A Single Strategy for Sensory Needs - The Highland Council

The Policy Context
There are a number of key policy documents and frameworks, at both local and national level, which set
out to determine how services should be planned and delivered. These are aimed at promoting equal
opportunities and social inclusion, modernising public services, improving the quality of services, and the
outcomes for those who use them. These include:
Sensing Progress
During 1997/98, the Social Work Services Inspectorate conducted an inspection of Social Work Services for
people with sensory needs in order to:
Examine the planning, delivery, commissioning and management of Social Work Services for people
with sensory needs;
Clarify how Social Work Services for people with sensory needs link with a wider range of services
provided by Health, Education and the Voluntary Sector;
Understand the separate concerns of people with a wide range of sensory needs;
Identify the training needs of staff.
A number of recommendations followed on from this piece of work including that local authorities should:
Take the lead in establishing multi-agency strategy and resource groups for people with sensory needs;
In conjunction with their partners in children’s services planning, to review existing arrangements for
futures needs assessment;
Review their assessment arrangements for people with sensory needs to ensure that assessments are
carried out speedily and that wider needs are considered whenever necessary;
Increase the number of their staff trained to BSL Stage 3, provide sensory awareness training for all
levels of staff and increase the number of guide/communicators.
Scottish Best Practice Standards
These standards build on published sources including the Scottish Draft National Care Standards 5 , “Sensing
Progress (1998)” and the “English Best Practice Standards (1999) 6 ”. A multi-agency task force which
included representation from RNID Scotland, the British Deaf Association Scotland, the Scottish Council on
Deafness, the National Deaf Children’s Society, SENSE Scotland, Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research,
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