Ontology modelling for adaptive coordination of education, health and social care interventions for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities : smart-school care coordination system

Abstract

This thesis introduces an innovative, generic, smart, knowledge-based School Care Coordination System (SCCS), which is established on a novel holistic six-layered data management model. The development of the Smart-SCCS adopts a methodology of ontology engineering to transform the given theoretical unstructured special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) code of practice into a comprehensive knowledge representation and reasoning system. According to the most recent published Children and Families Act 2014 (CFA 2014), the legislation claimed to make a considerable shift in the assessment and support for children and young people (CYP) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the United Kingdom (UK), as well as enhancing the multi-professional cooperation between health, education, and social care services. However, the Department for Education (DfE) has not produced a national blueprint for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) or their supporting processes; it is up to individual pathfinder areas (Local Authorities of different boroughs) to design, pilot and implement their own tools and methods. Hence, there is an apparent gap between the theoretical approach and the practical implementation of the new SEND code of practice. Therefore, this thesis argues that there is a significant need for a computer-aided framework, effective information analysis and ontology knowledge-based models to support both CYP with SEND and care providers. As a result, the main contribution of this research is the delivery of a framework that coordinates and brings together education, health, and social care services into a single application to meet the needs CYP with SEND. It enables coordination, integration and monitoring of education, health and social care activities between different carers involved in the school care process network, thus providing personalised care interventions based on a predefined EHCP. The developed Smart-SCCS framework has been proven efficient and solved the enormous difficulties faced by schools and local authorities on a daily basis. It enabled the coordination of care and integration of information for CYP from different departments in health, social care, and education. Furthermore, the Smart-SCCS framework has received significant attention with excellent feedback from all the schools and the local authorities involved, showing its efficiency and robustness.