Supporting cast - TAs, SLTs, Ed Psychs, Kellie Bright

Nuala McGovern: [00:00:00] Hello Nuala here and welcome to SEND In the Spotlight. In today's episode, some of the unsung heroes in the SEND System, we're focusing on the crucial cast of professionals who work alongside teachers and special educational needs coordinators to support children and young people with SEND. We'll be hearing from a listener who shares what it's really like being on the front line as a teaching assistant.

I'm also joined by a speech and language therapist who feels her schools in the Midlands are getting it right, and we speak to an educational psychologist about the impact that shortages in her profession have on children.

So let's meet our guests. Kellie Bright, SEND parent and actor is back with me in the studio.

Kellie Bright: Hi Nuala.

Nuala McGovern: Good to have you with us. Also beside Kellie, we have Dr. Helena Bunn, who's an educational [00:01:00] psychologist. Hello.

Dr Helena Bunn: Hello.

Nuala McGovern: And we also welcome Sarah Smith speech and language therapist who is joining us via a video link.

Sarah Smith: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Nuala McGovern: Good to have you all with us. Right. Let us talk about the professionals, the teaching assistants called TAs, the speech and language therapists called SALTS or SLTs and educational psychologists, Ed Psychs. We've mentioned them obviously numerous times in previous episodes. We know they play a key role in supporting children.

These are the people, Kellie, that parents like you rely on. What's your experience been?

Kellie Bright: I know how vital they are. Certainly with my son, he has worked with all of those people. Mm-hmm. In all of those fields, having a TA is part of his education, healthcare plan, access to a TA, I should say, not one-to-one, um, but access to a TA in all of his classes, which he doesn't get.

But that's another story.

Nuala McGovern: Well, it's one of [00:02:00] the stories we've been telling,

Kellie Bright: But also he worked with a speech and language therapist when he was younger, and he's also had various educational psychologists. We actually started with an Ed Psych report when he was in year three. That was the. Start of our journey into discovering exactly what was sort of going on for him, because that was the moment that we became aware and the school became aware that things weren't quite right, that something was, I'm not going to use the term wrong, but that he was not able to keep up with his peers.

Nuala McGovern: That he needed more support.

Kellie Bright: Exactly. Exactly that Nuala.

Nuala McGovern: Yeah, so they're really a pivotal person at times to set you perhaps on that journey that we've been speaking about.

Kellie Bright: Absolutely.

Nuala McGovern: Being within that system. Sarah, what have you seen that speech and language therapy can do for children and young people with SEND.

Sarah Smith: Well, ultimately, Nuala speech and language therapy can really improve the life chances and opportunities for [00:03:00] children and young people.

It enables children and young people to achieve educational potential, be able to communicate to the best of their ability, enable them to get their needs met, share their thoughts, their ideas, their experiences, and understand the world around them. Um, and whilst it's about improving language ability it's also about developing children's skills so that they develop functional communication.

Nuala McGovern: So expand on that a little bit. What do you mean by that exactly?

Sarah Smith: Yeah. So that children and young people can access their communities. They can make friendships and build relationships. They understand the world around them in order to follow rules or to just be able to carry out simple activities independently, like go and buy something from a shop. Um, or be able to ask for help, ask for directions. It's about developing independence with communication and knowing how to interact with other people [00:04:00] within a range of situations.

Nuala McGovern: Yeah. Okay. That really illustrates it. Helena, let me come to you. What's it like would you say on the ground at the moment? For educational psychologists?

Dr Helena Bunn: It's a very, very diverse picture. We are very very few of us. Compared to the need that is out there. What we do really, we do a number of things. Probably most of the listener would know that we do education, health, and care needs assessments.

Nuala McGovern: So the EHCP

Dr Helena Bunn: Exactly. We contribute to the EHCPs, but in fact we do much more than this. This is, in a way, the high end of our work. We do prevention and early intervention and what it means, we work with early year setting with schools, with post 16 further education settings, and through that we work with teachers, teaching assistants, special educational needs coordinators and [00:05:00] leaders of those settings in order to understand the need, the special educational need within that setting to really enhance the provision by scaling up.

