BAND visit the Play Bus Sensory Truck

As part of our on-going commitment to inclusion, BAND has run a pilot session with the PlayBus Sensory Truck to see if improving disabled children’s access to a sensory environment supports their fun, behaviour, enjoyment, relaxation and inclusion and supports staff knowledge in terms of new ideas for activities and creating sensory areas.

What is the Sensory Truck?

The Sensory Truck is a mobile sensory play space with a ball pit, UV area, air bubble tube, and many other sensory resources.

‘Designed specifically for disabled children with additional needs, social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

This unique multi-sensory mobile space gives children the opportunity to control their environment, making choices that allow them to choose the colours, sounds and tactile experiences they want.

A hands-on and exploratory approach to a sensory space allows children to choose the experiences that meet their needs and to discover the sensory inputs that work best for them.’ – PlayBus Sensory Truck Review.


Preparation 

Ashley Down After School club was identified as a setting who are supporting disabled children who would particularly benefit from experiencing a sensory environment. And so, over the Easter holidays, the children at Ashley Down received a funded visit from the PlayBus Sensory Truck.

The plan was that all children at the setting would have a minimum of about 15 minutes on the truck (dependent on numbers).  Disabled children or children who would particularly benefit from access to the truck would be able to stay on by themselves for a while or for a bit longer dependent on the needs of the setting and children.

The Sensory Truck would be staffed by 2 playworkers: Tom who is the Inclusion Lead and Sam who is a Sensory Playworker. Both have worked with a variety of statutory and non-statutory settings supporting inclusion and sensory experiences for children and would share their knowledge with staff with a view to providing new ideas.

A day was identified that most disabled children were able to attend and other families were made aware of the date so that they could bring their children along if they chose. Ashley Down decided to run sensory activities on the day as well, and borrowed the BAND Dark Den for the same time.

On the day.

Feedback from the play setting

‘The setup of the truck works very well, helping children  to explore the different feelings and perceptions by themselves, therefore they can find where their favourite play props are, choosing what they like. We had a really positive experience!

Feedback from the kids: 

‘Really, really good.’

‘I liked the ball pit and the light cube, it would change colours’.

‘Playing in the ball pit was the best bit. I did a backwards flip’.

‘My favourite bit was the ball pit!’

‘The ball pit was exciting to go under the balls and hide’. 

Support worker feedback

The child I was supporting ‘played a lot with the squeeze toys and flexible springs hanging from the ceilings. He explored the truck and discovered by himself where his favourite kind of sensory toys were. The activities he enjoyed the most have been music and lights; playing with disco lights in different parts of the truck and exploring the rooms.’

The child I support ‘loves the music and lights. He had an amazing time, listening to music (choosing the music by himself on the tablet) and flashing lights’.

Feedback from PlayBus
‘The mix of disabled and non-disabled children went very well. We were pleased to see a boy from our Let’s All Play sessions whose face was a picture when he realised that myself and Sam had miraculously popped up in another part of his life; I have never seen him so happy. We were impressed by the leadership and staff (at Ashley Down Club) who were attentive to the children's needs and they understood the role of the truck.'

Feedback from BAND DS Worker
Haidi, one of the DS Team, went along and gave this feedback:
‘I’d been told the Sensory Truck was an amazing space, but my expectations were surpassed. The truck gave the children the opportunity to experience a range of multi-sensory equipment and resources. The Playbus playworkers also had a great way of combining playwork with sensory play to meet the individual children’s needs. The atmosphere within the truck was very calm and relaxing despite there being loads for the children to do. It was a great opportunity for staff at the holiday club to build on their knowledge.’

What’s next?

The feedback we have received supports the Sensory Truck being positive for inclusion as all children were able to actively enjoy the space and play staff were able to see what resources were on the truck and how they were used. Based on the success of the visit, BAND is looking into whether we can fund other settings that are supporting disabled children to receive a visit, and whether we can offer other training about creating and using your own sensory environment. Watch this space!

PlayBus are currently looking at ways for the Sensory Truck to help bridge the gap between school and community groups for disabled children and their peers. If you are a community group looking to do this too, or if you would like to book a visit from the sensory truck yourselves, then contact Playbus on Email: Manager@bristolplaybus.org or Tel: 0117 9551561. If you would like to know more about the truck’s first year in action, you can read the Playbus Sensory Truck Review here:

 http://bristolplaybus.org/newwpapp/wp-content/uploads/Sensory-Review-v14-April-new-figures.pdf

And a big thankyou to the children and team at Ashley Down Out of School Club for their support for the pilot and feedback, to PlayBus Sensory Truck team for making it work so well, to the Inclusive Play Project for their support for the pilot and to Bristol City Council who have provided the funding through BAND for this trial.

Bristol’s drive towards inclusion

We know that families of disabled children and disabled children need support to ensure that they can access a full range of services, sometimes that support is ensuring our own services are as accessible to all as they can be. Bristol City Council, BAND and other agencies have been focussing on a specific piece of work in this area over the past year.

To provide some context, these are some basic statistics about families of disabled children from Contact A Family:

·         56% of parent’s of disabled children feel there is insufficient childcare

·         Over 30% of families have relationship difficulties as a result of higher levels of depression and sleeplessness for example

·         Only 1 in 13 disabled children receive a regular support service from their L.A.

·         16% of mothers with disabled children work, compared to 61% of other mothers.

