An Evaluation of Attitudes to Passports

CALL Centre Study, January 2006/ 2007

Introduction

This mini survey of attitudes and views of Passports was carried out directly following the finish of the ‘Working Together on Passports’ course, run by Sally Millar and Laura Coakes from September 2005 to January 2006. The respondents (21) were all participants that had attended the course, so they were not ‘naïve’ about Passports but had recently invested some time in learning about Passports and in making one, and had had the opportunity to discuss making and using Passports in their own settings, with colleagues. Participants overall included:

• Parents (all Mums, with one visiting father)

• Speech and Language Therapists

• Speech and Language Therapy Assistants

• Teachers (including Pre-School Home Visiting Teachers, Nursery teachers, Mainstream Primary teacher, Special Unit teacher)

• Respite Care Facility staff members (Voluntary Agency)

• Social Services staff

The purpose of the survey was to evaluate the course itself and at the same time to obtain from knowledgeable practitioners some evaluative indicators of attitudes to Passports. There is an urgent need for more research into the use of Passports and for evaluative evidence. This small study can hardly claim to be ‘research’ but it at least provides a starting point alongside which future studies can be considered.

The participants were few and only representative of themselves (a specialised and partly self-selected group), so it would not be appropriate to carry out statistical analysis, or to infer any ‘grand conclusions’ from the responses. The responses are being treated as a formative evaluation and a preliminary indication that working together on Passports in interdisciplinary groups including parents is consistent with high commitment and very positive attitudes to Passports and their role. The project gave us lots of ideas about future research to be done!

A further aim, particularly linked to the Follow-Up part of the project, was to find out about needs for ongoing or further training and / or support.

‘Working Together on Passports’ Course Aims

• Promotion of partnership with parents and interdisciplinary team working

• A completed Passport for one specific child per ‘team’ of participants

• Introduction to / Review of key principles and practices of Passports, and showing examples

• Discussion of how to implement effectively in local setting

The primary practical intended outcome of the course - the completed Passport for one specific child per ‘team’ of participants – was accompanied by the ‘hidden’ agenda of using the in-service training heading (and budget!) to promote team working and to ring-fence time for actually working together on the Passports (recognising that people otherwise often find it difficult to get time for meeting up with colleagues and parents to collect and collate information). The underlying premise was that interdisciplinary team work involving parents is best practice and leads to strong ‘ownership’ of the Passport (whereas ‘assembly line’ Passports made by a single service may be soon abandoned).

The course was delivered to two groups in two different local authorities and consisted of 5 morning sessions in one authority (LA1), and 3 full day sessions in another authority LA2, spaced out across 5 months, during which participants were meant to meet up with each other in their small teams and work on ‘their’ child’s Passport. (Illness aside, everybody did manage to meet up and do the work, more or less, although all said they would ideally wished to have had more time.)

The group (9 people) from LA1 was smaller and more cohesive, composed of three ‘ideal groups’ (i.e. team of teacher, therapist and mother around one child). The group from LA2 was larger (15) and more professionally diverse, had been less well briefed about the course by the local organiser before they came, and was somewhat less cohesive – one or two participants had come alone, not as part of a team.

Follow-Up was planned for 2007 to see what became of the Passports created and the working teams (and their attitudes).

Response Rate

Overall, there were 24 course participants. The attendance rate was excellent over the five months, however three participants were absent on the final day and did not complete the survey and evaluation sheet, so the returns shown here total 21 (87.5%).

Methodology

Before the course began, each participant made a written statement (one sentence/paragraph) saying what they thought Passports were about. This demonstrated that everybody was roughly ‘in the same ballpark’ and was more or less positive or at least open-minded, although there was a wide spread – a few already had a lot of experience of making Passports while others knew very little except that Passports were about ‘information about a child’.

The survey itself was in two parts, firstly a set of 23 questions about Passports in general. Sixteen questions asked for a rating on a 5 point Likert scale (strongly agree/ agree/ neutral - neither agree nor disagree or not sure/ disagree/ strongly disagree). Two questions involved selecting the most indicative descriptors; one question involved comparing two options against a list of indicators, and four were open ended questions.

