See the full series on managing SEND
Since 2014, the Government has required councils to publish comprehensive information about their special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision in one, convenient place.
By law, the offer must contain certain information: special educational, health and social care provision for children and young people with SEN or disabilities, for example, and also details of how parents and young people can request an assessment for an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan. It also has to be kept up to date under the SEND Code.
The challenge for councils has not simply been to create a directory but to engage relevant parties and make an accessible tool for parents. Wiltshire Council children’s services commissioner Matthew Look says the term ‘local offer’ has low public awareness. ‘It can be confusing – is it a website or is it a service?’
The council is redeveloping the local offer website it has had since 2014 after consultation sessions with parents, carers and professionals found that accessibility is key.
‘We have an integrated approach to providing the local offer that is far more than just a website,’ Look adds. This includes input from the Wiltshire Parent Carer Council, weekly email updates to families, information events, and a telephone information service.
PATCHWORK
Given that the way the local offer is displayed and communicated has been left up to councils, and availability of services depends on budgets and spending priorities, it is not surprising that settings are experiencing huge variations in the service.
Amanda Wiley, nursery and out-of-school manager at the eight-strong Portico Day Nurseries, says, ‘Staff working in West Lancashire report there was initially little support in filling out the forms for EHC plans. While there are regular visits from the council’s SEND Inclusion officer, there is little clarity on available funding. Staff also find that inclusion teachers and speech and language therapists are delivering mixed messages when they come to visit.
‘Meanwhile St Helens Borough Council offers termly network meetings for our SENDCOs and this alerts us to any changes, bringing us up to speed with the range of local services, and how to refer families to them. It also offers one-to-one help and advice. Our council-allocated support person comes into the setting to meet with the manager and the SENDCO, and this is a great opportunity to run through a list of any concerns, assess the support we have in place and receive guidance.
‘This also provides feedback to the local authority about problems, such as waiting times for services like speech and language and occupational therapy, which they can then hopefully address.’
And while the local offer may be all very well and good on paper, budgetary cuts mean that some of the services it signposts to are scarce. In the case of EHC plans, there was a 35 per cent increase between 2015 and 2016 in the number of local authority refusals to carry out EHC needs assessments on children, according to DfE figures.
INFLUENCING THE OFFER
While council budget cuts are outside a provider’s control, involvement in the process can nonetheless make a difference to what services are retained, says early years consultant Kay Mathieson.
She explains, ‘As funding in both NHS and education is constantly under threat, services change and so do thresholds to access support. The manager needs to recognise that feedback via the local offer will impact on whether the services remain.
‘Organisations and services that are not used, or not effective, will no longer be included in the local offer. So it has to be an interactive process, and the more involved that setting leadership is, the more responsive the support will be.’
At Mama Bear’s Day Nursery, which has four sites under Torbay Council, area manager Faye Lawlor says the 23-strong group is regularly involved in local offer discussions. The council’s Early Years Childcare Advisory service forum brings a wide range of professionals together for termly meetings. ‘It is here that we get to find out about the services available in the area,’ says Ms Lawlor. ‘We can also spread the word about our own expertise, such as the fact that our Queen Elizabeth Drive site in Paignton is Makaton-friendly, and we are flagging this up on the official Makaton site to reach a wider audience.’
She adds, ‘We have a cluster of nearby nurseries with staff who are well trained in SEND, and they can signpost to each other to flag up services and share expertise.’
SPECIALIST SERVICES
It can also be hard for councils themselves to keep up to date with what’s on offer, particularly in the case of third-sector and small specialist services.
‘Local authorities really need strong underpinning knowledge of the diversity of services on their doorsteps,’ says Heather Stack, who is plugging the gap for national information about specialist SEND services with her website, The Local Offer. ‘In an ideal world it would be great if nurseries had the time to get out into their local communities to explore what is on offer.’
At Dingley’s Promise, a charity providing specialist learning through play at three centres in Berkshire, chief executive Catherine McLeod corroborates that specialist support often does not receive the local exposure it deserves. ‘Three years ago we trialled a Providers Advisory Support Pass service in Reading and Wokingham where we offered support to mainstream settings in working inclusively with children with SEND,’ she says. ‘This included phone support, visits to see the child in the setting and advice to practitioners, along with visits to our setting to see our strategies in action.
‘The local authority funded this, but unfortunately its promotion of the service was never very good and in the end the numbers didn’t stack up.’
Despite the availability of funding, she thinks the local authority was more focused on services it delivered itself. She says, ‘We found that we were not getting many clear referrals, and often we would be asked to see a child for just a few hours.
‘This meant we could only provide some generic strategies that might help and did not get to know the child well enough to give specific advice for them.’
Since then, Dingley’s Promise has prioritised supporting settings that its own children are transitioning to. ‘This means we do not need to rely on referrals from the local authority and that we already know the child well,’ says Ms McLeod.
She adds, ‘Services like ours need real buy-in on the part of local authorities to ensure they are part of professional joined-up working, and can be part of the local offer.’
TAKING A PROACTIVE APPROACH
Last year, Brighton & Hove City Council reviewed and updated its local offer and decided to contract its Advice and Support Service to local charity Amaze – a ‘one-stop shop’ for a wide range of SEND support – which is now handled by a staff member with expertise in web content management and writing about SEND.
At Each Peach Childcare in Hove, nursery manager Suzanne Charlesworth says, ‘Brighton & Hove provides a strong Family Information Service, with clear online signposting to a range of different agencies that can provide support, including Amaze.’
She adds that a recently reorganised inclusion support service has ‘streamlined services and boosted outreach services. We can now access the local ICAN nursery as an outreach centre, for example.’ The SEND team has good visibility which has helped to establish ways of working around the child, she says.
‘This involves a variety of professionals such as speech and language therapists, and of course parents and families, with meetings usually taking place at our nursery. Funding follows an anticipated course of around four weeks from the initial application to the panel discussion. The one cutback we’ve noticed this year is that if a child is receiving support from the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service, the likelihood is they now won’t be eligible for further funding. As ever, the biggest challenge is co-ordination of the services and ensuring everyone is kept updated.’
She has also independently formed links with Hove Polyclinic. ‘With parental agreement, we have been in to observe how a speech and language therapist works with a child who attends our setting, so we can put into place the strategies used, thereby supporting the child at nursery and at home.
‘Under the “plan, do, review” requirement of the SEND Code of Practice, we have a responsibility to identify and implement effective early interventions,’ she says. ‘We are also more accountable for the way in which we make observations and assessments, communicate with parents and focus on support for each individual child. The key with all interventions is to be proactive and not rely on local specialists as they are rather stretched.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
http://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/special-educational-needs