A multi-million pound educational village based on the extended schools model is set to be the centrepiece of Darlington's drive to integrate service provision starting with the assimilation of disabled children within mainstream schooling.
The local authority in the north-east town, which made a successful bid for pathfinder children's trust status, has struck a deal with the Tokyo-based Kajima Corporation to construct the 37.3m campus under the private finance initiative.
The 'village', which is due to open in September 2005 and teach 1,400 children aged three to 19, will include a primary school and comprehensive school alongside the relocated Beaumont Hill Technology College, a school for children with special needs.
Classrooms in both the primary and secondary schools will be adapted so that Beaumont Hill children can, as far as is possible, be accommodated within a mainstream environment. The special school will also have facilities for pupils for whom inclusion is not appropriate, those with emotional and behavioural difficulties or higher spectrum autism.
Each of the three schools will have a 'home base', but most of the facilities will be co-used by all the pupils. Special attention will be paid to curriculum planning to ensure an inclusive approach and easier transition between the various key stages.
Underlining its status as a futuristic template for service integration, the village will also have an early years centre providing wraparound childcare, creche facilities and opportunities for lifelong learning.
Ways ahead
Prior to its relocation to the educational village, Beaumont Hill is being used as a 'guinea pig' by the pathfinder children's trust to test out ways of integrating services.
Teams from each of these services are already co-located at the Harewood Lodge residential centre and the aim is to integrate them for the Beaumont Hill children, before they are rolled out to all children in the town.
The recently appointed co-ordinator of the Darlington Children's Trust, Patrick Mallon, who is based at Harewood Lodge, says, 'It's clear from the Green Paper that the Government is marching us all down the route to integration so we have to broaden our focus fairly quickly.'
Unlike some local authorities that have chosen to focus their children's trusts on a range of service priorities, Darlington opted to concentrate on a relatively small number of children with special needs so that integration could be 'gradually scaled up'.
Lucy Wheatley, children's services project lead at Darlington Primary Care Trust (PCT), explains, 'We thought that by starting the process by looking at integrating services and assessment around children who attend that school, as our pilot within a pilot, hopefully we can sort out any problems before opening it out to cover all children with disabilities.'
The PCT, which is a key component in the children's trust, is represented on a multi-agency steering group looking at ways of furthering integration and has already ensured that schools have allocated health advisors and access to speech and language therapists and paediatricians.
While the pooling of funds would be the ultimate goal in 'an all-singing, all-dancing children's trust', Ms Wheatley says: 'We thought it wise to try to get the services right first and then look at the money angle.'
Jan Lefevre, commissioning manager for children in Darlington's social services department, says that the health teams at Harewood Lodge are 'co-located rather than integrated, and there is a subtle difference'.
Full integration should be measured, not just in terms of pooled budgets, but through the effectiveness of a single assessment process, shared communication systems and 'a shared understanding of what disability is, because it means different things to different people and different organisations'.
She adds, 'I don't see why the same can't happen with children's services across the board, but it is a good thing to start small and get bigger. I hope the successful parts of this pilot can then be rolled out as we will be required to do by 2006. The Green Paper is a White Paper with green round the edges. Basically, it is going to happen and having a dry run is a good way of ironing out problems.'