The second part, an evaluation of the course itself, is reported separately at the end.

Survey responses are mainly reported as actual numbers, along with the verbatim text of comments added. Responses from the 2 separate course groups have been aggregated into a single total.

Validity and Reliability

The group of participants was too small and specialised to be truly representative, and the context was weighted by recent commitment to Passport work, so it would inappropriate to claim scientific validity or reliability, to carry out statistical analysis, or to generalise widely from the responses.

Even at face value, no significant trends could be analysed out of the data with any confidence, other than a generally positive attitude to Passports. Responses were fairly uniform across the board, with differences apparently reflecting individual opinions and differing types and levels of experience of putting Passport work into practice as much as different professional backgrounds. An impression is that the biggest differences were between Primary teachers (who tended to see things from the school perspective) and the others (parents, pre-school home visiting teachers, nursery teachers, speech and language therapists and assistants and social work and care staff) who all seemed to have a more naturally child-centred perspective.

Follow Up

Preliminary Follow-up results (one year on) results are shown below in the Summary Section.

Summary of Findings

Views about working together on Passports in interdisciplinary groups including parents were overwhelmingly positive. Main concerns were lack of time to follow best practice in making and updating Passports, and how best to promote awareness and good use of Passports amongst other people in the child’s environment (eg. schools) later on.

From a list of 30 options, the ‘Top Ten’ words voted for, to describe Passports were:

1. child-centred

2. accessible/easy to read (equal number of votes)

3. accurate / informative (equal number of votes)

4. parent-friendly

5. fun / personal (equal number of votes)

6. attractive / relevant (equal number of votes)

7. supportive

8. important

9. satisfying / time-consuming (equal number of votes)

10. empowering

From 23 survey questions, the three that got over 90% agreement at the ‘Strongly agree’ level (on a 5 level Likert rating scale) were:

• Reading Passports can have a role to play in orienting new staff, volunteers,

• Passports can support a child through transitions.

• Passport team should include parent(s).

There was over 90% agreement at the ‘Strongly agree’ + ‘Agree’ level for:

• Making Passports can have a role to play in staff development (eg training how to assess, relating to parents and other agencies etc.) for staff at all levels of experience.

• Passports team should include teacher.

• Passports team should include speech and language therapist (and/or any other therapists closely involved).

• Working on Passports can have a role to play in setting up / enhancing effectiveness of inter-agency team.

• The end-product, ie. the Passport booklet itself, is a valuable outcome in itself.

• The process of getting together to work on making a Passport is valuable outcome in itself.

• Passports should be highly personalised and all look different.

From 23 questions, responses were largely very positive and ‘pro-Passport’ – below is the only issue that got a slightly negative response (qualified by further comments):

• Passports can disempower and ‘speak for’ children

Speaking ‘for’ child can be a plus if ‘giving child a voice. / Can happen but shouldn’t! / Not if child friendly language used / Not if used effectively. / I suppose they could, if not used properly…not sure??? / Can do, if mis-used

From the list of concerns and possible barriers or pitfalls, these were the most frequently expressed:

Lack of Time / Difficulty of managing to get the team together / Updating / Remembering to use it / People not knowing it’s there and not knowing how to use it /Not enough support & training for staff in how to use it

Comparing Passports with more traditional forms of collating and presenting assessment materials and other personal information (e.g. ‘traditional client record file), participants felt that a Passport was ‘most open and accessible’, ‘looks most attractive’, is most helpful to parents and family’, and ‘provides most opportunities for involving the child’ while traditional client files were ‘easier to create’.

Follow Up (2007)

The one-year on follow-up process so far has only partially covered one group. Interviews have been carried out with the parent of each child, and some of the professionals involved.

Answers to key questions were as follows:

Does your child still have his/her Passport? – Yes in all cases

How have people / school responded to the Passport? – Extremely positively, in all cases. (‘Absolutely fantastic!’; ‘Really really helpful’; ‘wonderful’; ‘brilliant’ etc.)

Has the Passport been updated, since last year? – Yes in all cases, but once only or minimally, rather than any ‘major revamp’. (1/4 mentioned a major revamp ‘just coming’.)

