Our "not for profit" venture "The National Hemiplegia Organisation" (www.nho.org.uk) has as its central hub "Stepping Stones School". The School was co founded by IT entrepreneur Larry Sullivan and his partner Sandy Seagrove. Professor Stephen Heppell (founder of Ultralab and Notschool.net) and Anne Hayes (ex Head and Ofsted Inspector) were our guides and advisors. Robert Hancock (ex CEO Scope) and Caroline Coles (ex Head SEN schools/advisor to central government on Every Child Matters Agenda) were the inspiration for the NHO.

The combination on commercial and educational expertise is powerful and still fairly unique. Paul Chapman (MBA Organisational Design) adds valuable support.

Our principal driver for embarking on this venture was a report initiated by HemiHelp, www.hemihelp.co.uk and funded by Wellcome Foundation (1996). One of its conclusions was that 60% of hemi children, of which there are 10,000 in the UK, carry psychiatric issues into adulthood. With advances in technology and with some of the most experienced/best thinkers in educational provision we want to see if we can act as a "Tipping Point" for improved outcomes for such children. Enabling a greater percentage to lead more fulfilled, more independent lives. Social and economic contributors. To achieve this we are sure that they need to be inspired, they need to take as much responsibility for themselves as possible, they need to feel good about themselves. Building self esteem and helping them develop the capability and desire to perform a role in society that they value and society values. Surprisingly aside from the Wellcome/Hemi Help report 10 years ago no further research has been done to investigate how we might get better outcomes for this niche group.

We believe in integration but we believe in it from the perspective of protecting fragile egos. We note Baroness Warnock's re think in this regard and ourselves often use an extract from "Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski by way of example. Polish peasants paint a wild bird bright colours and release it into a confined space with birds of the same breed. They gamble on how long the other birds take too kill it, which the inevitably do, with lots of little pecks. For some of our children the spirit and self esteem is killed in mainstream, however caring the environment. We think there may be a better way. The quality of any society can be measured by the care it takes of its least priviliged members. We want to strive for both those better outcomes and the methodology to achieve.