Nuala McGovern: So really touching so many of the areas within the SEND system.

Dr Helena Bunn: Indeed…

Nuala McGovern: We will get into more detail of the professions, but I do want to welcome back our BBC education reporter, Kate McGough. A very busy week, Kate, when it comes to news and SEND, let's get into the big story first - This is that the government announced that it will pay off 90% of council deficits due to SEND. Tell us more.

Kate McGough: Yes, so this is a 5 billion pound grant from central government to local authorities to pay for any historic debts they've built up through overspending on, on SEND right up to the end of this financial year.

So we know that councils, they've been spending more on SEND than they get from central government for several years now, and they've been [00:06:00] allowed to hold that overspending off their books until 2028 and have been warning of widespread bankruptcies, you know, if they had to pay it back. So essentially the government have said they're gonna wipe 90% of that.

Um, it's been really welcomed by the Local Government Association who said it removes that immediate threat of insolvency. There's still a little bit of a question mark over what will happen to any debts built up, you know, between April this year and 2028 when the government takes over funding centrally, but we are gonna find out a bit more in the Schools white paper as ever, about what happens there.

Nuala McGovern: And the white paper, which will outline the reforms to the SEND system, which many are waiting and anticipating, but we don't have a specific date for that. There was more news, Kate, which was the announcement of inclusion hubs in every secondary school. What are they and what did they say about them?

Kate McGough: Kellie might be pleased to hear about this. I know you were asking for something like this in a previous episode, but essentially this is a new ambition that they mentioned in a 10 year school [00:07:00] estate strategy, which is all about rebuilding like physical school buildings, et cetera, but it's a new ambition, but it's not new money.

They've said this will be funded by that 3.7 billion they've already announced to create specialist places in mainstream schools. There's a few question marks over what they mean exactly by an inclusion base. They're defining it as a dedicated safe space away from busy classrooms where pupils can access targeted support, you know, and bridge that gap between mainstream and specialist provision.

And they said that term inclusion base is gonna replace other terms, like resourced provision, SEND units that already exist to make it easier for parents to understand. But there's a bit of a worry about some of these resourced provisions, you know, they're funded by the council and they have lots of resource and some pupil support units can be as little as a room and a couple of members of staff.

So I think we really need a bit more clarity about exactly what's in an inclusion base and what it comes with. But it's a new ambition.

Nuala McGovern: Quick thought from you, Kellie.

Kellie Bright: Oh, I sort of did know that that was [00:08:00] coming. I think it's a great idea in theory, a bit like Kate said, but I really feel whatever it's going to look like needs to be rolled out and mandatory from school to school so that there is no room, wriggle room, if you like, for one school to do it really well and for one school to do it really badly.

Nuala McGovern: Okay. Let's crunch some numbers, Kate, on the specialists that we're talking about during this episode. So how many staff are there in schools offering these therapies? Let's start with speech therapists.

Kate McGough: Well, all, all three types are the backbone of the SEND system really. And they have similar issues really with staff shortages, retentions, and increasing workloads.

You know, many are employed by local councils, but schools can buy them in privately if they can make it work. When we come to speech therapists, we've got just over 20,000 registered in the UK, but that covers kind of children and adults 'cause therapists can work with people from babies, you know, right through their life if needed.

The number of therapists has gone up by about a third in recent years, but the level of need is going up [00:09:00] faster. Um, which means kind of large caseloads, longer waiting times. There is a severe shortage and a lot of UK providers are bringing them in from overseas in special visa programmes to get enough.

But when we look at occupational therapists, you know, again, they support schools a lot of the time through NHS Community Health Services, there are like 43,000 in the UK, but just a fraction of that work in schools and they can be bought in and help with things like one-to-one, getting changed for P.E., moving between classrooms, sensory circuits. They can give advice on, on kinda how to improve schools as well.

And as we were hearing from Helena, you know, educational psychologists, the last official stats said they were about 2,200 full-time equivalents working in schools that are employed by councils and like we heard, they're really crucial in the process for getting an EHCP, but they'll do lots of other work.

