Libraries in Dorset are engaging young children with special needs and their families
In the spring of 2022, Dorset Library Service undertook an LGA remote peer challenge on its early years’ service.
This required the library service to collaborate with our local children’s services and look at how they could contribute to Dorset Council’s ‘Our Children, Young People’s and Families Plan 2020-2023’, and our aim to support children to have the best possible start in life.
The percentage of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has increased in Dorset each year since 2017, and there are 2,800 children with SEND supported through education, health and care plans (EHCPs).
Other research findings have also flagged up a clear message that families in Dorset are looking for more groups and accessible support around SEND.
To respond to the challenge of creating more activities for the under-fives and their families, we needed to address the following issues:
- ensure that our libraries were welcoming and inclusive places, where young people with SEND can make friends and be included in community life
- discuss with specialists the layout and equipment that would best meet the needs of the children
- work on a training plan for library staff which would include specialist advice and support
- collaborate with partners to market the sessions and attract families.
We introduced ‘SENsational Story and Play’ sessions to enable the rollout of an inclusive early years’ library activity and provide an opportunity for SEND children, their parents and carers to meet and make friends and help reduce isolation and loneliness.
The sessions were piloted across three libraries with a plan to gather feedback from families, library staff and ‘Portage’ services for pre-school children with SEND, and use this feedback to develop the sessions and continue a phased rollout across the council’s other 20 libraries.
The feedback from families has been encouraging.
For example, staff have relayed that a parent talked about the benefits of having an activity for children with SEND because in other toddler groups she felt more anxious about her child’s behaviour, felt that other parents were judging her and that she constantly had to intervene and explain.
She said she would like to make friends with other parents in the same situation.
Our children’s services are supporting the sessions by running sign language training for library staff, and we are sharing our early years programmes and training with colleagues in the local speech, language and communication network.
A development librarian is undertaking Dingley’s Promise Early Years Inclusion Programme, funded by Comic Relief, which aims to increase the number of young children with SEND accessing early years and childcare places.
It will help us to ensure that we are an informed service that can support the under-fives with SEND and their families through cascading information and training to all library staff.
Dorset Library Service’s early years activities have also been added to the ‘Balanced System’ framework, a framework to help support children to develop their speech, language and communication pathways.
The SENsational Story and Play sessions are a fantastic addition to our library service.
It’s important that we provide services that are inclusive and welcoming to all, and we’ve been delighted at the response from the children, parents and carers who can use our libraries to come together, have a nice time and also check out everything our service has to offer.
