title: "Experiences of families and professionals living/interacting with neurodivergent children while navigating the policy contexts of health, education and social services: The fight for accessible and suitable support"

authors: Robyns, Kelly Louise

subjects: Neurodivergent

abstract: Families of neurodivergent children often end up interacting with policy contexts of health, education, and social services on a regular basis when they have unmet needs. My research investigates these policy contexts to better understand how more accessible and suitable support can be provided to meet those needs. My research also describes the experiences of families that struggle to find or receive accessible and suitable support. I also aimed to highlight the principles of the neurodiversity paradigm to illustrate the deficit-based thinking of current systems and practice. It is natural, healthy, and valuable to have diversity among minds, both in the classroom and in society. The principles of the neurodiversity paradigm challenge the ways in which health, education, and social service systems respond to neurodivergent children. My research design included literature review, policy analysis, key informant interviews and autoethnographic reflections. Literature was drawn from academic research, but grey literature was particularly important as sometimes families of neurodivergent children at crisis point feel that they had no choice but to talk to the media. I also undertook interviews with social service professionals locally to understand their position on New Zealand provision for neurodivergent children and their families. My findings indicate that there are key limitations and problems in relation to current policy and practice. There is tension between the policy emphasis of inclusion and the real-life experiences that document the practice of exclusion. This could be due to the ways in which neurodivergent children are constructed and framed through policy language that reflects a deficit-thinking model. To ensure that the needs of neurodivergent children are met through the paradigm of neurodiversity more professional development and policy language shifts need to occur so that society can see neurological differences as a valuable part of humanity. Furthermore, greater emphasis needs to be placed on options that are accessible for families, and suitable to the unique needs of their children. Overall, the research also demonstrates that much higher levels of transparency is needed between the siloed policy areas of health, education and social services, the professionals who work in each of these areas and most importantly between clinicians and families in relation to diagnoses, funding, and physical support. Finally, there also needs to be transparency in terms of the objectives of the neurodiversity paradigm which is to make clear the faults of the system and accept difference as the norm. The neurodiversity movement and paradigm challenge the deficit-based pathological views of neurological differences such as autism, ADHD, epilepsy and other neurodivergences. When neurodivergence is pathologized neurodivergent people are compared to a fictional norm or a ‘right’ way of being resulting in stigma, shame and often co-occurring mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. These findings are important as families of neurodivergent children with unmet needs are forced to interact with policy contexts to receive support and funding. Accessible, suitable support including funding availability is essential to a neurodivergent child’s well-being and inclusion within society.

text: "Experiences of families and professionals living/interacting with neurodivergent children while navigating the policy contexts of health, education and social services: The fight for accessible and suitable support" Families of neurodivergent children often end up interacting with policy contexts of health, education, and social services on a regular basis when they have unmet needs. My research investigates these policy contexts to better understand how more accessible and suitable support can be provided to meet those needs. My research also describes the experiences of families that struggle to find or receive accessible and suitable support. I also aimed to highlight the principles of the neurodiversity paradigm to illustrate the deficit-based thinking of current systems and practice. It is natural, healthy, and valuable to have diversity among minds, both in the classroom and in society. The principles of the neurodiversity paradigm challenge the ways in which health, education, and social service systems respond to neurodivergent children. My research design included literature review, policy analysis, key informant interviews and autoethnographic reflections. Literature was drawn from academic research, but grey literature was particularly important as sometimes families of neurodivergent children at crisis point feel that they had no choice but to talk to the media. I also undertook interviews with social service professionals locally to understand their position on New Zealand provision for neurodivergent children and their families. My findings indicate that there are key limitations and problems in relation to current policy and practice. There is tension between the policy emphasis of inclusion and the real-life experiences that document the practice of exclusion. This could be due to the ways in which neurodivergent children are constructed and framed through policy language that reflects a deficit-thinking model. To ensure that the needs of neurodivergent children are met through the paradigm of neurodiversity more professional development and policy language shifts need to occur so that society can see neurological differences as a valuable part of humanity. Furthermore, greater emphasis needs to be placed on options that are accessible for families, and suitable to the unique needs of their children. Overall, the research also demonstrates that much higher levels of transparency is needed between the siloed policy areas of health, education and social services, the professionals who work in each of these areas and most importantly between clinicians and families in relation to diagnoses, funding, and physical support. Finally, there also needs to be transparency in terms of the objectives of the neurodiversity paradigm which is to make clear the faults of the system and accept difference as the norm. The neurodiversity movement and paradigm challenge the deficit-based pathological views of neurological differences such as autism, ADHD, epilepsy and other neurodivergences. When neurodivergence is pathologized neurodivergent people are compared to a fictional norm or a ‘right’ way of being resulting in stigma, shame and often co-occurring mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. These findings are important as families of neurodivergent children with unmet needs are forced to interact with policy contexts to receive support and funding. Accessible, suitable support including funding availability is essential to a neurodivergent child’s well-being and inclusion within society.

year: 2023

title: The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People [Book Review]

authors: Drury, Abdullah

abstract: This article reviews the book 'The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People', by Aziz Al-Azmch.

text: The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People [Book Review] This article reviews the book 'The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People', by Aziz Al-Azmch.

year: 2014-06

title: Education leaders can reduce educational disparities

authors: Bishop, Russell

subjects: education

abstract: This chapter is about how education leaders can act to reduce educational disparities for indigenous and other minoritized peoples through strategic goal setting, supporting effective pedagogies of relations, promoting distributed leadership, enacting inclusivity, using evidence and owning the need for reform. Examples are drawn from a large-scale, theory-based education reform project called Te Kotahitanga which is currently running in 50 secondary schools in New Zealand. Developing a model for effective leadership needs to commence with the understanding that the key to change is teacher action supported by responsive structural reform (Elmore 2004). In our earlier work (Bishop et al. 2003, 2007) we investigated what effective teacher action looks like. This chapter presents a model of what “responsive structural reform” looks like in practice and what leaders need to do to implement and sustain gains made in student performance at the classroom, school and system-wide levels.

text: Education leaders can reduce educational disparities This chapter is about how education leaders can act to reduce educational disparities for indigenous and other minoritized peoples through strategic goal setting, supporting effective pedagogies of relations, promoting distributed leadership, enacting inclusivity, using evidence and owning the need for reform. Examples are drawn from a large-scale, theory-based education reform project called Te Kotahitanga which is currently running in 50 secondary schools in New Zealand. Developing a model for effective leadership needs to commence with the understanding that the key to change is teacher action supported by responsive structural reform (Elmore 2004). In our earlier work (Bishop et al. 2003, 2007) we investigated what effective teacher action looks like. This chapter presents a model of what “responsive structural reform” looks like in practice and what leaders need to do to implement and sustain gains made in student performance at the classroom, school and system-wide levels.

year: 2011