Transcript SEND REFORM – A new Code of Practice Opportunities and

SEND REFORM – A new Code of
Practice
Opportunities and Challenges
Jane Friswell
nasen
The Vision…
 Children’s SEN are picked up early and support is routinely put
in place quickly;
 Staff have the knowledge, understanding and skills to provide
the right support for CYP who have SEN or are disabled;
 Parents know what they can reasonably expect their local
school, college, LA & local services to provide;
 Aspirations for CYP is raised through an increased focus on
life outcomes
 For more complex needs, a coordinated assessment and a
single Education, Health and Care Plan from birth to 25; and
 There is greater control for parents and young people over
the services they and their family use.
The current system of SEND support is complicated,
expensive and delivers poor outcomes.
 Parents struggle to find the services that should be helping them,
have to battle to get the help their children need, and have to tell
their stories time and again.
 Moving from children’s to adults’ services can be very difficult.
 English LAs spend over £5 billion a year on SEND provision, and
yet those with special needs are far more likely to achieve poorly
at GCSE, Not be in Education, Employment or Training, or be
unemployed.
 These issues affect a lot of people: 1 in 5 children are currently
identified as having some form of SEND, with 2.8% having a more
complex need.
What we want to achieve
 We want children and young people with special needs
and disabilities to achieve well in their early years, at
school and in college; find employment; lead happy and
fulfilled lives; and have choice and control over their
support.
 The special needs reforms implements a new approach which
seeks to join up help across education, health and care, from
birth to 25. Help will be offered at the earliest possible point,
with children and young people with SEND and their parents or
carers fully involved in decisions about their support and what
they want to achieve. This will help lead to better outcomes and
more efficient ways of working.
What is happening?
 The Children and Families Act changes the way in
which children and young people with Special
Educational Needs and disabilities are supported at
school and in the community. The Act will be
implemented in stages which started in September
2014.
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Children and Families Act overview
 New requirement for LAs, health and care services to commission
services jointly for SEN and disability;
 LAs to publish a clear, transparent ‘local offer’ of services;
 More streamlined assessment process, co-ordinated across
education, health and care;
 New 0-25 Education, Health and Care Plans for those with more
complex needs;
 New statutory protections for young people aged 16-25 in FE
 A new duty on health commissioners to deliver the agreed health
elements of EHC plans;
 The option of a personal budget for families and young people with
an EHC plan.
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What is in the Act?
 The Act responds to concerns parents carers have raised about the
SEND system over the last few years. It includes some key principles to
improve parent carers experiences. These include:
 More Participation: the Act includes new responsibilities on local
authorities and others to make sure parent carers and young people are
much more involved in decisions that affect their lives. It also makes
clear that local authorities and health partners should work with parent
carers and young people to improve services across their local area for
example through the parent carer forums.
 Better Outcomes: the Act requires education, health and social care
services to look at how they support children and young people in a way
that improves progress and supports the outcomes they want and need
in their lives.
 Better joint working: the Act requires services that families use, in
particular education, health and social care to work more closely
together and commission services together. This should improve the
experiences of children, young people
and their parent carers.
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What does this mean in real life?
 Education, Health and Care Plans replace
Statements of Special Educational Needs and
Learning Disability Assessments (LDAs). From
September 2014, no new statements or LDAs will
be available.
 In stages, over the next few years, children with an
existing statement will have their statement
transferred to an Education, Health and Care Plan.
 There are agreed procedures for the transfer and
parent carers and young people will have a say in
these. Existing rights, for example rights of appeal,
will continue during the transfer.
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Education, Health and Care Plans ( EHCPs)
 Education, Health and Care Plans can continue to
support young people up to the age of 25 if the Local
authority considers that the young person needs
more time to complete their education or training.
