WTT is an NAS Autism Accreditation Beacon Status Service

The award is given to provisions which have already achieved an advanced
award for the quality and consistency of support they provide to autistic
people but can also demonstrate outstanding and innovative practice in
sharing this expertise and knowledge. In particular, the application form
should describe not just the exceptional work done by a provision but the
significant impact this work has had on how families, professionals and the
local community understand and respond to autistic people.

NAS Accreditation panel:

The panel was very impressed with your application. It was described as
clear, informative and professional with clear evidence of partnership work to
enhance autism support across a wide range of services.

What the provision does particularly well

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What stood out as particular strengths: in supporting autistic people:
 

Strengths based approach strong pupil voice

The ethos of ‘empowerment’ continues to be a key driver for the WTT. There is a strong emphasis on upskilling and empowering families and professionals to reflect on their own practice and adjust their approach to support autistic pupils.
The referral process, the ‘WTT ladder’ fully embraces and further supports the ethos of empowering schools by encouraging school to reflect on their current practice and consider what more could be done to support autistic people. The model puts an emphasis on training first. It has been extremely well received by the schools supported by WTT.
The quality and range of training delivered by the service is of an extremely high standard. During interviews many family members and professionals commented on the quality and relevance of the training. Families spoke enthusiastically about the positive impact the WTT parent training workshops had had on their families, helping them to understand their child better and feel more confident in using different approaches.
The WTT team are passionate about their work and ensure that the wellbeing of the autistic pupil is at the heart of every decision. Team members were able to give many examples of how they had supported schools through training and implementing different approaches that have enabled autistic pupils to access learning opportunities.
The knowledge and experience of autism within the WTT ensures that autistic pupils receive an outstanding level of support. In interviews both professionals and families spoke about the in-depth knowledge the WTT has about autism and were able to provide many examples as to how the team had helped them to embed strategies to support autistic pupils. One family member commented ‘I was blown away by the knowledge of the WTT.’
The newly developed website provides families and professional with a wealth of information on autism and a useful bank of resources, again promoting the ethos of empowering families and professionals with knowledge.
The recently introduced written resources (sensory profiles, one-page profiles and meaningful adjustments) developed by the WTT have been enthusiastically welcomed by schools as practical resources which enable to further enhance the support of autistic pupils.

The overwhelming amount of evidence gathered from interviews, surveys and reviewed documentation demonstrates that the Working Together Team continues to have a huge impact on achieving positive outcomes for autistic young people.

• SENCOs from a number of different school across Lincolnshire spoke highly of the WTT, stating that they were a very supportive service that worked collaboratively with the schools to ensure the best outcomes for autistic pupils.

• During interviews, families where overwhelmingly full of praise for the service and spoke about the positive impact the service had on their autistic child and the family. Families spoke highly of the personalised approach putting the autistic pupil at the heart of every decision and ‘never being made to feel insignificant or stupid’. One family member commented, ‘The WTT completely changed our lives, we were desperate.’

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What the provision could develop further

Priorities for the provision in ensuring consistency and quality in supporting autistic people:

No significant areas of development where identified by the assessor. As discussed during in the assessment and already identified by the WTT the team is encouraged to;
• Develop sharing practice opportunities
• Develop bite size workshops for parents
• Develop Early Years training on how to create a lower arousal environment

 

Key outcomes identified from personal support documents

The Working Together Team (WTT) is a commissioned by Lincolnshire County Council to empower mainstream education settings in supporting autistic children and young people and / or those with social communication differences.

Policy documentation highlights the provision’s commitment to promoting visually supported teaching and learning and encouraging mainstream staff to modify and adapt their style of communication to enable pupils to respond and to learn.

The WTT team offers bespoke training to mainstream settings on topics relevant to social communication including Social Stories, Comic Strip conversations and Inference training. The WTT also provide workshops for families on using Social Stories and Comic Strip conversations at home.

A useful document that the WTT has created and made available to mainstream schools identifies ‘reasonable adjustments’ for autistic pupils. It recommends that each pupil has a communication passport. The WTT team will provide additional support to schools to help them create a communication passport when needed.

According to its graduated system of support referred to as the WTT ladder, where a school requires individualised advice for a pupil the WTT team will observe how the pupil socially interacts and communicates in class.

Observation reports and meeting records identify what is working well e.g. ‘Teacher asked x where they would like to sit, X was able to verbalise where in the classroom they wanted to sit and why they wanted to sit there’ and what is not working well e.g. X was given less time to process and answers questions/requests when speaking to the classroom TA, rather than their 1:1’ This provides schools with clearly identified areas that can be further developed.

