Steps to Independence

Room 4 - M&I Policy and Service Room (Section 5 of 7) 

Section 5: Developing and managing an M&I service

Planning an M&I service

The process by which education services arrive at a coherent M&I service is vital. A recommendation is that services must review and audit their provision of mobility and independence education. The Kelvin Mobility Education Project in Glasgow sought to do this, and provides a useful example for other services to draw upon. A summary of this ongoing work was commissioned for this research project and is presented in Aplin (2002).

When proposing the ideal model for a particular authority, several factors have to be taken into consideration, including:

• The number of children with a vision impairment in the authority and any additional needs they may have. This will obviously affect the number and professionals required to deliver the M&I curriculum and possibly require different areas of expertise. The greater the number of children there is to support, more time and input from one or more mobility and independence educators will be required. The nature of additional disabilities or needs may require decisions to be made about the expertise, training or characteristics of professionals involved in delivering the M&I curriculum, e.g. issues relating to the cultural background of children, additional disabilities, the age or stage of M&I of the child and so on.
• The geographical size and location of the authority. For example, a geographically large authority will necessitate lengthy travel between schools or children’s homes, therefore this will need to be taken into account when planning work schedules of professionals, etc. The location in which children live (e.g. rural as opposed to urban) may also affect the design of programmes or the delivery of programmes.
• The feasibility and need for having an MO or RO dedicated to the provision of M&I education employed by the Education Service. Again this is the ideal model, but in some small authorities where there are not a large number of children to support, it may be more cost-effective to contract in a MIE for part-time support from another organisation (or a self-employed consultant).
• The presence of a voluntary organisation or social services department in the authority area that is equipped to provide a suitable mobility and independence service to children. As suggested above, rather than employing a MIE it may be more sensible to contract in a MIE from another organisation of there is already a professional with relevant expertise and / or service agreements in place. It may also be possible for a MIE from one agency to deliver one part of the M&I curriculum whilst other areas of the curriculum are delivered by other professionals / agencies, perhaps depending on their relevant expertise / training or the hours and location of their work (in school time v out of school times, and school area work v home area work).
• The presence of professional expertise in the area of mobility and independence for children, perhaps located in a special school for children with a vision impairment that can be drawn upon. See earlier section on the expertise of professionals working in special schools for children with a vision impairment.

As stated earlier, the ideal model of provision is to have one (or more) Mobility and Independence Educator (usually a Mobility or Rehabilitation Officer) employed by the education service:

• If the model is implemented correctly, the mobility and independence educator is managed as part of a broader educational team, and this enables successful collaboration within the vision impairment service and with school and home. Particular attention must be given to ensure that holiday and home-area support is provided.
• In some circumstances the mobility and independence educator in this model may be a QTVI with appropriate additional training. This may be suitable in small education services where it is not economically feasible to employ a Mobility and Independence Educator who works solely on mobility and independence education.
• In authorities where there is a suitable external agency or consultant able to provide some part of the mobility and independence service to children, contracts should stipulate which parts of the mobility and independence curriculum are being covered and the expected levels of communication between agencies.

The advantages and disadvantages of different models of provision are discussed in more detail in section 3 of this room.

Mobility and independence policy

The Curriculum Room describes the different types of curriculum documents collected in the research. These varied in the breadth and depth with which they covered the mobility and independence curriculum. The same was true for the policy documents that were collected. Some, though very few, provided detailed accounts of the service offered. These were often produced by special schools for pupils with a vision impairment.

A clear recommendation from this research is that every education service needs to have a policy for the education of mobility and independence to children with a vision impairment (mobility and independence policy document) in place. This is a crucial guide for children and parents, and those involved in the delivery of the mobility and independence curriculum, particularly when this may be across agencies.

Activity 5

Before reading further, try to write down different aspects of M&I education provision that you think an M&I policy should cover.