Nuala McGovern: And last but definitely not least, teaching assistants. How many are there?

Kate McGough: So there's nearly 300,000 teaching [00:10:00] assistants in England in the latest stats with other support staff. They make up about half the teaching workforce and 90% of them are women. And a big part of the job is working with pupils with SEND, you know, supporting social, emotional, mental health. Doing one-to-one. Uh, in, in primary schools, you know, you tend to have one that will work with a class and plus extras for one-to-one support. But pay is a big issue for TAs. You know, it's the biggest barrier. A report was saying that the workload has increased, but pay has not kept pace. And the average full-time salary for a TA is about 21,000 pounds a year. Much lower than teachers. And special schools are interesting for TAs. They need a lot more. So the average special school has about 41 TAs compared to the average primary school that has about 11. So I think recruitment and retention is more of an issue in special schools in particular.

Nuala McGovern: Really interesting. Thanks very much, Kate. I wanna stay with TAs. Kellie, we did hear from a teaching assistant that got in touch.

Kellie Bright: Yes, Helen emailed [email protected] and she [00:11:00] wrote, “I have been listening to your podcast and find it very interesting. However, I have heard very little about the role that teaching assistants play in supporting the children and young people in schools.

Often the work of teachers or the SENCO is mentioned, but not TAs. Unfortunately, TAs are not seen as professionals. We are not legally required to have any specific training or qualifications. We lack job security and pay is poor. Yet we are doing vital work to support children and young people with SEND and many others with various needs.

Please, can you include some content about teaching assistance in future podcasts?”

Nuala McGovern: Your wish is our command. Uh, who better to provide that content than Helen herself? So. Here she is.

Clip of Helen: Well, I'm a secondary TA. I work with students from year nine to 13, and I've been there in that, in my current role for six years.

And I started working there with a student who was a wheelchair user. So a lot of the work there was with [00:12:00] accessibility. But now I work with students across the year groups, across the subjects with students with a lot of different needs. And in particular, at the moment, I'm working with year 11 a lot. And with them, I also have an intervention group.

So that involves exam skills preparation for if they have access arrangements for their exams, like if they use a computer, if they have access to a scribe, a reader, how best to, to use that. Um, I'm also a key worker for a group of students, and so I meet them usually once a week being that trusted adult for them they can always ask to see me as well if there's something pops up in the week and they want someone to talk to. And then I also have a homework club and lunch and break times that we have as quiet space where you can have an adult there and some activities. Then obviously in my [00:13:00] day-to-day role, I've, I'm in class with students, usually with an EHCP. We get timetabled in, but we, we support across the classroom working with all of the students.

I really do enjoy working with teenagers. When I talk to colleagues who work in primary, they're very much, how can you work with teenagers? That must be very stressful. They're much bigger than you, but I, I love it. They're so vibrant and interesting, and they bring in the whole dimension to life that you wouldn't normally get if you didn't spend that time with that age group. I really enjoy seeing them grow and they come to us nervous and unsure, and they leave us as adults with a direction and see how they can achieve socially and academically.

And I feel like I really make a difference and I really enjoy that. That's something that I think it's important to say to [00:14:00] parents is how deeply we care for their child. Sometimes the system seems brutal and it seems that it's just a blank faceless organization. It's. And they're having to navigate that and their child maybe feels alone, but they're not, we are there with them.

I often say when I've got my group of year 11 students who I'm a key worker for, I say, well, my boys, I've, I've got to organize something for my boys.

In my role as a TA, I feel there's quite a lot of challenges in schools and within the education system and in terms of what it means to be a TA, and these are things that I feel that these highlighting because people don't realize how hard it is in school. Resources are really restricted in schools, whether that's physical resources or whether that's staffing. And it's really frustrating not to be able to give the time and the energy to all the students that really need that [00:15:00] help. And I think there's a lot of things around how students are now.

