Children with additional needs

1Look

The handover sheet

Sam’s mum wrote this. Everything you need is on it, and in what you ask about it.

2The idea

Ask the parent, never improvise

Additional needs is a big phrase. Autism. ADHD. A physical disability. Epilepsy. A serious allergy. A child who does not speak. A child who uses a wheelchair. You will be told, or sometimes you will not, and if a child seems to need something you do not understand, you ask. The parent is the expert on their child. Your job is to ask the right questions and do exactly what they say.

Improvising is what goes wrong. A routine skipped, a food swapped, a light left off, a word the family never uses. Those are not small; for a lot of kids they are the whole night. A first job with a child with additional needs is a yes if the parent will answer your questions properly, and a no if they will not.

3The idea

The five handover questions

1. Communication: how does he tell me what he wants, and how do I tell him things?
2. Routine: what happens, in what order, and what must not change?
3. Triggers: what upsets him, and what do you want me to do when it happens?
4. Medical: anything at a set time, how much, where it is kept, what an emergency looks like, and do I ring you or 911?
5. What calms him, and what makes it worse?

Write the answers down and keep them next to you all night. If the answer to question four is complicated, that is a job for when you have been shown, in person, not told. A seizure plan, an injection, a feeding tube: you do not take that job from a description. You take it after a parent has walked you through it with their hands.

4The idea

Sam, and Nadia's questions

Nadia is thirteen, first job with Sam, seven, who is autistic. She asks the five. He uses a picture board and short sentences. Bath, story, lights out at half seven, in that order, always. Loud noises and a change of plan upset him: sit nearby, low voice, do not touch him, offer his weighted blanket. No medication. The blanket and one particular song calm him. She writes it all down.

At seven the doorbell goes and Sam covers his ears. Nadia sits down near him, low voice, blanket, the song. Five minutes. Bath, story, lights out at half seven. She did not have to be clever. She did what the sheet said. Which is the whole skill, and it is a real one.

5Build it

Build the handover

The seizure one has a right answer: you do not take that job until you have been shown what to do, in person.

6Decide

Sam's mum says the landing light has to stay on. It seems a waste. What do you do?

7Say it

The question parents are relieved to hear

It is the question parents are most relieved to be asked.

8Find them

Which of these do you ask the parent, not work out yourself?

Tap the ones that count.

9Do it

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