1. Alternative Education Providers
6 October 2017
Heather Mackie, Deputy Director, Learning Support

2. What is Learning Support?
Shift from ‘Special Education’ to ‘Learning Support’
Learning Support encompasses those services traditionally known as special education, as well as services designed to support attendance, engagement, and access to the curriculum .
Expanded understanding recognises that that many children and young people will need some kind of additional support at some point in their education pathway.

3. Change in Learning Support
education.govt.nz

4. The case for change
We want the best learning and life outcomes for all children.
This means getting the right support, at the right time, and at the right place.
We know the system to access learning support has been :
too complex and too slow
fragmented and difficult to access.
Families have to deal with a range of people and jump through multiple hoops.
Children could be referred and assessed several times, and have to meet specific criteria to get the help they need.
We want a system that is more focused on children’s needs, easier to access, more flexible, and better linked in with other services.

5. What we know so far
2015: National Review of Special Education. Over 3,650 parents and whānau, and groups from disability and education responded. They asked for services that were:
easier to access
more child-centred
more flexible
better connected with other social and health services.
2016: work began on the Learning Support Update.
2017: trialling new approaches in 22 small local improvement projects throughout New Zealand, and in three Communities of Learning (Otumoetai, Whakatane, Taupō) in the Bay of Plenty.
Encouraging results and positive feedback from parents, schools and services has given us the confidence to extend the trial to more students, schools and early learning services.

6. A new delivery model with six core elements
more flexible
accessible
better coordinated
centred on getting the right support for children, at the right time, and at the right place.

7. Expanding the Learning Support service delivery model
We’re expanding the new delivery model into other regions to up to 30 other Communities of Learning over the next 12 months.
Communities of Learning are ideal places to test the new approaches:
children/young people present across a range of schooling types
growing number of links to the full range of learning supports and providers – we can test how to better reach children and young people moving across a community of provision
Schools not part of a Community of Learning but located close to one, or operating within other collaborative models, will also be able to access the similar approach to provision of learning support
Access to higher levels supports, such as the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS), the Intensive Wraparound Service (IWS) and High Health Needs for students will continue to be managed nationally.
Regionally-based Directors of Education are now working with their Communities of Learning to determine which will be involved in the trial extension.

8. Alternative Education
The Ministry will investigate the potential for incorporating provision of alternative education and activity centres in the new learning support delivery model in five of the Communities of Learning participating in the further roll out.
The location of these sites and the approach to be taken is not yet decided

9. Budget 17 initiatives for Learning Support
education.govt.nz

10. Significant investment over next 4 years
$34.7 million to expand behaviour services.
$4.2 million to extend the Incredible Years Programme.
$6.0 million in targeted support to improve oral language development.
Each includes robust evaluation to help show what works and how
Also $15.5 million to expand In-Class Support.

11. Expanding behaviour services
$34.7 million over four years to expand behaviour services to an additional 1,000 children aged 0-8 years each year.
Includes an additional 75 children aged 0-2 years each year.
Provide specialist behaviour services for children with behaviour difficulties.
Involves recruiting over 50 new staff (mainly psychologists and special education advisors) over two years.
Provides over 40 extra educational psychologist internships over four years to support increased workforce.

12. Expanding the Incredible Years programmes
$4.2 million over four years for expanding the Incredible Years programmes.
Extended to parents and teachers of children aged 2-5 years on the autism spectrum.
In the first year, an additional 300 parents and 150 teachers will participate.
Increasing to 525 parents and 300 teachers per year.

13. Oral language
$6 million over four years for children at risk of literacy difficulties.
Targeted to 3-4 year olds in low socio-economic communities.
Contracting provider/s to employ 10 speech-language therapists to work with to support early learning services
Benefit about 12,720 children through improvements to teaching each year
Train about 480 teachers (in 240 services) each year in ABC and Beyond to recognise oral language issues and use teaching practices to respond.
Targeted support to about 1,900 children by trained ECE teachers
480 children with more severe oral language needs receive specialist individualised support each year.

14. In-Class support
$15.5 million over four years to expand In-Class Support
In-Class Support provides five hours a week of teacher aide support to students with high ongoing learning needs.
Funds a further 525 students from Term , and 625 more from Term
By 2019, 4,000 students will be receiving in-class support.

15. Mental Health initiatives

16. Mental Health package
$100 million social investment mental health package announced in August.
In schools and early learning services, $22 million will be invested in strengthening prevention, early intervention and resilience through:
strengthening self-regulatory skills in early childhood pilot ($3 million)
piloting specialist mental health services in schools ($11 million)
improving learning environments and building the resilience of children and young people ($8 million).

17. Strengthening self-regulatory skills in early childhood
Research shows that higher levels of self control in early childhood are closely linked to higher educational achievement and improved health and wellbeing later in life.
This pilot intervention will develop and evaluate an approach that can be used by parents, family, whānau and early childhood teachers.
Approach supports pre-school children to self-regulate their behaviour and manage their emotions and impulses.
Piloted from mid-2018.

18. Piloting specialist mental health services in schools
Evidence shows that easy to access services, available on-site, leads to improved mental wellbeing, increased engagement in learning, and higher educational achievement.
This intervention will:
pilot the provision of specialist mental health services in selected Communities of Learning to help identify potential mental health issues earlier
coordinate on-location access to mental health care so that students have fast, easy access to the support they need.
It will be developed together with Ministry of Health and rolled out in early 2018.

19. Improving learning environments and building resilience
Building resilience in children and young people leads to:
positive social behaviour
improved mental wellbeing
increased educational achievement. 
PB4L School-Wide has built some capability in this area but does not include an explicit focus on resilience.
This project will create a universal approach to improve learning environments and build the resilience of students.

20. Electronic HEEADSSS assessment and brief intervention
Electronic HEEADSSS assessment and brief intervention for young people ($1 million, led by the Ministry of Health)
Currently the HEEADSSS (Home, Education/Employment, Eating, Activities, Drugs and Alcohol, Sexuality, Suicide and Depression, Safety) assessments are conducted by Nurses, social workers and some counsellors in schools.
The digitisation of HEEADSSS will be trialled in 15 services including:
Youth One Stop Shops
clinics
alongside the pilot of frontline specialist mental health services in schools, Communities of Learning and youth health facilities.
Education is working with Health to select school or Community of Learning locations.