Maybe that's because of COVID or because of screen time. These are all issues that are regularly discussed, but there's a lot of difficulties with some behaviour that disrupts the lessons, school. That's a big challenge for us, and I also think that there's a massive rise in mental health issues amongst young people and we really feel not equipped to help and support with that.

And I really think that something needs doing. In terms of funding for counselling or to help us to have those resources that would really make a difference in in schools. I'm very much the person who is frontline with students implementing the interventions, working closely with them every day, getting to know them really well, and yet we are not the ones who are part of the broader conversation. Decisions are made, [00:16:00] discussions are had. Whether that's within the school system, parents might contact SENCO, but we don't necessarily have that conversation. And, and also nationally, there's been a lot of discussion about how things might be in terms of how things will change, what differently, early intervention.

We are the ones who will be doing that, but we don't seem to be part of that conversation, and I think one of the reasons for that is that TAs have been seen as very much classroom helpers. Even the title I don't think makes sense of the role. Who are we assisting, are we assisting the teacher? The role of TAs needs to be changed, professionalized, we are part of that specialist team for students with SEND. And within that to have a proper pay structure, proper training, because often you can take a TA job without any SEND qualifications, so [00:17:00] that it gives the role a clear outline of what's involved. And then we have a place at the table so we can say, yes, we are, we are experienced, we are trained, we have this knowledge of the children, and we can then bring that.

And this would give a better support to the children. The students would actually have some consistency and some real positive input, if the people who actually did the job with them were the ones who were giving that space to say more. If I could meet with the Education Secretary or with the Prime Minister, I would start with saying to them that relationships matter. Whatever other strategies they put in place, unless there's a good relationship between the students and the staff and enough people to give that level of support and to be there present for those children, it, it won't work, but [00:18:00] relationships is, is, is what makes the difference. But I think also a lot of things are discussed. about how teachers, teachers will do this, teachers will have more input and obviously teachers should have a responsibility for all students. And in particular, I do think all teachers should have the training in SEND. Continually, not just when they've done their teacher training, but as a statutory thing to involve some sort of training about SEND every year.

But I don't think the onus should be on teachers to have more responsibility for the students with SEND. I think it should be a team effort, and I think that we as teaching assistants and pastoral staff need to be part of that as a whole, as a group. So. I'd like the Education Secretary to hear our voices.

Nuala McGovern: Hearing Helen's voice there, thanks so much to her for getting in touch. Kellie, does that resonate?

Kellie Bright: Oh, I [00:19:00] thought Helen was wonderful. Well, I know that for my son, working with the TA has been absolutely crucial to his time at school, both at primary and at secondary, and actually what Helen was saying about being part of that conversation, we talk a lot about teachers and teachers getting extra training and support with SEND Pupils, but that should absolutely extend to the teaching assistants who actually are probably working with those children that need more support more closely. And I loved what Helen said about relationships because I really, really stand by that with her. I know for us as a family and for my son that it's the relationships he has with key members of staff, teachers, teaching assistants, some of them are part of the SENCO team, make him want to be at that school. You know it, it's despite of how hard school is, it's those people that are really making the difference.

Nuala McGovern: That bring him back. You have another email?

Kellie Bright: I do. [00:20:00] Yes. Another TA, anonymous, says that all of the children in her specialist school have EHCPs, but she says “most of them aren't being met, not because we don't want to, but because we are so stretched and we can't reach everywhere.

We have a play therapist in our school, unfortunately, she's being used 80% of the time to cover absences or simply dealing with behaviour problems. Funnily enough, a lot of these behaviours would be reduced if they had access to therapies. I feel for the parents dealing with all this, fighting for the EHCPs, for them not to be met.”

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Nuala McGovern: Let's talk about educational psychologists. I want to bring back in Dr. Helena Bunn. Helena, you worked for a local authority and now you train educational psychologists. You mentioned earlier that there are not enough of you. In your opinion, how does that shortage affect children and young people with SEND [00:21:00] and their families?

