Inclusion, being person-centred and further education

By Christine Breakey

As an autism specialist working in the field of Further Education, I was often challenged by people asking me which approach I advocated. I fought against using any one particular approach, preferring to utilise what I considered to be relevant for the individual student, given their particular situation and need at the time. I thought that this meant that I was being ‘eclectic’ in my approach. I was concerned that this undermined my practice, because ‘eclectic’ implied that I was ‘mixing and matching’ with no clear rationale or body of ideas to underpin my practice, when this in fact was not the case.  My practice was, and still is, grounded in theories and knowledge of autism, combined with the knowledge of how autism impacts specifically on an individual. In addition, I have always taken the view that the individual should be at the centre of all service provision. It was many years later that I realised that this is being ‘person-centred’ in approach.This paper argues that providers who defin,themselves as inclusive should be person-centred, because inclusion is, in itself, a person-centred concept which requires providers to match their provision to the needs of the individual. It provides a framework for ‘Profiling’, suggesting that this is one of the foundation stones for being ‘person-centred’.  The paper consists of selected, and sometimes modified, extracts from chapter 2: 'Which Approach? Ideology, Theory and Practice,' from my book, The Autism Spectrum and Further Education - A Guide to Good Practice (punlished by Jessica Kingsley, 2006)