Pharos: Self-Assessment tools for service development and improvement for schools,educational,and support services for young learners with visual impairment

There already exists at local, national, and international levels ¹ an array of tools designed to provide performance indicators and self-evaluation for programmes and services for young learners with visual impairment (VI); what additionality can the Pharos self-evaluation tools bring to the field of maintaining effective quality assurance, provision of services, and service development for the education of young learners with VI? The answer to this question lies in the strength of an approach built on research evidence gathered from families and service users of specialist resources from across Europe, including the Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, and Sweden, which can be used across the spectrum of service providers.

The Pharos self-evaluation tools have been developed from a 2002–2005, pan European, Life Long Learning Comenius funded research project, which examined how specialised schools for young learners with VI might develop as resource centres. The 2005 project conclusions produced a model of flexible service delivery based on the needs of the individual learner. The present Pharos self-evaluation tools take this concept forward and develop it, particularly in light of the United Nations (UN) Convention Rights of People with Disabilities and within the principles and contexts of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, (ICF)–Children and Youth Version, to propose a model of service support and from that a self-evaluation framework, which could be relevant across a wide range of countries and local contexts.

The original research, undertaken in the four European Union (EU) countries, identified seven core services for a regional VI resource centre. These were as follows:

The project proposed a flexible model of service delivery. Where local provision is well developed and/or the learner’s needs are relatively straightforward, there is the need for less resource centre input. Where local provision is less developed and/or the needs of the learner more complex, input from the resource centre will be significantly greater. The model’s aim was to help concentrate the services being delivered to the child and their family.

The research, upon which the Pharos model is based, focused on identifying the services that existing schools for the visually impaired might provide to support the rounded academic and social education of young learners with VI. There is therefore a question as to whether this research will be applicable to services provided to young learners with VI, outwith these specialist schools. Given that the respondees to the research wanted the best education and opportunities in life for young learners with VI, irrespective of placement, it must be assumed that it is a valid basis for advocating a model of service provision. Therefore, the principles of the Pharos model apply to all of those in the network of providing education and support the young learners, their families, and educators.

The original project explored a number of alternative locations which could be used to accommodate a regional VI resource centre. These were as follows: a standalone unit, within a university campus, as part of a mainstream school campus, which has a VI unit attached, or at a specialist school for the visually impaired. The original project concluded that specialist schools for the visually impaired would be the preferred choice of location, as it would form part of their natural development. Much, however, has changed since 2005, and the authors believe that the original model required significant refinement to acknowledge that improving the opportunities for young learners with VI is best achieved through partnerships of cooperation and sharing, promoting dissemination and deepening of knowledge of how to best meet the needs of the learner. Furthermore, any school or service undertaking a resource centre role must be able to demonstrate that it is the best location for the resource centre in terms of the quality and range of services provided. From this conclusion arose the Pharos model and the subsequent self-evaluation tools.

The revised model, named Pharos, ² also asserted that rather than being just a central point of expertise, any specialist school or service for the visually impaired, must be willing to be one of a number of nodes in a network, a network which could be regional, national, and international to further develop knowledge and skills. The adapted model requires that specialist schools and services must not operate in isolation of their immediate and wider environment in order to deliver the core services, but develop, extend, and share knowledge of the education of young people with VI to support the implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the ICF framework. Recent and pending legislation in different countries that make up the United Kingdom, which require agencies supporting children and young people to work together, is very much in line with the Pharos requirement for connectivity between services (e.g., the new single Education, Health, and Care Plans in England):

International collaboration and sharing has always been characteristic of the multi-disciplinary field of MDVI (multiple disability visual impairment). If an application to the Comenius part of the EU Socrates Programme is successful, partners throughout Europe will be identified who are willing to share their MDVI early intervention staff development materials, eventually through the World Wide Web. (Buultjens, 1997).

The original set of Pharos ‘standards’, based on the model above, was first constructed to allow specialists schools to enter a network of Pharos schools, which was proposed would act as recognisable kite/quality mark, for users of the service provided by these schools. During the peer review process in April 2012, colleagues in MDVI Euronet (a network of service providers from across Europe, working with young people with MDVI) requested the development of the self-evaluation toolkit to allow them to be used by non-school-based services. The authors subsequently developed two sets of Pharos self-evaluation tools, which specialist providers at the school and resource/non-school-based service levels can employ in a self-evaluation process.

Pharos has now been set up as a non-profit-making organisation and the self-evaluation materials are freely available to download and use at http://www.pharos-schools.org. The website also contains additional background reading and the original research project report.

By applying the Pharos self-evaluation tools, a rigorous and robust self-evaluation of services will take place, the results of which can be employed in a development and improvement process, supporting, for instance, the increased freedom to deliver learning in ways suited to the needs of a particular school as reflected in the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland and Academy Schools in England, as opposed to following a ridged National Curriculum. An additional aim of Pharos is to provide a common reference point for services. Service providers employing the Pharos self-evaluation tools will be able to join an online community to promote and develop the concept.

Despite having originally set out to examine the role of the specialist school for young learners with VI, the present Pharos model and the self-evaluation tools it has spawned, do not delineate which services it is recommended should be provided to support the network, rather, it is now focused on the needs of the individual young learner within their wider social and educational context. To achieve full and active participation within society for the young learner with a significant sight loss requires a greater level of knowledge and understanding, not just in the educational field but in society in general where in a social model of disability and a lifelong learning environment, education cannot be compartmentalised into the first school phases of a person’s life. To accomplish this wider and sustainable goal, young learners with VI, and their parents, must have continuing access to the support of qualified professional staff who are able to support the young person and their family by offering a wide range of services and skills, including their educational and social development. The young person’s educators, who are most likely to be in a mainstream setting, must have recourse to expert advice and support related to the individual young learner’s VI needs. The use of Pharos self-evaluations tools has a part to play, on several levels, in ensuring high-quality services and support for young learners with VI, their families, and supporters. The authors invite you to visit http://www.pharos-schools.org and join the process.

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