Dr Helena Bunn: In those parts of the country where services become lesser and lesser staffed, we see that the children or the child, let's take a particular child, yes? The child does not have their needs met because as Kellie, you, you, you said it so very beautifully, you felt as parents that your child was not doing so well in school. So this is what we first hear, we hear the parents understanding that their child is not as happy, probably becomes less engaged within school. If there is not sufficient educational psychology service, then the parent would not be heard. They would be talking to the school. Maybe the school would be trying to provide for the child, and at times that works very well. At times, that child needs extra, an extra understanding from an educational psychology perspective of their needs and what should happen there for that child to have better progress, to be happier [00:22:00] probably in school when that doesn't happen.

Probably, you know, a parent, Kellie or any other parent we are, you know, most of us are parents. We want the best for our child. The parent starts fighting for their child’s rights and we see a significant increase in EHC needs requests and later on in SEND tribunals. Mm-hmm. So the parent from identifying and the child from identifying that something might not be right, not having that need met, including educational psychologist involvement, could go up to really fighting, rightly so for their child's right. With regard to the child, that child's life chances in the long term will become lesser and lesser met in a way. And if the child doesn't get what they require from the education that will mean that they have less chances to learn, less chances to be happy, less [00:23:00] chances later on to employment, to living a good life within the community.

Nuala McGovern: So what I'm hearing is that if there were an educational psychologist in, at an earlier stage, the parent and the child would have evidence to be able to try and get the support they need. But what about the educational psychologists that are needed, as you describe, for the reasons you lay out, but there is an issue with recruitment and retention?

Dr Helena Bunn: Yes. The issue with recruitment and retention is because some of the services, quite a few of the services within the local authority have started focusing within the last years on statutory services. So then our work educational psychologists work from very diverse work, became narrower and narrower. And then educational psychologist colleagues who do day in, day out, do just the same type of work - as meaningful as it may be - EHC needs [00:24:00] assessment work. There are very much questions with regard to when things happen, because of the shortages and because of the, at times, very long timeframes from assessment to plan with EHCP, then what we have, those educational psychologists probably, would be deciding - I can only assume they would be deciding - that better to go somewhere else where in fact they can either have a variety of their work or less pressured work.

Nuala McGovern: I understand. So the time and the sort of work at times is leading to an issue with retention.

I want to bring Kate McGough back in with us, our education reporter. Kate, you have some breaking news to bring us about the expansion of the Ed Psych workforce. What have you seen?

Kate McGough: Yeah, so this is an announcement from the Department for Education, a cash boost to train more Ed Psychs from 2028, essentially. So they've already committed 26 million to train at least 200 people [00:25:00] per year for the next two years. So this is a commitment to train more than that, they haven't actually said exactly how many more, but they've also already invested about 31 million pounds since 2023 and they say that's gonna create 600 new Ed Psychs.

Nuala McGovern: We know from our inbox there's a lot of worry about the future of EHCPs ahead of the white paper. Anything that you've seen that gives us an idea of the government's direction of travel?

Kate McGough: Well, Georgia Gould, the Schools Minister did say just last week, children will keep their legal rights to support and no child will be asked to leave a school or a setting that they're in. But in terms of the language, you know, they haven't ruled out changing EHCPs for future children. And so there's still a bit of uncertainty around that and, and the government has put out some research around how long professionals and local authorities are spending per EHCP, which is quite interesting, which might tell us that they're obviously highlighting that sometimes putting together an EHCP can take up a lot of time. This new research suggests that the [00:26:00] average numbers of hours when you add up all the professionals that were involved is a between 56 and 68 hours per plan. And they say that educational psychologists spend the most amount of time, 17 hours on average per plan.

Nuala McGovern: Okay, as per Helena's comments on, on what can be an issue with retention when it comes to Ed Psychs. Thanks very much, Kate.

Uh, I do want to turn to speech and language therapists. Uh, we were hearing from Kate there are recruitment and retention issues within the profession, and even though the numbers of therapists in the UK have increased by a third, it's still being outpaced by the rising numbers of children who need them. So long waiting times and large caseloads. In one part of the Midlands, however, the picture looks a little rosier. I want to bring in Sarah Smith again, speech and language therapist and clinical team lead for mainstream schools at Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust. So explain a little bit of what's [00:27:00] happening in your patch that is working.

