and that words can build bridges and hugs can heal – and so it might be reasonable to assume that all the people on the planet could reach out to each other and heal the wounds and make a world fit for us all.

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Taken from ‘BBecause We Can Change the World’ by Mara Sapon-Shevin

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ON A PATH TO A PLACE

Angie & Molly

BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS

INCLUSION GROUPS FOR PARENTS IN SCHOOLS

by Angie Northwood I was taking Molly to the Sophie Centre playgroup and saw a Parents for Inclusion leaflet. I read it and thought their work sounded interesting and was offering something different to what I was getting.

I phoned Pi and booked myself onto an ‘Inclusion Taster Day’. I was amazed, overwhelmed, excited and keen to learn more. Things began to make sense. The Inclusion Groups for Parents sounded an excellent idea – by this point Molly was going to Maytree Nursery School. I thought having a group there would be brilliant. As a parent of a disabled child, I thought this would give me opportunities to talk about things that were difficult. The group offered a safe, supportive and understanding atmosphere. It helped me to communicate my concerns to the school and celebrate what was going well. I began to feel like a mum again, I felt like I could see a future for my child, I wasn’t scared anymore. I began to understand what the real barriers are – not Molly – but the discriminating attitudes which exist, built up over hundreds of years.

I decided to become an Inclusion Group facilitator because I could see how effective these groups are in empowering parents. If you are empowered as a parent you can fight for your child’s right to belong and be included. I passionately believe in Inclusion – the support groups offer a way for more and more parents and schools to work together to find solutions and develop good inclusive practice so that all children are valued and welcomed.

I couldn’t get enough of the training and workshops! Each one I attended inspired me and gave me strength to plan a positive future for Molly. The training helped me to look at issues that had previously made me want to run away and hide from the world. I had felt isolated, angry

and trapped. Now, I felt strong, well informed, supported, united and liberated! Learning about the Social Model of Disability was a huge stepping stone from me. It made sense, it is what I believed, but hadn’t understood before the training. I had always instinctively known that Molly was not the problem – but my life had become a maze – full of therapies that seemed so unnatural and intrusive. Some people were even telling me to look at special schools – and I believed it for a while – lived it for a while – and it proved to be the nightmare I thought it would be – isolating, unnatural, segregating. But that is long gone in the past, in the bin with lid tightly closed!

My graduation as an Inclusion Group facilitator was one of the proudest moments (the birth of my children being the proudest). I had embarked on a path, that was leading me to a place beyond my wildest dreams. For me, the star of the Graduation Ceremony was Molly. Without her I would not be doing what I do today.

Facilitating my first group was a wonderful, if nerve-wracking experience. It felt like another beginning, full of hope and dreams that have, and will continue to, come true.

The most powerful and moving memories of facilitating a group is when I saw parents suddenly realise that their child is the wonderful, beautiful,

17 precious little person that they thought they were Angie Northwood has gone on to become the – but had not until that moment been enabled to Inclusion Outreach Worker for Lambeth Early Years believe it.

Development & Childcare Partnership. Contact: 020 7 All schools and pre-schools should have an 926 9560. Her daughter Molly has gone on to her local mainstream primary school. inclusion support group. They benefit everyone.

Since 1992 Pi has set up Inclusion groups in 23 schools in Lambeth and Wandsworth. These groups are run by parents for parents to come and share their concerns about their child’s education in a safe and confidential space. This is in close collaboration with the schools. The aims are to promote inclusion and prevent school exclusions. It places disabled young people and those labelled SEN at the centre of all thinking. If you would like to know more about Pi Training and Inclusion Groups in Schools contact Parents for Inclusion (see back page).

THE EVALUATION GAME

by Lynne Elwell The Letter you NEVER want to See! Date Dear Re

school and who, therefore, must test your child in the caretakers broom closet, or if that is not available, the car park. If you make a fuss about how long it takes, we may cry.

When we do get done, we’ll meet you at school at a mutually inconvenient time. There will be 172 sheets of paper on the table, and we will We want to do a case study evaluation on your pass them around, and around, and around, child because s/he is having B-I-G trouble at and around and you will get to sign them again and again and again. You might get dizzy. If school. yours is the last meeting of the day, the staff will S/he can’t: (tick which applies) definitely be dizzy. We’ll make an attempt to Read explain everything to you at the meeting. Don’t Write worry if you don’t understand all the big words.

