Insider perspectives of education, health and care plans
The author used a realistic evaluation framework to evaluate to what extent multi-professional collaboration between education, health services, and greater choice and control in family decision-making, has been enhanced by the introduction of EHCPs. Semi-structured interviews and card sorting tasks were conducted with one child, five families and five professionals from five individual EHCP assessments.
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Theme: Co-productive working with young people and parent/carers
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Strength: Robust
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Breadth of Impact: Robust
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Status: Quality Assured
The author used a realistic evaluation framework to evaluate to what extent multi-professional collaboration between education, health services, and greater choice and control in family decision-making, has been enhanced by the introduction of EHCPs. Semi-structured interviews and card sorting tasks were conducted with one child, five families and five professionals from five individual EHCP assessments.
They found that parental and professional experiences of the process appear to be positive. However, there were significant concerns in both phases of the study as to the way in which children and young people are provided to contribute. They also found that multi-professional collaboration for those professionals who are actively involved in the assessment is very good, facilitated by good interpersonal skills, the ability of the Assessment Coordinator to manage discussions, and the absence of a professional hierarchy.
This grey literature was appraised using a validated checklist. The AACODS checklist provides guidance when dealing with diverse formats of grey literature (Tyndall, 2010). AACODS includes the following items: Authority (who is responsible for the intellectual content) – Accuracy – Coverage (parameters which define the content coverage i.e., reference to a particular population group, or certain type of publication) – Objectivity (identify bias, if it is unstated or unacknowledged) – Date (that confirms relevance of information)- Significance (value judgment in the context of the relevant research area). The checklist can be used for any discipline area and prioritises expert opinion and expertise over source format (Tyndall, 2010).