Percy Hedley Foundation
Speaks Out
With over 50 year's experience of supporting disabled people and their families, the Percy Hedley Foundation has encouraged original, and often innovative, views on best practice. In this section you will find papers, many by experienced staff of the Percy Hedley Foundation, on topics of current relevance.
The views in the papers are those of the authors, not necessarily of the Foundation, but are presented here to stimulate thought, discussion and practice.
Tony Best
Chief Executive
Improving Access to Transport
Chief Executive Officer
February 2010
Disabled people with mobility problems, including those who use wheelchairs, still face serious obstacles to using public transport. This is despite the introduction of the DDA over 15 years ago which required services to make reasonable adjustments to ensure all customers can use their facilities. Furthermore, we believe that these improvements, which benefit all travellers, should become the new standard, and not be seen as something special provided for a minority of travellers.
Conductive Education in context:
Can we learn more from colleagues?
Chief Executive Officer
January 2010
Conductive Education faces many problems, and some have been around for a considerable time, for example a lack of understanding from other professionals, lack of recognition from governments, lack of research on effectiveness. But other parts of the disability field face similar problems and, in particular, the process of Intervention and the work of Intervenors with deafblind people have considerable similarities. As we try to solve some of the difficulties faced by Conductors I think it might be useful to think about how colleagues in other fields tackle the issues.
New Models of Disability
Chief Executive Officer
April 2009
How can we improve practice with children who have physical disability? Part of the answer is to change how we think about the disability. For example, is Cerebral Palsy an illness, a disease, a condition, a handicap, an experience, a culture or merely a difference?
Why Schools are Special
The role of Percy Hedley Foundation Schools
Chief Executive Officer
January 2009
Should all children with disabilities go to their local school? Is this the ideal we should aspire to? Are the days of the special school back in history? No. Both day and residential special schools continue to have an important place in the continuum of excellent provision.
Employability for All
Director of Adult Services
October 2008
In the past two years something significant and unique has been developed at the Percy Hedley Foundation. In keeping with the organisation's aim of "promoting the needs, rights and aspirations of disabled people through the provision of high quality, specialist services" the Employability Project is recognised as meeting this aim in a high quality and specialist manner.
"The Problem of Assessment"
Superintendant Physiotherapist
October 2008
Many children with Cerebral Palsy need an assessment of their movement and function to provide a basis for their developmental programme and to identify their progress. However this presents a challenge to many therapists or practitioners who may be unfamiliar with specialist assessment scales or who work in isolation from the schools who teach the children. This may also become an issue to many parents when their child is placed, for sound educational reasons, in mainstream school. This article suggests an approach to the problem of assessment of the complex needs of these children and presents evidence of the successful use of a specialist assessment procedure, pioneered at Percy Hedley School.
The Very Special Needs of Children with Cerebral Palsy
Former Chief Executive Officer
April 2007
The Percy Hedley School offers a practical, pre-school advice service to parents of children as young as 3 months. It also offers a range of respite services, day and residential, a nursery and a family support service. When parents first visit the school their initial reaction is normally one of relief. Relief that they have found somewhere which is tailor-made to meet their child's needs.
David's Recipe for Fulfillment and Happiness
Former Chief Executive Officer
May 2005
Supported living 'in the community' seems to be the current dogma. Why, then, does the Percy Hedley Foundation have a long waiting list for its residential care facilities? Perhaps David's story tells why.
The Percy Hedley Foundation
Hampeth Lodge,
Forest Hall,
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE12 8YY
Tel: (0191) 2665491
Fax: (0191) 2668435