Liverpool City Council has backed an initiative that encourages children with autism to speak up about their experiences.
The council has partnered with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and the Liverpool Parent and Carer Forum to support the National Autism in Schools Project.
It encourages children with autism to speak to their teachers about their experiences, to ensure that the correct and appropriate provision is in place to help children with their learning.
A member of support staff for a school in Merseyside, who chose to remain anonymous, said that whilst the project was a good start, more funding needs to be provided by the council to ensure that children with autism are given the right support.
“More funding needs to be in place to provide more specialist settings with specialist staff”, they said.
According to support staff, there is often a “one size fits all” approach to teaching autistic children. This can mean that those children don’t get the appropriate support, which can lead to behavioural problems and issues socialising with other children.
A one-to-one teacher assistant at a different school in Merseyside said: “It can be demoralising when you don’t feel able to give a child the support they need, when it’s down to a lack of funding”.
Although there are questions as to whether this initiative will go far enough, each member of support staff could agree that the Project was a good place to start.
