Stop the restructure at Drumbeat Outreach!

Drumbeat Outreach is a highly-valued local service working with autistic young people, families and schools across Lewisham. Earlier this year, over 1,800 people raised their voices to object to an attempt to cut back the small Drumbeat Outreach team. The proposed cuts were paused as a result. 

 

However, the plans have not gone away, and a devastating “restructure” is now underway. Staff are being forced through a consultation that will lead to a third of the team being lost. The reduction in this small team’s capacity will have a major impact on the service they can provide. The crucial changes have not been consulted with the expert Drumbeat Outreach team or the families, young people and schools who will be affected by them. Short-term cuts are being pursued at the expense of our children’s mental health and educational futures - this is neither ethically nor fiscally sound decision-making.

If you ask any parent or carer of an autistic child or young person in Lewisham, or school staff or other frontline professionals working with them, which service helps to understand and support their needs you are likely to hear one service singled out: Drumbeat Outreach.

Drumbeat Outreach work under Service Level Agreements with mainstream schools in Lewisham. In addition, they work to a Service Level Agreement with the Local Authority that ensures free-at-the-point-of-use groups and services are also delivered.

Funding from Lewisham to Drumbeat Outreach has been maintained at the same level since 2012 despite massive increases in costs since this date. Current funding cannot sustain the same level of services. Despite assurances that a 5% increase is being put forward as part of the current consultation, this is entirely inadequate to address the increased costs that have accumulated over the years.

Drumbeat Outreach sits under the management of Drumbeat School but have a distinct role and largely autonomous working model. Financial management of the Drumbeat Outreach budget has exposed the problems of this specialised team sitting within a school that has no involvement in its work. Yet instead of putting effort into developing a more appropriate structure and home for the Drumbeat Outreach service to flourish, preserving its expertise and reputation, current efforts are incomprehensibly focussed on cutting it back. 

Behind the scenes in Drumbeat Outreach is a highly experienced team with decades of professional and personal experience supporting neurodivergent young people and working with schools. Those who work with them understand that their deep, transformative impact across schools, wider systems and services, is achieved by being constantly on hand for advice and expertise, tuned into professional forums and community networks. They are known for always being one step ahead, identifying new areas and issues where families, young people, schools and others need support and adapting to meet emerging needs. Cutting this service back to the bone will have a deep impact. 

There are countless forums for strategising, information-sharing, consultation and co-production around SEND and autism in Lewisham, yet the plans to cut back Drumbeat Outreach’s capacity were never discussed at these before they were put to the team as a formal consultation for job losses. These forums include: the All-Age Autism Strategy and its Partnership Board, the Parent and Carer Forum, the Lewisham Local Area Partnership for Children and Young People’s SEND Strategy “Have Your Say” events.

Similarly, despite 1800+ parents, carers and supporters raising their concerns earlier this year, no efforts were made subsequently to consult on, share information about, or even allay fears around the revised restructure. We believe this is because there can in fact be no evidence to justify this cost-saving process.

We remind Councillors that while the government makes increasingly clear that the future direction is to ensure children with SEND (of whom around 70% in Lewisham are or come to be diagnosed as autistic) are educated in inclusive mainstream settings, Lewisham Council will be making devastating and irreparable cuts to the one team that know how to make this a reality. Rather than cutting Drumbeat Outreach, Lewisham Council should be proudly proposing it as a model service to be adopted nationally.