Sarah Smith: So Worcestershire has been a balanced system service now for over 15 years. We've got a really established mainstream school service and the principles that underlie our service are that it is easy access and place-based. We remove all of the barriers, all of the hoops that people have to jump through in order to be referred to us and to get seen by us so we are one part of a functioning system in order to achieve outcomes, um, for children and young people. I myself have five schools that I am the link therapist for, and I'm very much embedded within the staff team. I'm not going into a school, doing my thing, setting targets and leaving. I'm there week on week and very included within that team.

Nuala McGovern: It's interesting 'cause relationships, Helen, our teaching assistant, was talking about it between teaching assistants and [00:28:00] the children, but of course this is a whole system that we're talking about.

A SENDCO emailed us to say that there's a waiting list for speech and language therapy of one year in her area. Goes on to say non-specialist school staff are left to manage highly specialized care and intervention with minimal support from external professionals. How do you think this could be avoided?

Sarah Smith: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, being a school-based service embedded within system, we've been able to reduce our waiting times. We see children well within the 18 week targets, so most children being seen with within kind of eight to twelve weeks, and we are very lean as a service in terms of our staffing. We don't have extra staffing. But what we are able to do with, with being in a school is we are immediately available to offer advice and support pre-referral. And if there are concerns about a child's speech and language development, what we can do is offer some [00:29:00] advice and support that a school can be implementing, whilst they are waiting for referral, and we often see children who've made progress since those initial concerns when we come to see them. It's about opening the doors as a service and having a phone number that parents and families can ring and actually speak to a therapist.

Nuala McGovern: But, but I'm just wondering with that phone number, for example.

Sarah Smith: Yeah,

Nuala McGovern: you must still have high caseloads just when we hear the figures, uh, nationally.

Sarah Smith: Yeah. So the, the published figures show long waiting times and huge caseloads, but those numbers are able to be combatted by being present within the school. You can see far more children far more quickly by being within a, within a school.

Nuala McGovern: Can you give me an example of that? Like how many children per therapist?

Sarah Smith: It's, it's tricky to say per therapist. As a team, we don't just spend all our time in mainstream, so we might have different areas of our jobs, so the caseloads will be reflected upon um, where we're [00:30:00] working, newly qualified therapists will have a smaller caseload, right, and are supported then by a more experienced therapist who acts as a mentor and support for them. But we, in terms of our caseloads, we see children on our caseload multiple times a year. Some children. We'll see them once a fortnight, once a week. It's very dependent on need.

Nuala McGovern: I'd be curious how the need has changed in your area. We were hearing about it on a national level earlier.

Sarah Smith: Well, we, during COVID, we saw a slight increase. The challenge for us that then a lot of referrals came through absolutely the same time, which was an absolute pressure. Um, I think our referral rate overall has remained pretty steady. It's high. Um, but what we're seeing in mainstream schools now is a significant increase in the level of complexity of children's communication needs. And there are some really inclusive mainstream schools out there. What they sometimes [00:31:00] don't feel that they have is the knowledge, the expertise, and the resources to support children with those needs within a mainstream setting who also might be waiting on a specialist setting.

So planning, staffing for that child is really difficult because that role is not gonna be a permanent role with within the school if that child gets a specialist placement. So then resource in the school is taken from other support where other children are then disadvantaged. Because then of the complexity of need of need coming in it.

Nuala McGovern: It's really interesting Sarah, 'cause I hear you echoing what I was hearing from Helen, our teaching assistant of that pivotal point of, of COVID actually, and how need changed. Helen, I'd be curious what you've heard from Sarah.

Dr Helena Bunn: Yes, yes, indeed. We, we found that as well, that COVID increased the communication needs, the complexity of the children that were either born there or young, or even, uh, high school children. And we [00:32:00] found, especially neurodivergent children or young people much more socially isolated. And I found it very, very difficult to get back into an educational setting.

Nuala McGovern: Anything you've heard, Kellie, you'd like to respond?

