“No policy is an island”: how the ICF international classification system may support local education planning in England

Abstract

Background: A crucial issue in special educational needs and disability policy and provision is the documentation of children’s functioning, for which many countries have a statutory document. In England this is the education health and care plan. Recent research challenges the quality of these plans. Purpose: To provide evidence on the usefulness of the international classification of functioning, disability and health as a system with potential to support the development of higher quality plans in England. Methods: Twenty-five professionals participated in a one-day training session on the international classification of functioning disability and health, with a focus on designing higher quality SMART targets to be included in children’s plans. Results: Overall, participants regarded the system as useful. Comparison of targets written before and after the training show improvements in relevance, specificity and on the extent to which they were action-oriented and measurable. Conclusions: Results are discussed in light of international lessons learned around the potential of the international classification of functioning disability and health to support policy change. A “no policy is an island” approach is proposed, suggesting local policy-makers should open horizons beyond geographical boundaries in evidence-based decision-making for supporting children with disabilities.

Implications for rehabilitation

• The ICF can be regarded as a useful framework for supporting professionals developing targets for children with Education Health and Care (EHC) plans in England.

• For developing SMART targets with the ICF, professionals can use the taxonomy to look for detailed aspects of functioning, relevant to a certain developmental stage.

• Using the ICF can support in making more measurable targets in EHC plans if the universal qualifier scale is applied when describing detailed aspects of functioning.

• Professionals trained on the ICF recognise its usefulness for writing EHC targets.

• More in-depth training is recommended for supporting the development of more holistic biopsychosocial EHC plans in England.

Keywords:

• Special educational needs (SEND)
• SEND policy
• ICF
• education
• health and care (EHC) plans
• disability
• SMART

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Study Funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust (SRG 2014–15).