Case studies provide evidence that autistic pupils achieve positive outcomes in their social interaction and communication. For example, one case study provides details about a pupil who ’doesn’t talk in the school environment due to anxiety though has 2 key friends and can be heard talking to them on the playground’. On advice from the WTT the school implemented a number of strategies including ‘use of her key friends as advocates so they can be her voice in the classroom and use of hand signals when wanting to communicate to the class teacher’. This has resulted in the pupil now being ‘able to communicate with a small group of classroom adults which now includes her class teacher, through the adapted approaches that they have agreed’.

Key outcomes identified from interviews with families, SENCOs, multi-agency services and teaching staff supported by the service and review of key activities:

Staff from schools supported by WTT were able to give many examples as to how they had changed their practice to support young people with communication differences. For example, staff spoke about ‘simplifying and structuring their verbal language’, ‘allowing processing time’ and using ‘visuals to support verbal instructions’.

One member of the WTT team spoke about the advice they had given a school to support a non-verbal pupil. The team member spoke about the importance of initially understanding how the pupil expressed themselves by asking ‘How do we know if they are excited or anxious? ‘What does that look like for this pupil?’. Working collaboratively with the school a number of strategies were implemented including; visual supports to support verbal communication and routines, Makaton and social stories. The team member also explained that they modelled to staff in the school how to adapt their communication by reducing and structuring their language and allowing processing time.

One family member spoke about how, on advice from WTT, they had started to use texting as a way of communicating with their child as they found it difficult to engage in face to face conversations. They found that their child responds well to this and that family tensions have decreased as a result.

One member of staff spoke about how the WTT had helped the school to introduce social scripts, this approach had been particularly useful to support a pupil who was struggling with social interactions. The school introduced a social script to help the pupil to understand expectations and good social interactions. The pupil is now understanding social interactions better and responding more appropriately.

Key outcomes identified from personal support documents:

The WTT’s website has dedicated pages to the SPELL approach and a range of helpful resources that schools and parents can use to support autistic people in ‘Flexibility, Information Processing & Understanding.

Schools that wish to find out more about the SPELL approach can attend a workshop on the approach.

The WTT team has created a reasonable adjustments document to advice schools on how to include a pupil in mainstream education. Much of this document relates to the provisions commitment to the principles of the NAS SPELL approach. For example:

There should be a class visual timetable for all pupils to show the current school day and what is happening. This should be actively used e.g. Items removed as they are completed, moved to show changes as they arise. Alongside, the pupil may need their own personalised version if their day is slightly different. This adds structure and predictability Present the visuals in an accessible way to the pupil. Use objects, photos, symbols.

The guidance also provides the following advice:

Use the pupil’s interests. These provide intrinsic motivation and a calm space for learning

Adapt work expectations to show what am I doing, how much do I need to do, how to do it and how will I know when I'm finished?

Support pupils to breakdown tasks into a way that works for them e.g. chunking, task list, to feel successful
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Observation reports and meeting records identify what is working well e.g.’ X uses Now/Next. X can independently put his cup and plate away after a prompt’. And advise is given as to how to support transition planning; for example ‘Building familiarity, the things they will need for the school day/the journey/‘social stories’–from school/about school. Practising, school uniform, changing into PE kit, eating from a lunchbox, wearing the uniform. Use of videos and learning packs prepared and shared by school to promote familiarity with expectations’.

Key outcomes identified from interviews with families, SENCOs, multi-agency services and teaching staff supported by the service and review of key activities:

One SENCO spoke about the ‘transition workshops’ which they have delivered with the support the WTT team, stating that the workshops had highlighted what we need to do better as a school to support transitions such as ‘explaining what to bring in their bags, supporting them to practice the journey to school, working out what time they have to leave home and where to go when they arrive at school’.

Another SENCO spoke about how, on advice from the WTT, they had introduced personalised visual timetables, now and then boards and task schedules to enable pupils to work out what they must do now and what they are expected to do next. This provided pupils with more structure and predictability throughout the day helping to reduces anxiety.

One school spoke about the importance of using the one-page profiles introduced by the WTT to ensure consistency with practice when pupils transition from one school to another.

Another member of staff spoke about how they had been supported to introduce a graduated transition programme for one pupil who was finding it difficult to access school, the pupil is now attending school for 2 hours each morning.