Kellie Bright: Well, I mean, it just sort of echoes what I brought up. I did bring this up on a podcast, I can't remember which one, but basically how, you know, the idea of inclusion in mainstream school is wonderful. I wholeheartedly support that. But the support staff, the supporting cast as we've called this episode. Is that correct?

Nuala McGovern: Yes.

Kellie Bright: We need those people - it's not just about the teachers getting extra training, it's not even just about having more TAs. It's about all of these people. I mean, it's really interesting hearing what Sarah said about being a part of a school. I've never heard of that, even. And, and again, it comes down to this thing that one county is doing it. Why not all counties doing it? This is for me where a lot of the, where all sort of it kind of joined up. [00:33:00] Yes. Because it shouldn't be a postcode lottery. It shouldn't be, oh, well if you live there, then you'll have access to this and if you live there then you won't. And so I know the importance. And again, oh, I heard some statistics the other day about - It's not just about recruitment - It is, it's the retention that is the real yes issue. And that comes down to the need is outweighing the supply, if you like. The demand is outweighing the supply. Yes. And therefore the people that are there trying to do the supply are completely overwhelmed and overworked

Nuala McGovern: And overstretched. Uh, really interesting. Thanks very much Sarah. Okay, we need to go to In the Spotlight because this week it is Herbie, his mum wrote to us to celebrate his achievements in the world of Pokemon.

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Gina: Hello, I'm Gina. I'm 37 and I live in Suffolk.

Herbie: And I'm Herbie. I'm ten and I'm from Suffolk.

Gina: So how did you get into Pokemons?[00:34:00]

Herbie: Well, I found your collection.

Gina: Yeah. And what did you think?

Herbie: Cool.

Gina: Yeah. So they were mine from when I was about the same age as you.

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: And then you decided to start collecting. And how many cards do you think you've got now?

Herbie: Um, maybe 10,000.

Gina: 10,000! I genuinely think you might have 10,000.

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: And then from there you started playing them, which is a lot harder than collecting.

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: And how long have you been playing Pokemon for?

Herbie: Um, I think three and a half years now.

Gina: So you play every week? Currently? Every Sunday we go to our local

Herbie: mm-hmm.

Gina: Place to play, don't we?

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: And then obviously you play at home.

Herbie: Yeah,

Gina: with daddy and me -

Herbie: and at the club -

Gina: And at the club… And what club's that?

Herbie: Our own club that me and you make.

Gina: That's right. So we set up our own club.

Herbie: Mm-hmm.

Gina: And it's a lovely little club that runs every other week and it's for children like yourself who love Pokemon.

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: And might have autism or ADHD like you, but they might not have. [00:35:00] And we teach people how to play. We play games. We do some arts and crafts.

Herbie: Yeah. Give out cards.

Gina: Yeah.

Herbie: And give out packs sometimes.

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: And they can have as many cards as they want, can't they? They can take whatever they want. And we've got loads and we raise money for the SEND hub, which is brilliant. And where do we hold it?

Herbie: The pot…

Gina: - the pottery shed.

I set it up with the help of Herbie so we could find a club where he fitted in. Uh, we tried all the usual clubs, you know, swimming, kung fu, football, all of those sort of things, and just none of them were quite right for Herbie. He didn't quite fit in and we just wanted to find something for him. And by helping him, we could also help others, which was obviously brilliant. Everybody's welcome. At the moment, we have sort of between four and twelve children each week, and it's a lovely little group and they've got this mutual love of Pokemon, so they can play Pokemon, they can trade, they can swap. The first few weeks of setting it up, we had a few parents come to us and say, it's so lovely that [00:36:00] they could be themselves. And that's just brilliant. That's, that's all I want for them to be themselves. There's no mask involved. They can be stimming. They can lay on the floor and read a book if they want to. They can do whatever they want. I hate the fact that everybody's, as a rule, is put into a mould and has to be, you know, this perfect child and actually just be yourself, 'cause you're pretty awesome.

So obviously we do casual playing where it's just for fun, but also you sometimes compete too, don't you?