These examples are interesting because they are areas that childcare settings could support on. In Bristol, we know there is generally a sufficient level of childcare so we need to do more to ensure this is accessible for all children. Short breaks such as attending playschemes and other play settings can support families to have some time focussing away from caring responsibilities and enable the child to have fun and time with their peer group. These experiences can support positive family relationships.  Access to better childcare can support families back to work and this can also improve wellbeing. .

As a result of facts such as these and an initial pot of funding as part of the Government’s commitment in this area as DCATCH (Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare), Bristol City Council undertook an initial survey with parents of disabled children to find out what they felt would be most helpful. The feedback focussed on increasing confidence of staff in settings so that parent’s in turn felt confident that their child would be supported appropriately.

The Early Years Team created an Inclusion Induction Programme as a result of this survey, and BAND have been fortunate that the City Council agreed with us and other agencies that creating a resource to support over 5’s play settings was also important to increase staff confidence.

So last year, Alice Cranston, Bridging Worker, Bristol Inclusive Play Team, and I set to work assembling a focus group of Playleaders working successfully in inclusion, representatives from local special schools, leaders from adventure playrounds and organisations running inclusive play sessions. We asked them to consider what steps they felt were imperative to successful inclusion and what information they felt was most important for settings to be aware of. Special school staff stressed to us the importance of parent’s knowing they can call and visit anytime and see how their child is doing, this increases parent’s confidence that a play setting is open and has nothing to hide. We looked at examples of 1:1 support being necessary in school but not at all times in play settings and how to assess this.

We talked to more leaders and playworkers to get ideas, looked through other organisations research and literature to find the best studies and quotes, and talked to parents/ carers and children to include their views. Trials and feedback from settings helped to hone the last changes and our aim to make it an interactive, useful and fun resource to use.

The result is a file based resource to support the inclusion of disabled children in mainstream out of school settings. The resource includes:

·         Relevant background information

·         Top tips

·         Supporting quotes and case studies

·         A ‘How to’ section that provides staff with some practical steps to take right from the time a family initially contacts a setting

·         New template forms; Play Support Plan (covering areas such as Likes and Dislikes, Communication needs, risks to be aware of to support the child to be safe) , Information Sharing Agreements, Health Care Plan, Personal Care Plan for example.

·         Agencies, support groups and training organisations that can help and what help they could offer play settings.

There is also a ‘Grab and Go’ pack that contains the top information to support staff when they are busy and a family calls or arrives.

We have developed an Inclusion Workshop that play staff attend to focus on inclusion and get to know the resource. We ran the first one last month and feedback has been positive: 'The pack is brilliant!'.

The reality of course is that a file based Inclusion Resource is not going to magically remove all the barriers to disabled children attending settings, nor is it going to suddenly give parents of disabled children the confidence to try. However, it does give a solid framework for how successful inclusion could be carried out, devised by professionals who are doing it successfully in practice; it hopefully gives staff confidence that they can manage some of the logistics themselves in terms of who to contact and what, if anything, needs to checked off and completed for all children; it points towards people and organisations that can help settings.

The workshops themselves are also part of the move forward, starting conversations about inclusion with play staff altogether and giving a platform to discuss some of the challenges faced by families and what play staff might be able to support. Within the workshop, it was clear that play staff wanted time to talk about inclusion and hear about their colleagues experiences, attendees swapped emails to keep in touch about this area and we discussed how we can highlight services to local special schools and what further training would be supportive. There was a huge amount of enthusiasm which was fantastic to see and attempt to harness.

So what is the outcome in practice so far…..in the short term we have already had feedback from a Play Manager that using the Play Support Plan has highlighted triggers and ways to manage these with a child with additional needs attending their setting that they had previously been unaware of. This will lead to a better outcome for the child and family. The setting has rolled out the Play Support Plan as an addition to their Registration Form for good practice with all children that attend, so any disabled child and family will be completing the same information as all children which is a great move forward. Another setting has used the Agency section to find and organise training to support a child with cerebral palsy to attend, without the need to access external agencies for support to do this, which will give parents and staff confidence that the setting knows what it is doing. Many settings have Welcome leaflets with symbols and photo’s to support all children coming to a setting.

For the future, we have further workshops to deliver and further training to identify and fund. The Inclusive Play Team has plans to create a comprehensive record of settings who are particularly open to inclusion, we are linking back into Special Schools to work out how to let families know about settings and this piece of work.

It won’t solve all the challenges, but it’s a positive start and one which both Alice and myself are passionate to carry forward. If we can increase the number of parent’s feeling there is more sufficient childcare in Bristol by even a small percentage, if we can support even one family to increase their sense of wellbeing with their child having fun within a playsetting, if we have increased awareness within playsettings so they know how to start and where to get help, then from my perspective, that’s a successful start.  

Sarah Holway, Development and Support, BAND. For further info contact: sarah@bandltd.org.uk.

The ‘Inclusion Resource for Play Professionals’ was developed by Sarah Holway, BAND, and Alice Cranston, Bridging Worker, Inclusive Playteam, Bristol City Council. Support was from a large range of Bristol agencies and professionals, including the Early Years Inclusion Team, Bristol City Council. The resource is mapped to Level 2 qualifications in playwork to support practice and knowledge.

Examples from the ‘Inclusion Resource for Play professionals’