Welcome
Welcome to the SEND Improvement Board newsletter. You can find a range of information on Speech, language and Communication, useful top tips and booklets in the links below. A positive update on ECH plans being issued within the 20 week timescale. There is also some useful information on Devon County Council's Preparing for Adulthood team and Carers South West Group Preparing for Adulthood Offer.
Half term is soon approaching - for those of you off, we hope you have a lovely break.
An exciting opportunity is open to all Strategic Leads, Managers and Frontline Practitioners. Evidence shows that parental conflict puts children at higher risk of negative outcomes. The Reducing Parental Conflict Programme has been established to address this by supporting local areas to develop their strategic approach to embedding support to reduce parental conflict. The Roadshows will include a number of themed workshops to increase knowledge and understanding of the theoretical context; the available family offer and a drama based presentation. Click here for more information on the course.
Please click on the dates below to take you to the Devon Learning Pool website:
We recognise the importance of families and professionals working together to ensure that children and young people can develop their speech, language and communication skills to their full potential. We understand that communication is everyone’s business.
There are lots of things that we can do to help children and young people develop their communication skills to the best of their ability. Click here for leaflets, information, tips and links on Communication and Language.
The recent report by the Communication Trust, ‘Talking about a Generation’, highlighted that:
1) Nationally there is a major mismatch between the known prevalence of Speech Language Communication Needs and the numbers of children actually being identified and supported.
2) Failing to identify children has a profound impact on their life outcomes.
The linked document gives an insight on the link between speech, language and communication needs, social emotional mental heath and adverse childhood experiences and the impact these can have on outcomes for children and young people and their ability to participate in some aspects of life.
The SEND Improvement Board would like to thank Alan for this continuous hard work and dedication and everything he has done as Chair of the Devon Parent Carer Voice (DPCV) and continued support for families. The DPCV was created some 4 – 5 years ago and has been the official voice between the council and parents. Throughout this time the DPCV have enabled presentations, parent talks and sessions to help people understand more about SEND and build their self-esteem.
Parents have told us that there has been some confusion over the role of Careers South West (CSW) Group and the Preparing for Adulthood Team.
As a brief overview CSW Group provide support to young people in Academic Years 9, 10 and 11 to help them plan their transition to post-16 education, whereas, the Preparing for Adulthood Team, engages with young people and their families who are likely to have care and support from social care into adulthood.
Please click here, for more information on the CSW Group, Preparing for Adulthood Offer and Devon County Councils Preparing for Adulthood Offer. |
Education Health Care Hub and Timeliness data.
Demand for Education Health Care (EHC) assessments continues to grow but despite this we have managed to significantly increase the percentage completed on time from 4% at January 2019 to a cumulative 32% over the course of 2019.
In 2018, we received 1493 requests for an EHC assessment, of which 1249 resulted in a plan being issued. Of these, only 4% were issued on times. During 2019 we revised our processes and despite an increase in referrals to 1600 for the year, we issued 1437 plans of which 32% were issued within the 20 week timescale. This compares better with our neighbouring authorities than this time last year.
We hope to continue that positive improvement through the introduction of our new EHCP case management system – EHCP Hub – which went live on 3rd February 2020. This is the start of improving the system of coordinating EHC assessments which will enable the SEN Team and Babcock Learning Development Partnership alongside Health and Care partners to have a more open system of communications with parents.
Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD) have opened a new Speech Language Therapy advice line. This advice line is open to parents/carers and professionals. Here is a link to the poster.
Please click here for more information on speech language therapy.
For information about how to make a referral to SLT please click here.
In Spring 2019 Devon County Council funded the Devon Enhanced Language Programme (DELP) for Primary Schools. This 4 day training programme was co-devised and delivered by professionals from the Communication and Interaction Team (Babcock LDP) and Speech and Language Therapists from South Devon and Torbay, Virgin Care and the Youth Intervention Team. In total representatives from 238 Primary Schools from across the county attended the training. Many of these representatives were members of the senior leadership team.
Click here for more information on the aims and outcomes of the training, analysis of the audits when attendees were asked to complete the Speech, Language and Communication Framework before and after the training and additional training for practitioners in schools to further develop their training.
Thank you to all who attended the event on the 22nd January at the 100 Club in Exeter. We had fantastic attendance to help us review what work we need to do in respect of SEND personalised budgets and direct payments.
As well as supportive attendance from many parents, we also had a wide range of staff who work across health, education and social care. This enabled us to have a good mix of people talking about their issues and ideas for improvement in our table discussions.
Feedback we had from attendees was that it was really interesting to hear a range of different experiences, where people shared their ideas to improve services to improve the outcomes enhancing children and young people’s lives in a timely manner. There was also a shared realisation that people want to improve services together, and that the event provided an opportunity to network and to provide a wider understanding of perspectives.
Proposed actions from the event are being drawn together into an action plan that will help us deliver greater choice and control to children and families, as part of the Devon SEND programme. Resources will soon be available to be shared widely of the day. |