Key outcomes identified from personal support documents:

The WTT team has developed a Positive Sensory Profiling tool which provide schools and families with clear guidance about sensory differences, how to recognise sensory differences, how to complete the profiles and provides suggestions of a wide variety of approaches to support sensory differences. Schools and families are encouraged to use
the profiles independently to identify sensory differences and implement personalised support strategies.

The WTT provides a comprehensive, progressive training programme in sensory integration. At the foundation level schools are trained in ‘sensory integration processing differences’, at the core level schools train in ‘supporting sensory differences in autism’ at the bespoke intervention level schools can access ‘sensory circuit’ training.

The WTT website has a dedicated section to sensory processing which provides professionals and families with a range of resources to support autistic pupils with their sensory differences, including; sensory profiles, sensory environment checklists and sensory displays.

Case Studies provide evidence of how the service is working with schools to support the sensory needs of autistic pupils. For example, one case study gives details about a new school working with the WTT, after several meetings is was determined that all pupils referred to the service from the school had sensory differences. It was agreed that competing sensory profiles for each pupil and looking at a whole school approach would be the best approach to support pupils. A bespoke workshop was delivered to the school on understanding the ‘why, what and how of a sensory circuit approach’. On implementing sensory circuits the school noted the following outcomes;

• Children’s attendance increased.
• Children were keen to go to do their sensory circuit.
• They we able to carry out the movements independently with adult support to ensure quality of movement and safety.
• Staff commented on the positive impact of the children arriving in the classroom for their first lesson.
• Raised staff awareness of the importance of sensory differences being addressed.

Key outcomes identified from interviews with families, SENCOs, multi-agency services and teaching staff supported by the service and review of key activities:

One family member spoke about the sensory support tools that had been put in place for their child on the advice from the WTT team these included; using lap weight when sitting, a wobble board and peanut ball and squeezing their shoulders when anxious. The family member stated that their chid is now ‘more grounded and relaxed and in a better place to learn’.

Another parent spoke about their child becoming anxious in busy environments, the WTT advised the school to allow the pupil to arrive later at school to avoid busy
corridors and facilitate a calmer transition into the classroom. By making this resalable adjustment to practice the pupil is now able to avoid busy transition times and is ‘more relaxed and focused on learning’.

One member of staff spoke about how a pupil they support can at times be quite dis-regulated, the pupil enjoys eating crunchy foods and on advice from the WTT now ‘comes to school each day with a snack box full of foods such as, crisps, crunch apples and baby cucumbers which all help the pupil to self-regulate, alongside regular movement breaks’.

The WTT spoke about how they are having conversations with mainstream schools as to how they can make reasonable adjustments to support autistic pupils’ sensory differences. For example, one pupil is very sensitive to noise and becomes anxious when noise levels in the classroom are high, the pupil has access to ear defenders and is encouraged to move to quieter areas when noise levels are high, however the WTT team is also encouraging the school to ask pupils in the class to lower their voices to enable the autistic pupil to participate more easily in class activities.

Several professionals spoke about how effective they had found the sensory training delivered by the WTT and the support they had had with implementing individualised sensory support approaches. One member of staff commented that, ‘Meeting X’s sensory needs was the key, by meeting her sensory needs X now has the energy and focus to develop other skills’.

Key outcomes identified from personal support documents:

The WTT has recently introduced a more streamlined referral process the ‘WTT Ladder;’ this model encourages schools to reflect on their current practice and consider what more the school could be doing to support the autistic pupil before requesting additional support. The emphasis is on training first, upskilling and empowering staff to make the necessary changes to practice before escalating the support to require a more bespoke intervention plan. The new process has been extremely well received by SENCOs with one SENCO stating ‘It empowers the SENCO to drive and push practice forward in their school whilst being responsive to individual pupils’.

The WTT have developed their website to provide families and professional with a wealth of information on autism and provide a bank of resources including; sensory profiles, creating one-page profiles and reasonable adjustments documents to encourage schools and families to be more pro-active in the support they provide autistic schools. One professional commented ‘The new website is extremely informative and is easy to access, also some high quality resources and advice for parents to access’.

Observational reports and meeting records identify what is working well, for example, ‘X is now able to follow the preschool routine with occasional reminders needed of what activity comes next. X is happy to choose which activities he wants to take part in, he is now experiencing all forms of creative activities. X’s speech has improved, and he is now forming sentences which are appropriate to the task he is doing’.