Herbie: Yeah.

Gina: So this year you went to the regional championships,

Herbie: which was in Birmingham,

Gina: which was in Birmingham, and there are literally thousands of people playing, aren't there? It's a big competition and we thought you'd do all right, didn't we? We thought we'll just go and have fun and make the most of it.

Herbie: I came 36th.

Gina: You came 36th

Herbie: out of like 500.

Gina: Was it? I think, I think it was 300 or something. But we were very surprised, very proud.

Herbie: And then we got into day two.

Gina: And then you got into day two. That's right. You got to play it again the second day because you did so [00:37:00] well. Now we weren't expecting it. So it was a bit of a shock, wasn't it?

Herbie: Yes.

Gina: But how proud were we? What happened to me? When you won that last game?

Herbie: Mummy cried.

Gina: I did. I cried a lot, didn't I?

Herbie: Yes.

Gina: I really ugly cried. And I do apologize for the ugly crying.

Herbie: It's fine.

Gina: But, but I was so proud of you and daddy was so proud of you. Were you proud of yourself too? Yeah, definitely.

Gina: Thank you for listening and it's a goodbye from me.

Herbie: And a goodbye from me,

Nuala McGovern: Herbie and his mum. Gina there.

Kellie Bright: I just loved Herbie's story. Thank you so much for writing in and sharing that with us. And I just wanted to say just on the basis of what we've been talking about today, you know, finding a club for your neurodivergent child is really, it can be really hard. And when you find that thing and you've created something Herbie, which is wonderful, but when you find that thing that works for your child, what it actually does, if your child has communication problems, it is [00:38:00] an amazing space for your child to to be able to grow socially and in communication because what happens is they talk about the common interest. Often, I mean, my son, he can struggle with his communication because he doesn't really understand it. You know, there's nuanced things that we all just take

Nuala McGovern: social cues

Kellie Bright: take for granted. And actually he can talk to you endlessly about Warhammer. Warhammer is our thing. Lots of neurodivergent parents out there will relate to this, but he could talk to you or anyone about that for hours on end. And that is so important and it is vital and I really, really just want to say well done her. It's fantastic.

Nuala McGovern: Well done Herbie, and thank you Gina for getting in touch.

If you'd like to nominate somebody. To be in the spotlight for the big and the little wins. Do email us, it's [email protected] uk and thank you all the people who have got in touch in messaging. Uh, we really appreciate it. Now, I also wanna thank all my [00:39:00] guests. We will be back next Monday, but in the meantime, it's goodbye from all of us.

ALL: Goodbye, goodbye.

Pod trail: Parenting a young child today means navigating a whirlwind of advice, opinions, and relentless information. Tell me about it, Katie. But the good news is Cee Beebie's parenting download is here to take the edge off.

Katie Thistleton Join me, Katie Thistleton Radio one presenter and new mom.

Governor B: And me Governor B, Mobo, award-winning rapper and dad of two.

As we discover and unpack what it really means to be a parent from the art of negotiation to tips on dealing with parental anxiety, each episode, we are joined by well-known parents and trusted professionals to share their own experiences. People say, you never know until you have your own. But no one ever really gets into what that means.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And it's very true. Someone, when I was on my first walk with him alone in the pram, someone went, press, green went, yeah, congratulations, went cheers. And he went, [00:40:00] welcome to the Truth Club. I went, what do you mean? He went, you'll find out soon enough. And to provide useful tools and advice to tackle the daily challenges that come with parenting, offering honest conversations and expert insight that can really help.

The biggest thing that I've noticed since I became a negotiator is we don't listen. We are really good at pretending we listen and we do this, don't we? So our young people in our life, especially I talking away, you've asked them a, you've asked them a question, they're answering the question, and you're like this.

Mm, mm-hmm. Uh mm Because you're not really interested 'cause you're already thinking about what's next. We've learned so much already. So whether you're a first time parent, you've got multiple kids, you're a carer or a grandparent, this podcast is for you. Search for CB B's parents in download with me, Katie Thistleton, and me Governor B.

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