Think about some of the issues raised earlier in this room, including people and agencies that might be involved, the different areas of the curriculum that should be covered, the stages and processes involved in delivering the curriculum and the particular needs of different groups of children. 

Education services should review and audit their provision of mobility and independence education in order to develop a policy. It should:

• Be shared with, and agreed by, all involved in mobility and independence education, including other agencies.
• Map the mobility and independence curriculum with delivery procedures and those involved in all stages of delivery.

An M&I policy document should make explicit reference to a number of areas, described in detail throughout this resource and the research report, including:

• Definitions and descriptions of all aspects of the mobility and independence curriculum.
• Referral, assessment, environmental assessment, programme design, intervention, review and completion.
• Child protection policies.
• Policies related to particular children and young people and their context including the needs of, and educational provision for, pre-school children, children undergoing transition from school to post-school, children with multiple disabilities and a visual impairment, and children from a range of cultural and religious backgrounds.
• Procedures for record keeping and how this relates to formal procedures within the SEN Code of Practice.
• Key people involved in delivery and what is expected of them (e.g. Mobility and Independence Educator, Class Teacher, Teaching Assistants, QTVIs, parents, peers). This should include clear child protection guidelines.
• Procedures and contractual arrangements for working with different agencies.

Funding issues

Funding of M&I posts

The current arrangements for funding mobility and independence posts are very complex. The research project revealed that education funding appears to be the most common, though social services funding is widely used. Joint funding between both education and social services was also much in evidence, the rationale being that the social services fund out of school mobility and independence support, whilst education fund in school. There were further examples of social services and education sub-contracting work to voluntary organisations. An added consideration is that voluntary organisations sometimes provide support beyond the level that is funded. A further complication is that different aspects of the mobility and independence curriculum may be subject to different funding arrangements, e.g. some of the early and foundation mobility and independence curriculum may be supported by the education funded QTVI, while travel skills may be supported by another agency.

A key recommendation from this research is that the provision of mobility and independence education should be the responsibility of education. This is reflected in Recommendation 2 related to the SEN Code of Practice. It is recommended that mobility and independence provision should fall under School Action, School Action Plus, or in the case of a statement of SEN it would be more appropriately recorded as ‘educational’ provision rather than ‘non-educational provision’. This has significant implications for funding.

SEN funding and the new Code of Practice

There is currently a lack of clarity about where the responsibility for funding mobility and independence education lies. Feedback from Heads of Support Services suggests that there is a need for a consistent approach to funding nationally, across all involved agencies. This view is supported by the new Code of Practice:

“[.. ] support for children with special educational needs requires a concerted approach from healthcare professionals, social service departments, specialist LEA support services and other providers of support services. All these services should aim to provide an integrated service for the child so that parents perceive the provision to be ‘seamless’.” (DFES 2001b, p 49)

The new Code of Practice suggests that at both the School Action and School Action Plus levels, funding should be devolved to maintained schools to provide for pupils’ special educational needs. Funding is devolved to schools through a funding formula that reflects the incidence of SEN within the school (DFES 2001b, p 95). As of April 2002 LEAs are required to publish details of the kinds of support arrangements maintained schools might ‘normally’ provide from their budgets under School Action and School Action Plus. They are also required to publish their own plans for providing appropriate SEN support, particularly under School Action Plus.

Where a child has a statement of special educational needs specifying that additional resources are essential, for example, it may be deemed necessary that regular and frequent direct input by a specialist teacher is required. The LEA may provide these additional resources either:

• Directly from central provision.
• Through devolved additional resources to the school.
• Through devolved additional resources to the school on an ‘earmarked’ basis.