Who updated the Passport? – Parent in 2 cases, professional team in 1 case

Does the child take his/her Passport with him/her every day? – Yes 2/4 (to Nursery); No 2/4 (to school)

How has the Passport been used? – to summarise some long stories – all four had been found very useful at first by staff, on transition, but gradually were less and less used. In some cases, this seemed appropriate enough (small school, child well known by all etc.) but in other cases s there were obvious needs and opportunities for beneficial use being missed.

How do you feel about the Passport now? – all original participants interviewed were still keen, but several were disappointed in the reactions of schools.

Is your child still interested in the Passport? – Yes (2/4) - (a) because of the photos with it (changed/added to regularly by parent), used as conversation scaffolding) and (b) because of special features built-in to Passport to maintain interest eg Peek a Boo game. One child takes the Passport to and from Nursery every day himself, in a bag.

Further Comments

One parent had held a ’book launch’ of the newly completed Passport at Nursery, with coffee and cakes. Other parents and children were positive and the P1 teacher in waiting attended.

One parent made the interesting observation that the most helpful bits of her child’s Passport (and this was ongoing, while other sections were now less referred to) were not the parts that provided factual information, but the bits that gave readers ‘hints and tips’ on how they should behave with the child (eg. motivating her, spotting ‘early warning signals’ and averting crises, handling behaviour, responding to communication attempts etc.)

One team is revamping the Passport to incorporate the child’s new interests and her new communication skills and targets, in order to keep the child herself involved and closely tying it in with her education and speech and language therapy programme.

Two schools and one Nursery had greatly appreciated receiving the information along with the child when he/she started but had failed to take on any responsibility for the Passport and to see that they might have a role to play in maintaining and updating it to prepare for the child’s next transition (one planned hospital/surgery appointment, one transition from Nursery to school, two moves to next class etc.) Two schools discouraged the Passports coming to school ‘in case it gets lost’. In one case, this had meant that supply and new Support for Learning Auxiliaries had not had the chance to read it (parents not informed).

One school had more or less abandoned use of the Passport (though they had appreciated it at first when the child first arrived) but had themselves created a new ‘Handbook’ containing information relevant for staff that was written/presented in a Passport-like child-centred style.

Implications for Further Training/Support

Input is needed in receiving schools – to raise awareness and to promote ‘shared ownership’ of Passports and responsibility for using them and updating them, for onward transitions.

Section 1: Survey

Findings in Detail

1.Which words do you feel are most relevant in how you feel about Passports and about making Passports?

Participants were presented with a list of 28 words – all chosen from comments made in discussions about Passports, at various times. The words were presented originally to the participants in alphabetical order, but have been re-ordered below to show the completed ranking.

Each person ringed all the words they felt were most appropriate to their view of Passports and making Passports. They starred 5 of their ringed choices. Per participant, each ringed item was scored with one point, and each starred item was awarded a further one point. (There is no correspondence between the points and the number of participants as each person was free to choose as many words as they felt appropriate.) Broadly, there appeared to be reasonable consistency across the two groups, although one group picked out ‘extra work’ more than the other.

25. Comparing Passports with other forms of collating and presenting assessment materials and other personal information

(eg. ‘traditional’ client record file), which is more valuable?

Section 2: Course Evaluation

1. How satisfied do you feel with this course, overall?

2. In terms of making more Passports in the future, how would you see yourself?

Other things you will do?

• Encourage more team approach to Passport making

• Meet with this group again

2. What, if anything, do you plan to do differently in your practice, in the light of this course and your experiences throughout it?

People new to Passports

• I have never used a Passport before so will be considering one for several children that I had not before.

• Produce more Passports.

• Seeing child through their eye, less medically minded.

• Plan to make more time for multi-agency working!

• Encourage more use of passports generally.

• Encourage passports starting at an earlier age and including as many people as possible.

• Think through use of different kinds of passports.

• Producing passports is not part of my current role, although using somebody’s passport may give me useful information

People already working with Passports

• Enjoyed team work – promote this.

