News from Camphill School Aberdeen
Christmas 2009
The fourth Advent Sunday approaches and it is snowing outside; the temperature is dropping and it feels good to be inside by the fire, listening to the sounds of crackling logs.
It has been a strange end to the term, preparing as we are for the first time, to celebrate Christmas without our pupils. It has asked for some creativity on our part to find out how we can rightly bring the term to an end and hopefully, by the time you read this, all will have enjoyed the Christmas School Festivals in their special Christmas format.
Prior to these, we have enjoyed the usual festive wrappings with performances of the Paradise Play and Nativity Play; we have participated in Advent sales, carol singing and Advent gardens. Indeed a rich time. There was also time for a St Nicholas café, organised by the Youth Club on Camphill Estate which raised £104 for a small Camphill community in Kazakhstan and ethnic minorities in Africa.
Meanwhile we have been fundraising for the Therapy Centre, the building of which will begin in January. We received a huge boost to our efforts with the promise of £50,000 from the Wooden Spoon which in earlier years supported the building of the craft building in Cairnlee. A large donation of £5,000 was also received from a local charity, Our Kids Too. Also of special mention is the £750+ raised by Jack Stewart who had his hair dyed mahogany through his JustGiving website. To those behind these gifts and to all others of you who have donated so far, many, many thanks. “The lines are still open”, as they say, by going to the ‘donate‘ page. The grand total we have raised so far stands at £70,000.
This term we hosted the visit of Jonathan Shaw, the UK Minister for the Disabled, and besides touring Camphill House and Carnelian Schoolhouse, he also spoke with senior co-workers and representatives of our Council, Parents’ Group and Pupil Council. Although he does not have a huge influence north of the border, it was good to meet him and raise the profile of Camphill with him.
On a similar vein, a number of us attended a conference jointly sponsored by Camphill Scotland and the Scottish Government on ‘Daring to be Human in the Caring Professions’, during which the profile of Social Pedagogy was raised. This was an important conference for us because we are seeking to rename the BA in Curative Education, a BA in Social Pedagogy. For those of you unfamiliar with the term ‘social pedagogy’, it has been used to describe a range of work straddling social work and education. Often more holistic and group-oriented than dominant forms of social work and schooling, social pedagogy (sozial pädagogik) has its roots in German progressive education and is sometimes translated as 'community education' or 'education for sociality' (Infed). As you can see, it is something we have been practising for many years, hence our enthusiasm to be linked with this progressive new movement in the UK.
Anther conference of note was the launch of the National Residential Child Care Initiative which turned out to be a real morale booster for all of us involved in residential child care and schooling. From the Scottish Government, the Association of Directors of Social Work and COSLA (the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities), the message was the same, “Residential Child Care should be the first and best choice for many children” under the GIRFEC (Getting It Right For Every Child) agenda. The Scottish Minister for Children and Early Years, Adam Ingram, said, “Authorities must intervene early and spend now to save later.” He also said, “Resources must be made available based on children’s needs, not what we can afford”, and, “Residential care can be a life saver.” He called for a “culture change” where “residential care is seen as an integral part of child care and not a last resort”.
There was a real will to move residential care up the agenda out of the recognition following research over the last 18 months that it really works! Now let’s see how this initiative translates into reality.
Keeping to the national agenda, both the Nature Nurture work and the St Andrew’s Project will feature at the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care’s national conference.
During the last months, PAMIS has become active in the Grampian area around issues of transitions for young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. If you think they could be helpful for you or your ‘child’, please contact Tracey Bell on 01224 784456 or email Jenny. Also of interest may be the workshop run by The National Autistic Society in Aberdeen on Thursday 25th March regarding rights and entitlements to services and welfare benefits. For information on this, contact Lareen Jarvis on 0141 285 7114. There is also a new ‘Family Fund’, now extended to help families with severely disabled children and young people up to the age of 18 to have choices and the opportunity to enjoy ordinary life. Grants are available for things like washing machines, driving lessons, computers and holidays. To apply for a grant, go to Family Fund or phone 0845 1304542.
The New Year will see a change in the way we internally organise our term times. As from 7th January we will no longer have transport days at the beginning and end of each term, but simply ‘term starts’ and ‘term ends’ days. On the ‘term starts’ days, school will begin later at 10.00am and, on the ‘term ends’ days, the School Festivals will conclude by 11.00am, allowing those who need to travel further enough time to do so. We hope you will support these changes which we believe will enhance the service we offer as we have an increasing number of day pupils and weekly boarders who live nearby.
Finally, I hope you will enjoy reading our annual report which will be on the website in the New Year.
With best wishes to you for Christmas and the New Year.
Laurence Alfred
on behalf of us all in Camphill