A consortium is formed.
OSCA set up a sub-group to take forward the campaign objectives of improving autism education locally, and a decision was taken to commission research into the barriers to accessing or providing appropriate education in Oldham for children with autism and related developmental difficulties.
The sub-group widened to include representatives of other organisations who wanted to campaign around these objectives, and a proposal was made to form a Consortium of organisations. The Consortium is now led by Bright Futures (a registered charity), with partners OSCA, Fantastic Dyspraxic Kids and ASPACE (a support group for families with older children who have Asperger’s syndrome).
Members of the Consortium and their individual groups lobbied Oldham Council to sign the ‘Every Disabled Child Matters’ Local Authority Charter, which was signed in September 2007.
http://www.edcm.org.uk/pdfs/edcm_lacharter_v2.pdf
The Consortium also spearheaded a campaign to get Oldham’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) to sign the PCT Charter. This was signed in March 2008.
http://www.edcm.org.uk/pdfs/edcm_pctcharter.pdf
The Disability and Complex Needs Delivery Partnership (DCNDP) has been set up to make sure that the targets in the Charters are implemented.
The last target on the Charter concerns the involvement of disabled children and their families in the planning, commissioning and monitoring of services. The working group that is leading on this target is chaired by a parent.
Members of the Consortium have taken part in the training that prospective members of the Statutory Assessment Moderating Panel receive in order to make decisions about statutory assessments, as well as the training that schools receive in collecting evidence for statutory assessment.