At the time of writing the research report, the implications of these changes in funding on the provision of mobility and independence education were uncertain. There may be tensions regarding implementing some of the recommendations outlined in the research report and the financial implications for the school. This is further compounded by the fact that the school may be unfamiliar with some of the needs of a child with a vision impairment and not recognise the importance of mobility and independence, e.g. an initial assessment or environmental audit of the school building. Related to this is the development of a coherent mobility and independence service. The research suggests that different models of provision will be appropriate in different circumstances, although the employment of a mobility and independence educator by the education service is the ideal model for many LEAs. Such a model may be difficult to implement in authorities that adopt a devolved model because available funds (i.e. income from schools) will be difficult to predict at the beginning of a year. Clearly this is something that must be monitored carefully, though it appears (from evidence collected from Heads of Services) that some of the LEAs are not devolving budgets for the reasons described above. Evidence presented in description about the referral process highlights the importance of decisions regarding mobility and independence education being taken by informed specialists. The report’s key recommendation that all children with a visual impairment should be assessed for mobility and independence needs would, at least in part, act as an essential safeguard.

It is our view that ideally education services should hold the budget for providing mobility and independence education (in line with Key recommendations 2 and 3 in the research report). This is in keeping with arguments and recommendations made elsewhere in the research report and this resource, i.e. because mobility and independence should be identified as an educational need, it logically follows that this should be the case. We urge that this model be adopted wherever possible. However, we accept that there are contrary points of view which would argue that some aspects of mobility and independence would fall naturally under health or social services responsibility, e.g. some pre-school work. A comparison was made with the case of children with speech and language difficulties in the report. This demonstrates how speech and language services have evolved, and continue to evolve in different ways – examples of education managing their own service, education contracting to health, and health providing the service exist across England. For this reason a more pragmatic approach is to consider which agency takes a lead role. Reiterating a key recommendation of the research, in the interests of effective, co-ordinated provision, a single agency should have responsibility for overseeing mobility and independence education. It is recommended that education have this lead role.

Following from this it is recommended that a formal contract be made between education and other agencies involved in mobility and independence education. The research has found examples of cases where education departments contract social services departments to carry out mobility and independence education, and sometimes these costs are shared. Similarly, most cases of voluntary organisations providing mobility and independence education involved a formalised contractual agreement. In some cases the support provided by the voluntary organisations went beyond their contractual obligations. If this provision falls within the mobility and independence curriculum then ideally it should be captured within some formal agreement, reviewed at least annually. While this may appear bureaucratic, it is important if a coherent, well-planned, service is to be guaranteed.

In some cases voluntary organisations may have formal mechanisms for providing matched funding or similar. At the time of the research, this was being explored by the GDBA through their Guide Dogs Mobility Service (GDMS) pilot projects. However, it is likely that relatively few services would benefit from such projects because of the enormous cost it would incur to the voluntary sector.

This is a rapidly changing area and further research is needed to monitor how it evolves and make recommendations accordingly.

Funding of training needs of the mobility and independence educator

There is a relatively well defined route for teachers to secure funding for specialist training through the DfES Standards Fund. However feedback from Heads of Support Services suggests that access to the fund can sometimes be difficult, especially when budgets have been delegated to schools. It is particularly difficult to obtain funding for the training of teaching assistants. Funding routes for those employed by social services is often less well defined and it was found that some students were dependent on bursaries from voluntary bodies, such as Guide Dogs, and some students were self funding.

Funding may also be available from the Department of Health for courses in vision impairment and dual sensory loss (see Department of Health, 2001). However, none of those interviewed in this study referred to this source of funding.

Relevant staff employed by others, e.g. voluntary organisations, should have access to this funding where they are working closely with LEA staff to meet mobility and independence needs of young people.

Recommendations based upon good practice

• Services should regularly review and audit their provision of mobility and independence education. This online resource provides a useful tool to aid services in carrying out an audit and review of current provision.
• LEAs, working in collaboration with other agencies, should develop and maintain policies for mobility and independence education, within and beyond school.
• As education are recommended to take the lead role in coordinating and overseeing mobility and independence education, it follows that education services should ideally hold the budget for providing mobility and independence education.
• A formal contract should be made between education and any other agencies involved in mobility and independence education, and the costs of funding M&I education shared where possible.

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