The WTT offer a comprehensive training programme for both families and professionals, the ethos of the service is to empower families and professionals to be confident in their autism support approaches, this is first and foremost done through training. Data reviewed on all training programmes provides evidence that the training provided by the WTT is of a high standard with a high percentage of delegates rating the training as good or excellent.

Comments include;
• I have gained a greater understanding of where I can look for techniques and resources to use with my class
• I had a really enjoyable day- being able to talk to others in similar situations is always invaluable. The trainers were very approachable and covered everything we asked. I intend to go away and change my home communication book, the make of it and layout.
• I really enjoyed the training, the trainers where really knowledgeable and willing to listen and advice.
In total 11 family members provided feedback to the assessment team by returning completed questionnaires. The full results are shown as an appendix to this report.
o 10 family members stated that the support their relative is given is always or mostly good.
o 10 family members stated that staff understanding is mostly or always good.
o 10 family members stated that advice given by the school was good or always good.
o 9 family members stated that the way they are kept informed was good or always good.

Comments included;
• The WTT has been one of the easiest services I have worked with regarding my children
• The help and support I received completely changed my daughter’s life. We received help and support all the way through the journey. Without the service we would have struggled to navigate the system

• The support we have had from the WTT in general and X in particular has been superb. Contact was always prompt and appropriate, and the information and strategies suggested were always targeted to either directly support our child or to help us support our child.
In total 94 professionals provided feedback to the assessment team by returning completed questionnaires. The feedback was overwhelming positive. The full results are shown as an appendix to this report.
o 84 stated the support the provision provides for autistic people is always good, 9 stated it was mostly good and 1 stated it was ok, but could be better.
o 90 stated that the understanding and knowledge the provision has of autism is always good, 4 sated it was mostly good.
o 86 stated that how the provision works with other professionals in the best interests of autistic people is always good, 7 stated it was mostly good and 1 stated it was ok, but could be better.

Comments included;
• An invaluable service with such knowledge and practical advice.
• Dissemination of knowledge from the team is excellent, this includes the training package that they offer each year.
• We have and continue to receive exceptionally support from the WTT team. Their knowledge and practical ideas really support us in school to develop individualised provisions for those in our care.
• I have been a SENCO in Lincolnshire for 15 years and have worked with The Working Together Team during this whole period. They are always extremely knowledgeable and very responsive when help and advice is needed.

Key outcomes identified from interviews with families, SENCOs, multi-agency services and teaching staff supported by the service and review of key activities:

SENCOs from a number of different school across Lincolnshire spoke highly of the WTT, stating that they were a very supportive service that worked collaboratively with the schools to ensure the best outcomes for autistic pupils.

During interviews, families where overwhelmingly full of praise for the service and spoke about the positive impact the service had on their autistic child and the family. Families spoke highly of the personalised approach putting the autistic pupil at the heart of every decision and ‘never being made to feel insignificant or stupid’. Other comments included;
• ‘The WTT completely changed our lives, we were desperate’
• ‘Blown away by the knowledge of the WTT’

Families also spoke enthusiastically about the positive impact the WTT parent training workshops had had on their families, helping them to understand their child better and feel more confident in using different approaches. One parent commented that the Teen Life training was ‘enriching, the course content is relevant and accessible, sharing personal stories helped me to understand I wasn’t alone.’

Another parent spoke about how attending the Teen Life training course had helped her to respond better when their child was in a particularly anxious state the evening before sitting an exam. ‘I didn’t panic like I used to, I tried different ways to help them self-regulate, including having an ice lolly because I knew the temperature change and calming effect of sucking on the ice lolly would help them to relax’.

During interviews the WTT team spoke about the importance of using one-page profiles to strengthen the pupil voice and provide consistency, particularly around transitions and when supply teachers are brought in. For example, one pupil would refuse to go into lessons if it was being taught by a supply teacher. Working in collaboration with the school and the pupil a one-page profile was produced which highlighted key ways in which the pupil could be supported whilst in the classroom, such as, ‘sitting near the door and not being asked direct questions’. The pupil would keep a copy of their one-page profile and give it to supply teachers when needed. This enabled the pupil to participate in lessons taught by supply teachers by helping to reduce their anxiety whilst also enabling the supply teacher to understand the pupil’s needs.

One member of the WTT spoke about how one pupil was using wrist bands to communicate if they were okay or not. The pupil said that the wrist bands had ‘changed their life’ as they were able to express in a non-verbal way if a situation was making them anxious.