Yesterday, Jenny (PAMIS CEO) Max, and I went to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. We were going to a Learning Disability Cross Party Group in one of the meeting rooms at the Holyrood building. I was really looking forward to going to the meeting and hearing what they were discussing. There were three speakers during the meeting: – the first was Professor Andrew Jahoda; the second was Kayleigh from ENABLE Scotland and the last was Donna Marie Speir and her team from Values Into Action Scotland.

It was a controversial day to be at Holyrood as it was the day that the Government were debating whether to have a second referendum in Scotland. This meant that when we got there, there were several media vans there reporting on what would happen. There were also campaigners campaigning for the referendum to go a certain way. I had never been to the Scottish Parliament before and all of this activity made a simple visit seem very exciting.

I found the meeting really informative and all of the speakers were very interesting. The first speaker at the meeting was Professor Andrew Jahoda, who works in psychological medicine, and his colleague from Glasgow University. Jahoda has researched exclusion of people with learning difficulties previously. They have been looking at bullying in schools of children with learning difficulties and whether anti-bullying strategies are working. I found what they had to say extremely interesting as having being bullied myself previously where teacher’s anti-bullying techniques were questionable, I know how important this is. Professor Jahoda found that there were more cases of bullying than what they expected to find. He told us that we also found that generic anti-bullying techniques do not address people with learning difficulties. As well as this, many anti-bullying programmes work with the victim so that they can learn how to cope with the bullying and can be more assertive and develop their social skills. I think this is shocking that it is more often the victim that is worked with so that they can deal with the bullying rather than the bullies being given workshops on not bullying and the results of bullying. Professor Jahoda and his team thought it would be a good idea to teach young people to have knowledge and understanding of people with disabilities, their condition and what goes on in their lives.

The team at Glasgow University have developed lessons for school children. These lessons will teach the children about diversity, disabilities and understanding disabilities. They are hoping that these lessons will be delivered often in schools and the children will be engaged and interested in the topics. Many anti-bullying programmes are only on for a short while or are a programme that children go to once. The team want to stop this and have a more permanent solution. These lessons are aimed towards children in secondary schools, primarily first year pupils. These lessons are being developed over the next five years and have been piloted in several areas in Scotland. Currently, the lessons are out for their second pilot after being developed after the first time. Professor Andrew have also developed resources for teachers to use to help teach these lessons and they have also made sure that they have fitted into the curriculum. At the moment, they have not made any links with Education Scotland to do with these lessons yet but that is the next step that they are planning to do. They have worked with local authorities and they think the lessons are a great idea.

I think that these lessons are a fantastic idea as it means there are long term solutions to bullying available rather than short programmes that focus more on the victim than preventing the problem. However, I think that they should work these lessons into the primary curriculum as well. I think that waiting until secondary school to start these lessons could sometimes be too late. These could be brought into upper primary school stages which would help educate children earlier on about different disabilities.

The second speaker was Kayleigh from ENABLE Scotland who spoke about the IncludED In The Main?! Campaign (see IncludED In The Main). She summarised what the campaign was trying to achieve and spoke about the 22 recommendations. She said that a child with a disability being present in a classroom does not mean that they are being included. ENABLE hope that along with Professor Jahoda’s plan to deliver these lessons and their 22 steps that inclusion for all can be achieved. Currently, it is found that there is a big reliance on classroom support teachers as only 12% of teachers feel equipped to teach disabled children. This is an incredibly low number of teachers and means that the majority of teachers do not feel prepared to teach disabled children. This number does not surprise me as I did not feel very confident, when I was on placement last year, teaching children with learning disabilities and neither did the class teacher I was working with. Even though IncludED In The Main?! highlights a lot of problems Kayleigh said that it is about campaigning for solutions, not highlighting the problems. Kayleigh also agreed with Professor Jahoda as she thought that having lessons within the curriculum about disabilities would make a big difference.

Professor Andrew Jahoda and his team at the University of Glasgow and ENABLE Scotland think that the Scottish Government should invest more money into the role of teaching. They also want modules to be out into teacher training courses on additional support needs and think this training should be continuous throughout a teacher’s career. They also think that more money should be invested into additional support needs in general so that each school can have more ASN staff.

The last speakers at the meeting were Donna Marie Spier and her colleague, Jordan, from Values Into Action Scotland. They were speaking about transition and what VIAS do. Jordan is a quality checker for VIAS. A quality checker is someone that has a learning difficulty or is on the autism spectrum. Quality checkers visit people and ask question about what support that they provide. Sometimes the quality checker also do mystery shopping to see how much support there is in place. They then write down what they have discovered in a report as well as suggest how the organisation can improve their support. I think that this is a great idea as who knows if the correct support is in place better than the person with the same or similar condition. Fifty five NHS staff have been trained correctly as a result of Quality Check. VIAS are also working alongside People First Glasgow and Glasgow city Council on “The Life I Want Public Social Partnership”. This is a person-led partnership that gives people with learning difficulties in Glasgow a strong voice where they can help to make decisions which helps them to achieve choice and control in all areas of their lives. This is the first person led public social partnership in Scotland. Values Into Action Scotland help to give people with learning difficulties and individuals on the autistic spectrum a voice in their lives. This is hugely important as why should they not get a say in their lives and the support that is offered to them.

I found the meeting at THE Parliament highly educational and eye-opening. It showed me just a small amount of the work that it going on to help people with learning difficulties live a normal life. As well as this it also showed me what can be done to prevent people with learning difficulties to be bullied. I know that the information that I have learned today will help me in my future practice as I have learned information about organisations that I may never have. The meeting yesterday can also be linked to the SFPR for professional commitment as I had to be professional throughout the entire day. Whether that was when I was met some of the people that would be attending the meeting; throughout the meeting or when I was on the train to Edinburgh with Jenny and Max. I am also working towards the standards for social justice – Demonstrating a commitment to engaging learners in real world issues to enhance learning experiences and outcomes, and to encourage learning our way to a better future. i cannot teach about real world issues and help learners towards a better future if i do not know what these issues are and how i can help to change them. The meeting today has opened my eyes to some of these issues.