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This approach works
31 Pathfinder authorities have been testing the reforms. They
found:
 Families feel more in control, better informed and more
satisfied with the services they receive;
 Professionals are finding genuine partnership working
with families is highly rewarding and generates better
results;
 The reforms are bringing about a culture shift in
assessment and planning, with a growing emphasis on
personalisation, multi-agency working and outcomesbased approaches
 Now have regional Pathfinder Hubs and National
Pathfinder Champion Support
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SEN Support
 SEN support replaces School Action and School
Action Plus. Schools are still required to identify
children who need additional support, involve parent
carers and children and young people in planning how
to meet these needs and call on specialists from
outside the school when they need to.
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Local offer
 from September 2014 every local authority required to
have a “local offer” which informs parent carers and young
people with SEN or disabilities what is provided in their
local area, including what to expect from local early years
providers, schools, colleges, health and social care.
 In addition it will include information on how decisions are
made about how services are allocated, how to request a
personal budget, how to access more specialist support
and how to complain or appeal.
 Local authorities must involve parent carers, children and
young people in developing their local offer.
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Information and advice
 Local authorities already have to make information and
advice available to parent carers about SEN, through parent
partnership services.
 From September, local authorities must make information
and advice available that also covers disability, health and
social care and is also available directly to young people as
well as parent carers - building on the services (like parent
partnership services) they already have in place.
 Now to be known as information, advice and support
services (IASS)
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Independent Supporter
 Families with children or young people going
through a statutory assessment leading to an
education, health and care plan may also be
able to get help from an Independent
Supporter – someone who doesn’t work for
the local authority who can help parents and
carers, and young people, through the
process.
 This support should be available through your
local parent partnership service or IASS
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SEND Code of Practice
 A new SEND Code of Practice now published.
 Sets out how decisions should be made for children
and young people with Special Educational Needs
or disabilities.
 This is statutory guidance and early years providers,
all schools, colleges, local authorities and health
partners must have regard to it when they decide
what to do.
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Teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress and development of the pupils
in their class, even where pupils access support from teaching assistants or specialist staff
SEND Code of Practice, 2014
•
SENCo
Teacher
Child
Child
Family
•
Tools and CPD
•
•
•
The Zone of
Influence and
Accountability
•
External
support:
Local
Authority
Nasen Gateway
Academy
trust
Teaching
Schools
Local SENCo
networks
Voluntary
organisations
Take Action to Remove Barriers and put in place Effective
Provision
Growing
Growing
REFRES
H
More
frequent
reviews
Assess
Review
Growing
Understanding
of
effective
support
Understanding
of
Pupil’s Needs
Plan
Do
REVISI
T
REVISE
Understanding
of what
approaches
secure better
outcomes
More
detailed &
specialist
approache
s
Growing
Understanding
of what
teaching
approaches
work
REFINE
Key Implementation Challenges
 How is your LA addressing the following key challenges?
 Cultural change: Do your staff understand the new vision?
Are they ready and able to deliver it?
 Structural change is relatively easy. Changing culture is
hard - the way that people work, the way that families
interact with statutory services all takes time to re-shape.
 Training and Development Plan: Do your staff, and staff in
partner organisations, have the skills necessary to work in
the new way?
Key Implementation Challenges 2
(LAs)
 Co-production: Are you supporting the full engagement of
parents and children and young people at both a strategic and
operational level? Are you funding this?
 Co-production with strategic partners: Are you able to support
and promote the strategic engagement of all partners across
education, health and social care?
 Outcome focus: Are your IT systems ready to record and monitor
progress against outcomes? Is everyone ready to define
outcomes and provision clearly in EHC Plans?
 Transitional Arrangements: How will you oversee the conversion
to the new system quickly, at the same time as ensuring the
benefits of new approach are not lost?
How can you get involved?
 Parent carers can get involved in planning for these
changes in their local area. Their local parent carer
forum is involved in working strategically with the
local authority and health partners.
 Parent carers can join their local parent carer forum
and can make a real difference by sharing their
ideas and thoughts.
