This is a post that I feel very nervous about. Not so much the writing, although it’s been a wee while, eh? But I’m nervous about getting the tone right, and conveying gratitude about this period of Joff’s early life.

The Ladybird Pre-school Special Needs Group was set up in Lossiemouth about 30 years ago by a local GP and his wife, a senior nurse. The couple had a young child with additional needs. They found out that mainstream nurseries were mostly not set up to look after such children and decided to start their own group in the community. Legend has it that the GP went fundraising by playing a penny whistle around the pubs and collecting spare change.

When Joff went to Ladybird, he was just around 6 months old and initially went one morning a week. I have searched and searched through our photographs for the snap we took of his first day going on the Ladybird Bus; a cheery blue minibus with ladybirds all over it used to collect the children from a 12 mile rural radius. There were 5 ladies who were the teachers – all mums who had informally developed brilliant skills with the children in terms of looking after their posture, medical needs and fostering communication. They had use of an old annexe at the back of a council-run old folk’s home, but not much else in the way of official funding. The burden was on the group to continually fundraise enough money to pay the women’s wages, upkeep/insure the minibus and any sundries the kids needed. At the time it was around £25,000 pa.

Moray council had it made. For a paltry annual contribution on their part, there was easy access to our children by health, education and social work departments. Ladybird must have saved them tens of thousands in terms of resources and man hours. There were another 5 preschool special needs groups in Moray set up along the lines of Ladybird, all largely funded by themselves. It was my first taste of how resources are allocated to our kids and the sense of place they have in our society.

Meanwhile, Ladybird provided us with some respite, contact with a group of other parents making similar journeys with their kids with additional needs and learning that our kids were that. Just kids. Not a bunch of diagnoses, or not, nor a list of medical problems. However, I must say that the very first time I went into the hall to observe what Joff was doing, I was shocked.

Him being the wee baby of the group, he didn’t look so much different from any other baby. The other older kids were making “funny” noises, doing “funny” things, had twisted spines, bodies and dysmorphic faces. Some were in large institutionalised-looking wheelchairs, others using standing frames. Some were being tube fed, or nebulised. They wore big clunky boots and splints on their legs. I think it should be part of all professionals training to visit and observe groups like Ladybird, to get that shock out of your system and see the children beyond it. For instance, my understanding is that in Scotland, teacher training placements are never made in additional support needs (ASN) schools, even though there is a presumption of mainstreaming ASN pupils.

Ok lest I jump on my soap box again I’ll finish for now and continue the Ladybird story later….