Eating Disorders, which carry a high mortality rate, can be frightening for those involved whether family, teacher, or friend.
An eating disorder is a serious, complex disorder accompanied by physical and mental health complications which may be severe and life threatening. It is not a lifestyle choice or “diet gone too far”. Eating disorders are characterized by disturbances in behaviours, thoughts and feelings towards body weight and shape and/or food and eating.
Often schools and teachers take enormous responsibility for children with eating disorders, with treating practitioners shifting the clinical responsibility of re-feeding a child to the school, accompanied by massive documents of recommendations, and the assumption the school is able to successfully deliver on the recommendations.
With eating disorders, it is essential that the boundaries between clinical responsibility and educational responsibilities are clear and carefully managed. Collaboration between the family, treating practitioners and the school regarding reasonable accommodations during the re-feeding treatment process is paramount for the safety and wellbeing of that child.
While a school’s primary responsibility is to deliver teaching and provide learning for students, schools also have a wellbeing responsibility to their students. This wellbeing responsibility is directly related to the student’s ability to access the learning. In their mandate to include children with high and complex needs, schools need to think carefully about whether they are picking up clinical responsibility.
The social policy change that resulted in schools absorbing and including students with high and complex needs, previously excluded from the system has resulted in schools having primary responsibility for managing inequality, diversity, and difference in behaviour, emotions, and cognition not previously central to the scope of the vocation. Schools need to consider carefully what it is that they are willing and able to take responsibility for outside of the teaching and learning mandate.
Students with high and complex needs require multi-system support, and the Education System is now required to collaborate with the Health and Human Services Systems. The more complex the needs, the more support is required, and we now see multiple agencies and systems around a child and their family. With multi-system involvement, we see confusion appear around where responsibility and authority sit between practitioners, schools, and families. The shifting of responsibility becomes commonplace and often the school is left holding the lion’s share of responsibility with little authority to make decisions about that responsibility.
Functional collaboration between systems is the elixir that makes inclusion possible.
bower(schools) provides protocols and training to assist leaders and educators to manage inequality, inclusion, crisis and multi-system complexity. To learn more about bower(schools) visit bower(schools).
To assess whether your school has the protocols and processes to successfully manage complex situations and crisis, book a free, no obligation, 30 minute Schools Support Assessment meeting.