Do math’s We don’t understand them either, but they sure Go to the toilet alone look impressive on the forms, don’t they?

Play without biting someone (often an child, occasionally a teacher) At the end of all this, we’ll have no clue why your All of the above child is in B-I-G trouble at school but we will We want to find out why your child is such a have some new and exciting ideas for you and mess. We suspect that it may be your fault, but the teachers to try out. And, we’ll all live happily need to know for sure. A whole bunch of ever after (until its time for the re-evaluation, professional people are going to spend hours when the entire process starts again.) and hours and hours with you and your child; pulling her/him out of class frequently so s/he Sign Here can get even further behind with her/his work; Sign here to show you really mean it. pulling you out of your job so you can get even Social Security Number: further behind with your work; and generally Master Card/Visa number: disrupting your schedule and your life.

Insurance Policy No: Eventually, we will get done. Don’t ask us when Statement of Special needs attached for your because we don’t really know. Honestly, we are amusement doing the very best we can with a small, frustrated staff who have no office space in the Submitted by a Quasi Professional (parent) (students name).

HELEN FLINT

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ike many women, Helen Flint did not start writing until her youngest child was at school but she made up for it in the years that followed. Between 1987 and her early death in January 2000, she wrote three adult novels, a poetry collection and three novels for teenagers. Her semi autobiographical first novel, Return Journey was published by Heinemann in 1987 and won the Betty Trask Award and this was followed by two more adult novels, In Full Possession, 1989 and Making the Angels Weep, 1992.

Three teenage novels followed; Not Just Dancing 1993, Not Just Babysitting 1997 and Not Just Rescuing 2002, all published by Egmont Children’s Books. Her stories are concerned with the universals of teenage fiction: problems with adults (particularly argumentative and sometimes unreasonable parents or relatives), insecurity, young love which doesn’t always go smoothly, learning that life is ‘not just’ about one thing and the writer’s desire to address serious issues with candour and wit. Helen Flint became disabled as an adult and died in January 2000 at the age of 47 from a rare inherited degenerative disease. Disabled people and some of the issues they face find their way into her stories, but not always in ways the reader might expect.

One reviewer described Not Just Dancing as ‘a cross between Strictly Ballroom and Waiting for God’.

Geraldine, a talented dancer, misses out on finding a work experience placement and has to spend the week working with her mother who is a Home Help. Her response to an encounter with disabled people is a conventional one. ‘Oh lucky Me. Lucky me not be blind or deaf or mute or limbless or spastic or wracked with pain. Oh, lucky me to have endless opportunities for enjoying life,’ and she describes a disabled person she sees as having a face like ‘Fungus the Bogeyman.’ But as the story develops, she gains insight to some of the insensitive, even hostile attitudes elderly and disabled people have to deal with and begins to genuinely care for two of her mum’s clients. Flint’s research on ballroom dancing gives energy and life to this part of the story (including a description of how you walk forwards while appearing to walk backwards in disco dancing) and the romantic subplot with her new dancing partner Sunil, a posh grammar school boy, is entertaining if a tad unlikely.

Not Just Babysitting is in many ways the most successful of the three books. It is set in Canada where Helen Flint lived as a student. Like her other books, the style is warm and lively, and the familiar elements eccentric families, money worries, work, first love, the desire for happiness and stability – fit together very comfortably in this story. Sandra’s Eastern European father has just lost his job.

Money is very short and so, together with her sister Meg and their mother, she decides to start a nursery at Beznobar, their magical, half built summer home. Beznobar is ‘our Sacred Space’, infused with the legends told by her Native Canadian mother. But their father

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passionately believes that everything that is wrong in the universe is because of childminding and so they have to lie to him.

The nursery is a great success but the father feels betrayed and family harmony teeters on the edge of collapse. The story has strong secondary characters; Jason, an extraordinarily naughty under five and Paul, the rich wild boy next door. Sandra realises that she cares for Paul when he kisses Meg and then, confusingly, kisses her. What does this mean? The problem of how to interpret that thrilling but fleeting first kiss is well told in all three of the ‘Not Just..-’ books.

