Information for parents

If your child has been admitted to hospital or needs to stay at home for a long period of time, you want normal life, such as your child’s education, to continue as much as possible. Education is important for keeping in touch with classmates and friends, and therefore making sure that your child does not become socially isolated. It also helps your child keep up with the class as much as possible. Another benefit is that the focus is on what he or she can do, which is very important for your child’s self-confidence.

Very often, a lot of things need to be organised to make sure that your child can continue his or her education. However, the school is primarily responsible for your child’s education, as laid down in various education laws. The school may request assistance from a consultant specialised in the educational support for children with medical needs (an ESP consultant – Educational support for Sick Pupils consultant). This consultant can also advise and support parents, especially concerning suitable education for their child. Such support is provided free of charge. Please contact your child’s school for further information.

Educational consultancy agencies and educational facilities departments

Educational consultancy agencies and the educational facilities departments in university teaching hospitals (UMCs) both employ consultants who are specialised in the educational support for children with medical needs (Educational support for Sick Pupils, or ESP, consultants). 

Support provided by educational consultancy agencies

ESP Consultants who work for educational consultancy agencies advise and support schools, teachers and parents in relation to chronically ill pupils undergoing regular medical treatment. These consultants are experts on what it means to be ill and the effect this has on a child’s education. They can provide support for such children, with the aim to ensure their continuing education and to make sure that their learning does not suffer unnecessarily. To do this, they liaise with schools and teachers, but also the relevant education and care partners. The role of an ESP consultant in an educational consultancy agency is therefore to provide the ‘care in education’. Note that the school is responsible at all times for the education of a chronically ill pupil. Should your child’s school decide to use the services of an ESP consultant, this is provided free of charge to the school and parents.

What do ESP consultants do?

Educational consultancy agency ESP consultants:

  • liaise with the school, hospital, pupil and parents to coordinate the care required by a pupil with medical needs, with the aim to ensure the pupil’s continuing education;
  • provide support to pupils with medical needs so that they can continue their education despite their illness, while also supporting parents and siblings, at home and at school;
  • provide information and advice for schools, teachers, pedagogical advisers, school boards and school groups concerning education for pupils with medical needs;
  • organise the pupil’s continued education at home or in hospital, in consultation with the school;
  • draw up teaching plans, in consultation with the school and parents;
  • inform parents and pupils and education and care partners about the illness and its possible effects on educational achievements;
  • consult and coordinate with other partners, such as peripatetic supervisors, paediatricians, school attendance officers, education counsellors and child and family centres;
  • supervise the implementation of KlasseContact, so that pupils can use an audio-visual unit to take part in lessons, continue their education and stay in touch with classmates;
  • implement communication channels that meet the needs and possibilities of the pupil;
  • exchange and coordinate knowledge and expertise with ESP consultants in UMC educational facility departments.

Support provided by university teaching hospitals

ESP consultants who work for an educational facility department at a UMC support chronically ill pupils who are receiving regular medical treatment at the hospital and their parents in relation to education. These consultants are experts on what it means to be ill and the effect this has on a child’s education. They can provide support for such children, with the aim to ensure their continuing education and to make sure that their learning does not suffer unnecessarily. To do this, they also liaise with schools and teachers. The role of a UMC ESP consultant is therefore to provide the ‘education in care’. Note that the school is responsible at all times for the education of a chronically ill pupil. The services of an ESP consultant are provided free of charge to schools and parents.

UMC educational facility ESP consultants: 

  • recognise the school-related problems that a child admitted to a UMC for medical treatment may be faced with, based on their knowledge of illnesses and the impact of these on education, and are responsible for drawing attention to such problems in the primary healthcare setting;
  • help ensure that children do not fall behind in their schoolwork as a result of hospital admission and support children with medical needs in their learning process;
  • help pupils with medical needs continue their education despite their illness, while also supporting parents, siblings and the school;
  • liaise between the hospital and the school as a member of a multidisciplinary team at the UMC;
  • can help achieve treatment objectives through their direct contact with the psychosocial care team at the UMC, for example by helping the child increase his or her energy levels, by providing daily structure and by ensuring that the pupil is working on something that he or she can achieve;
  • consult and exchange information and advice with other care partners, for example regarding an application for extra educational support;
  • provide information and advice for schools, teachers, school boards, teacher training colleges and other relevant education and care partners regarding the impact of being ill on education;
  • supervise the implementation of KlasseContact, so that pupils can use an audio-visual unit to take part in lessons, continue their education and stay in touch with classmates;
  • exchange and coordinate knowledge and expertise with ESP consultants in educational consultancy agencies.

KlasseContact

KlasseContact enables children with a chronic or severe illness who cannot attend school for a prolonged period to take part in lessons in their own classroom with their own teacher. This helps make sure that they do not fall behind with their learning and, just as important, that they stay in touch with their teacher and classmates.

