NORFOLK COUNTY COUNCIL
Pupil
Access & Support Service
(PA&SS)
PA&SS is part of Norfolk County Council’s
Children’s Services department, which includes all educational and social care
services for children and young people. PA&SS encompasses all the teams,
which exist to support teachers, parents and carers, when focusing on the
individual needs of pupils.
Within PA&SS there are 3 strands, although joint
working across these strands is a strong feature, as children’s needs cannot be
simply categorised.
1. “Assessment and Provision”(A&P) which includes
planning of funding for a wide range of children with special educational needs
(SEN); the processing of Statements of SEN; and the planning and organisation
of special provisions such as special schools and units within mainstream
settings.
2. “Educational Psychology and Specialist
Support”(EPSS), which includes the team of Educational Psychologists, who have
been trained in providing a consultative model of service delivery; a team of
learning support specialist teachers and support assistants; and a team of
specialist support teachers for those with sensory impairment. It also includes
a specialist team focusing on the educational needs of children in public care
and this team forms part of a multi-professional team within the wider
Children’s Services department.
3. “Attendance and Behaviour Support”(A&BS), which includes the Attendance Team, whose
primary focus is working with schools and parents/carers to improve the overall
attendance of pupils at school and the Behaviour Team. This behaviour team,
which is made up of specialist teachers and support assistants, provides a
range of different types of support, from preventative work in mainstream and
special schools; to offsite part and full-time provision in Pupil Referral
Units, for pupils who have either been excluded from school or are in
significant danger of becoming permanently excluded. Many of this team have
also been trained in providing a consultative model of service delivery.
Members of both the EPSS and the A&BS teams form
the School Support Team, which
provides a consultation and intervention service to all mainstream schools and
special schools. It works at 3 levels of intervention: general support and
advice with a named person visiting on a regular basis, including assessment of
individual need; targeted support for specific children or groups of children;
and more systemic work, such as provision of training.
Education
Department
http://www.norfolkesinet.org.uk/pages/viewpage.asp?uniqid=582
Pupil Access and
Community Services
http://www.norfolkesinet.org.uk/pages/viewpage.asp?uniqid=1240
Education Psychology and Specialist Support
http://www.norfolkesinet.org.uk/pages/viewpage.asp?uniqid=1247
Norfolk County
Project Staff
Helen
Carmichael
Helen Carmichael is Attendance and Behaviour Manager,
Pupil Access & Support Services, Norfolk County Council Children’s
Services.
She is a trained secondary school
teacher and a Chartered Educational Psychologist, now working as a strategic
manager of support services. She has over 25 years of experience mainly as an
educational psychologist, in a range of authorities in England and Scotland,
covering both rural and urban areas.
Before moving to Norfolk in 2004, she was manager of
Aberdeen City Educational Psychology Service and was instrumental in
introducing the consultation model of service delivery there, following a pilot
project, which evaluated the efficacy of the approach in supporting schools (MacHardy, Carmichael and Proctor, 1997).