Not Just Rescuing is the book that deals most directly with disability, and tells the story of Joanna and her clever disabled brother Ralph.

The ‘rescuing’ in the title refers mostly to animal rescue when Joanna and her brother are sent to spend the summer with their eccentric and not obviously loveable aunt. Reluctantly at first, Joanna sets about rescuing and then releasing swans, flying pigeons and sundry lost kittens. Readers might not like Flint’s casual use of expressions like ‘dwarf’ and ‘mentally deficient’ but there are acute and sometimes disturbing observations on what it must be like to be disabled and Joanna’s

Inclusion Helpline

complicated feelings about her brother and the world’s response to him. ‘Everyone loves Ralph more than they love me…. Sometimes, a nanosecond really, I wish I was the one in a wheelchair who needed rescuing.’ There are vague references to the possibility of Ralph’s dying but this isn’t clear and Joanna worries that although he is very popular and has lots of friends, other young people might think ‘his wheelchair is a badge’ for them to win. The problem of too many friends rather than too few is probably not very realistic, but the observations on access and living with an impairment are well incorporated into the story. However, like all books where a character’s story is told second hand through a narrator, we learn more about Joanna’s take on disability than Ralph’s own view of the world.

Helen Flint brought energy and humour to her stories. Describing a dream in Not Just Dancing, she writes. ‘Reality thumbs its nose at me by slowing down just when I most need to run or shout or warn someone – the floor becomes toffee, the air wool, the voice dead.’

Sadly true in her case, but these stories might well survive the test of time.

Lois Keith Lois Keith’s most recent book is Take Up Thy Bed and Walk, Death, Disability and Cure in Classic Fiction for Girls. The Women’s Press. 2001.

020 7582 5008 We are here to help you on

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 10 - 12am and 1 - 3pm Calls are taken by trained and experienced parents.

Minicom: 020 7582 5333 Email: info@parentsforinclusion.org

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This magazine is produced collaboratively by: Disability Equality in Education delivers Inset Training on Disability Equality and Inclusion to schools and training and consultancy to Local Education Authorities. Training is provided by disabled people who are skilled presenters and trainers. The training network is supported by the Director, Richard Rieser, and the Regional Co-ordinator, Sue Rickell.

DEE: Unit GL, Leroy House, 436 Essex Road, London N1 3QP. Tel: 020 7359 2855 Fax: 020 7354 3372 Email: info@diseed.org.uk Website: www.diseed.org.uk Funders: Platinum Trust, DfES, Barrow Cadbury Trust, Comic Relief

Parents for Inclusion is a national organisation of parents of disabled young people. Pi runs a telephone helpline, and holds workshops for parents and professionals. Working at grassroot level Pi supports parents in 23 schools in S. W. London through the setting up of inclusion groups. This model is to be developed regionally.

Pi: Unit 2, 70 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1RL. Tel: 020 7735 7735 Fax: 020 7735 3828 Email: info@parentsforinclusion.org Website: www.parentsforinclusion.org Helpline: 020 7582 5008 Tues, Wed, and Thurs: 10 -12am & 1 - 3pm.

Calls are taken by trained and experienced parents.

Funders: Barrow Cadbury Trust, Bridge House Estates Trust, Carnegie UK Trust, DfES, Health Action Zone, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Platinum Trust, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Stone Ashdown Trust, Lambeth Education, Lazard Charitable Trust

The Alliance for Inclusive Education is a national campaigning organisation led by disabled people. The Alliance works to change laws, practices and procedures which discriminate against disabled young people and prevent inclusion. The Alliance works together with allies to build a social climate in which everyone has a valued place.

ALLFIE: Unit 2, 70 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1RL Tel: 020 7735 5277 Fax: 020 7735 3828 Email: info@allfie.org.uk Website: www.allfie.org.uk Funders: Barrow Cadbury Trust, Platinum Trust, Comic Relief

DISABLED PEOPLE, PARENTS OF DISABLED YOUNG PEOPLE AND ALLIES, WORKING TOGETHER We are working together to educate, facilitate and empower everyone who wants to be part of the growing inclusion movement. Together we want to bring down the barriers so all young people can learn, make friends and have a voice in ordinary school and throughout life. For each and every young person, this is an essential human right.

“ALL OUR CHILDREN BELONG TOGETHER