 It is always up to you how you participate in your
forum – it may be just by being a member, or you
may want to get more actively involved and make
sure those who are making decisions know what
parent carers think.
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Talking to school
 You can also talk to the SENCO at your child’s school
or the person responsible for SEND support at your
college and ask them what they are doing to prepare
for these changes.
 However, schools are learning too…they are just at
the beginning of implementing the new requirements
for SEN
 Managing expectations
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Challenges for schools
 Continuing to have a person-centred focus and a
culture of co-production when we are scaling up to
the challenge of a full roll out of the reforms
 We have to make sure that it continues to really focus
upon the individual child or young person, and their
family
 Ensuring that the Local Offer delivers for pupils and
families
Challenges for schools 2
 Dealing with the Transfer review process
(especially ensuring that those who do request a reassessment can access such, when resources are
scarce)
 Duality of systems
 Introducing Personal Budgets, particularly in an era of
reducing local budgets
 Capacity
 SEND Support Plans (non –statutory)
 Recognising statutory responsibilities; who does what,
when and how?
Challenges for schools 3
 Embedding reforms with Health
 “Kicking the cat”! avoidance
 Shaking off a culture of “it’s not working” and the
move to “reflection and rethink”
 Be resilient and don’t give up
 Recalibration of teacher role and provision of high
quality teaching as the first response to any need
identified
Challenges for Schools 4
 The SENCO – expectations of the role
 Adequate time and resource
 Promoting independence;
 for pupils
 for families
 for staff
 Focus on outcomes and not hours
What can I do if I am worried about how this will
affect my child?
 If you are worried about your individual child, please
contact your local Parent Partnership Service for
advice and support.
 You can also call the Contact a Family SEND
freephone helpline 0808 808 3555 (9.30 – 5pm MonFri) email: [email protected]
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When is this going to happen?
 The law started to change the arrangements from
September 2014. It will take some time for local areas
to make all of the changes that are required, so
changes will take place over a number of years.
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What to expect
 Improved engagement with school and Local Authority
 Your views and the views of your child are very important
to schools and Local Authority – co-production of solution
focussed systems and provision
 Views of young people from age of 16 will be considered
above the views of parents
 Option of a personal budget
 Focus on outcomes and not hours
 Aspiration and expectations high
 Cultural change takes time, understanding and joint
working for all
The opportunities which change
brings
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New systems and services
New requirements on settings, schools
Duality issues
Supporting the workforce in our schools, settings and
colleges
Keeping parents, families, children and young people
informed
Working together to embrace change
Doing things differently to improve outcomes for our
children
Promoting independence for us and for our children
Educating parents and families
Key Opportunities 1
 For LAs and schools to work closely together to
embed policy into practice and effect real cultural
change
 Growing multi-agency teams working out how we can
develop together
 Designing systems which will work for our families
which are practical for our area
Key Opportunities 2
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Making decisions with a face on it
The culture change impacts upon families too
Encouraging families to think differently
Families leading professionals makes for more
aspirational expectations, especially at the initial
assessment for a child or young person
 Workforce development
Key Opportunities 3
 A more widely understood and developed Local
Offer, with feedback/recommendations from
children, young people and parents/carers
 Schools and colleges offering a graduated approach
,which is nuanced and personalised for children and
young people
 Schools having a confidence that they know how to
support children and young people with additional
needs
Key Opportunities 4
 Families feeling that they are engaged at an individual
level in being able to make known their views,
interests and wishes/aspirations and feeling
supported
 Families feeling engaged strategically through Parent
and Carer councils/groups at schools, and through
Parent and Carer Forum at LA level.
 Young people listened to in schools through regular
feedback and reviews
Key Opportunities 5
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Joint commissioning - the role of schools
JSNA – school and family representation
Innovation – trying something different
Challenge existing arrangements when you have
evidence it is not working well for families
 Ensuring that the Local Offer delivers
Jane Friswell
[email protected]
01827 311500