• Always try to wok in a small team instead of trying always to complete the passport myself with only the parents, has been so useful to work with colleagues.

• Experiment with different styles / presentation.

• If possible, make sure person typing up the passport has met the child.

• Meeting client that passport is for, to make it more personal.

• Plug passports to settings, and encourage staff etc. to use them.

• More involvement of respite care staff.

• Be more pro-active in making passport.

• Make Passports more individualised, eg. books, stickers, pictures, etc.

• Do more work on promoting use of Passports.

3. What did you like best about the course?

(Headings are ours, inserted later)

Informal Approach & Discussion Opportunities

• Informality, discussion / Casual, informal and positive approach / Enlightening general discussion

• Discussions – listening to others ideas and opinions, now have a much wider understanding of passports

• Getting a lot of input from other professionals

• Meeting all professionals together in one place, throwing ideas around the group and discussion

• Encouraged a lot of reflection on child-centred approach, appreciation of great parental skills.

• Seeing our ideas appear on the computer screen as Sally typed them in, it really brought our immediate thoughts to life and kept momentum high

Time

• DEDICATED TIME!! / Time being set aside / Making time for passport work /

• Time to focus specifically on one passport

Group Work

• Meeting others / Other ideas

• Working together / Working as a team / Chance to work as a team on the passport

• Chance to work collaboratively with support

• Getting together, having fun with the passport

• Chance to really think through issues in a multidisciplinary team and with parents involved. / Having parents as part of the group

• Practical outcomes / Practical work in small groups

• Accessing and setting out Information,

• Finding out more about X (my son)

Seeing examples

• The ideas, - Talking Mats etc.

• Examples of other passports / All the types of passport that we saw

• A wide selection of materials to view and discuss

1. What did you like least about the course?

(Headings are ours, inserted later)

Time

• Difficulty getting time off work

• Earlier finish to morning would have helped – therapy sessions for schools were lost.

• Lack of time between training days to meet with team and put passport together, i.e. due to holidays, sick leave and other commitments.

• Didn’t realise how much time it would take up – would have to plan better for this when doing it again.

• Christmas break just before finished result delayed us, difficult to get together.

• No room for improvement!

• Some repetition of stuff I already knew about

• More access to computers during course would have been helpful.

• I was on my own so I had no group to work with, so it was difficult at times – make sure teams come on course (we DID try!)

• I did not get enough information prior to the course, so I was not prepared for working with others.

5. If the course was run again (taking on board people’s suggestions), would you recommend to colleagues or other parents that they attend?

YES – 21

NO – 0

6. Further Comments

Nice Remarks

• Really enjoyed every session. Lots of food for thought and help to improve my practice.

• Have learnt so much about passports and have really enjoyed the course. The guidelines for good practice book is wonderful and I will also be able to share this with my colleagues.

• We need to find a way of developing this practice across the local authority.

• Please can we have a repeat to get more passports completed? Dream on…!

• Very enjoyable and rewarding course that will benefit both myself and child and help other people to get to know my child.

• Meeting later to update/discuss ideas for ‘Selling’ passports, Using passports & Developing passports – date is set!

• Very informative and useful course.

• Discussion has been good, good ideas have been talked about – this last session was the best part of the course.

Not all good – you can’t please all of the people all of the time….

• This course would be good for people learning about passports from the beginning but less useful for people who have been making passports previously, although all ideas have been taken on board.

• There was an assumption people knew about passports but I had only come across one passport and was not sure what to do with it! The first day could spend a little more time on this, or have a different day to bring people up to speed.

• Reconsider selection of people attending to make sure that there is a common child at the centre of the process (we tried!)

• Too much time spent on passports during training days, rather than on developing new ideas.

Timings

• Not enough time between days

• Full days better than half. 3-4 months between each session?

• Half days was just right!

What else would people like?

• More info on computer programs & practical use of these would be helpful. / Some training in appropriate IT would be useful. / How to use a computer correctly, things that might help eg. websites with symbols etc.

• More training in specific methods of communication with young people eg. picture boards etc.

• Other types of training on passports for other people eg a ‘Passports Taster’