Using a KlasseContact laptop, a pupil can take part in lessons either from home or from hospital. A KPN ‘classmate’ ­– a unit that allows an audio-visual connection to be made between the school and the pupil – is placed in the classroom. As a result, the chronically ill child is effectively in the classroom and able to follow the lessons in the same way as his or her classmates.

This remarkable project is a joint initiative of EDventure and KPN Mooiste Contact Fonds. KlasseContact is implemented in close cooperation with Ziezon. The project started in 2008 with 85 audio-visual units and, in 2017, as many as 570 chronically-ill children were able to use these units to follow lessons in their own classroom. In the same year, the KlasseContact help desk and its engineers provided technical and user support for 1,100 chronically and severely ill pupils and their teachers in the Netherlands.

Who is KlasseContact for?

KlasseContact is intended for pupils in primary and secondary education. Pupils are considered eligible if they have a chronic or severe physical illness which means that they are unable to attend school for a prolonged period of time. The pupil must be supported by an ESP consultant, who acts as a link between the parent/pupil and the school.

ESP consultants

ESP consultants are employed by educational consultancy agencies and UMCs to support pupils with medical needs. These consultants are represented by the Dutch nationwide network for the education of pupils with medical needs (Ziezon). This network promotes expertise, cooperation and the transfer of knowledge with the aim to strengthen the quality of the educational support provided to pupils with medical needs. Thanks to the dedicated work of Ziezon consultants and its partners, more and more pupils are able to make use of KlasseContact.

How to apply for KlasseContact

An application for KlasseContact should be made in consultation with the ESP consultant, the parents/carers and the school. The consultant submits the application to EDventure, which assesses the application before forwarding it to KPN. Parents may request a meeting with an ESP consultant through its child’s school. The KPN classmate is installed by the KPN logistics department.

Route to success

An illness or disability must never be a reason for a pupil not to take an exam, which is why the examination method should be adapted to the pupil.

The possibilities for doing this are described in detail in the leaflet Op weg naar het diploma, or The route to success (only available in Dutch). This leaflet has been put together by Ingrid de Jong, ESP consultant at the AMC/VUmc educational facilities department.

Op weg naar het diploma – Examendossier 2018

Depending on the pupil’s particular needs, the following adaptations are possible:

  • extra time for tests and exams;
  • a retake at a time that better suits the pupil;
  • changes to school exams;
  • exemption for physical education;
  • a reduction in the workload required for a compulsory exam;
  • the spreading of national exams over the first, second and third examination periods (in May, June and August);
  • the spreading of final exams over two school years;
  • the possibility to take exams at a different location (at home or in hospital).

Note that exams must cover the required material. It is therefore possible to set fewer tests, but not to leave out parts of the compulsory subject matter.

Schools may request a statement (for example from a doctor or psychologist) showing the necessity of the requested adaptations. Schools must report most adaptations to the Dutch Inspectorate of Education. For more rigorous adaptations, the school should contact the Dutch Board of Tests and Examinations.

Internet safety

If your child is ill and unable to attend school he or she may spend more time at home alone. He or she may take part in the classroom using KlasseContact, but the internet is also a never-ending source of information, entertainment and social interaction.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and all kinds of other existing or soon to be developed social media can help your child stay informed and in touch. These can be accessed on the computer or on a tablet (iPad) or smart phone. Of course, face-to-face contact is best, but internet can help if your child is often alone.

The fact that your child is alone so much means that he or she will need to make media-related decisions more often than other children. Should I visit this website? Should I register? What should I write, or not? Who am I chatting to? Is the information useful and reliable? Once something has been published on the internet, it is there ‘forever’. It is not easy to remove photos of yourself, delete comments you have made or undo a subscription. At the same time, as children are struggling to find their identities, they also need to learn to manage their online identity. Your child may need some guidance, and you can help your child become more media-wise.

Various online teaching methods and apps are available, either for use in hospital or at home, that help your child use the internet safely and learn outside the classroom. Help with homework is also possible online. The computer and the internet can also be used to help your child reflect on things and communicate with others, for example in the form of an online diary. The possibilities are endless!

Parents and patients associations

Parents often want to find reliable information about their child’s illness, and together parents can achieve more than they would on their own.

From most parents, it is a huge relief to realise that other parents are facing the same problems, and that there is a lot that they can learn from each other. For most syndromes, there is a parents or patients association that provides information, enables knowledge-sharing and represents the interests of patients or parents. Please find a list of these organisations below. A directory of parents and patients organisations websites can also be found in the Ziezon education database.

Websites for parents and children

Parents often want to find reliable information about their child’s illness, so that they know what they are talking about in a meeting with carers or to help them talk about the illness with their child.

Clear information on subjects such as hospital admission and the course that the illness may take can be very useful. Please find a list of relevant websites below, and you can find more websites for you and your child in the Ziezon education database.