Welcome to our last newsletter of 2021.
 We are delighted that our newsletter is reaching more and more people. Thank you to all of the parents and carers who have already shared their thoughts, ideas and opinions. We are really keen to find better ways of listening to families and learning from their experience of working with us.
From January we will be making some significant changes to our communication, so that the information we share is available in a way that is far more focussed and relevant to what young people, parents and carers want and need to know.
In this newsletter you will find information on activities taking place next week, returning to school in January 2022 and an update from the SEND Improvement Board workstreams.
Please tell us about the things that matter to you and your families by dropping the SEND mailbox an email.
Everyone in the SEND partnership wishes you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The scheme aims to provide a wide range of fun activities and nutritious food in a safe and sociable environment for children and young people to develop new skills or knowledge and try out new experiences, make friends and have fun.
Children aged 5 - 16 years who are currently receiving free school meals, or benefits related to free school meals, and their families, can take part in the scheme which is free over the Christmas break. Find out how to take part on the link below.
More information about the Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) scheme, and how to take part is on our website.
Operational Delivery Group Workstream
We are disappointed and recognise that for families, we are still not doing enough to reduce the delays that some of you are experiencing in EHC assessments and EHCP reviews. Some of this is because of a lack of qualified Educational Psychology advice provision.
We are aware that this means that we are not quick enough in responding to the needs of children who require a change to their EHCP. We are also sorry that this has made, being in the midst of the pandemic, even more difficult for children who have SEND.
Where an assessment has been delayed we have made personal contact with parents to apologise. Parents can also check on the status of their child’s EHCP assessment or review at any time by using the Devon County Council EHC Hub. Alternatively you can contact the SEN Team by calling 01392 380434.
School SENDCOs are the best people to talk to about what support is in place in school. They are also the right person to speak to if your need has changed in school.
We are committed to work closely with you and our partners to find better ways to make sure that families get the help they need, when they need it. Here are some of the things we are doing to tackle the delays:
What is being done to help children now? We are working harder on our existing support but we have also:
- Put extra funding in schools for children if their assessment is taking longer than 20 weeks. Schools and parents should work together on agreeing how best this can help their child.
- Asked schools to talk to parents, where we have not yet amended plans, about any immediate changes that might help and they can let us know how we could support..
- We have more people in the SEN team to increase the number of amended EHCPs that we can work on – we are working with new staff to get them up to speed.
- Schools have invested in more professionals, through Babcock LDP and special schools, to support with advice and practical help in the classroom. Schools can use a helpline or request their support direct. Babcock LDP - SEND - Request for Access to Services
- Schools and parents can find links to other support on Devon’s SEND Local Offer.
How can we improve access to an Educational Psychologist?
There is a national shortage of Educational Psychologists (EPs) and we are making every effort to recruit additional permanent, temporary and agency staff to address this in Devon. But we are not sitting back we also have:
- Made sure our existing EP service is a good one – Devon’s EP services are still with Babcock LDP and a campaign is going on to attract even more EPs to work in Devon: Educational Psychology Service Devon - Come and work with us!
- Making sure existing EP reports are used where possible.
- Asking schools to collaborate where their EP has any capacity
- Recruiting 5 new Psychology Assistants to help the EPs complete advice.
- Recruited agency staff to support the delayed cases.
- Working together in health, education and care to find better solutions for families and young people.
What have we achieved this year?
3429 new or amended EHCPs have been issued this year. This represents 42% of our total number of EHCPs.
Annual reviews were completed for 86% - we are aiming to complete 100% of these in 2022.
New EHCPs have been issued on time for 34% of young people, despite the start of 2021 seeing this reach 68%. We aim to improve this again in 2022 but an EHCP plan cannot be issued without EP advice. We are therefore asking nationally for there to be more EP post graduate training places to help address the shortage in future years.
Autism Workstream
We are working hard to tackle the waiting list. Since April 2021 there have been 1439 children assessments started and/completed. The numbers of children over 5 years of age who are waiting for an assessment has fallen from 2855 in April to 1918 in November. |
The return to school in January can sometimes cause concern especially when the national picture is changing so quickly. We are confident that, due to the high number of Covid cases in Devon during the autumn, schools already have extra protective measures in place. This means children returning to school after the Christmas break will not see anything significantly different.
Schools, including special schools will have informed parents of the day their children will return to school in January. This information will also be on their website so it is really important that you check your schools regular on-line communication as your child prepares to return to school.
Many secondary schools are operating a staggered return so that they can carry out onsite Covid lateral flow testing. Where this is the case families will have been informed directly.
If you have not been told about your school testing on site then secondary students should ensure they have a negative lateral flow test before they return to school as has been the case all term
The Department for Education have provided detailed information for parents which was updated on the 14th December and covers:
- registered childcare providers (including nurseries and childminders)
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primary and secondary schools (including independent schools, maintained schools, academy trusts, free schools, and special schools)
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colleges (for the purposes of this guidance ‘colleges’ means publicly funded sixth form and further education colleges, independent training providers and special post-16 institutions).
Key messages from the SEND Improvement Board and workstreams
Short Breaks
Short breaks is a vital part of our service for families. We know how valuable this is and we are determined to ensure that this is the best provision possible. Our plan will set out our goals for the next two years. We are really pleased to be working with the Parent Carer Forum Devon who are helping us to develop our co-production activity through this work.
We are currently reviewing the recent short breaks survey results. We haven’t received the full summary yet but we are already using feedback to support our planning. It is really important to us that we find more ways to hear from young people and this will be a priority for the new year.
Potential impact of Covid on short breaks support over the coming weeks:
We know that many families are concerned about the possible impact of Covid on the availability of short break provision over the coming weeks.
Disabled Children’s Services and colleagues are working to understand the position for our local providers and the advice and support that will be needed by families who use direct payments in their support services are not available.
We will update the Short Breaks page on the SEND Local Offer Short breaks - Education and Families (devon.gov.uk) with advice as information becomes available and share the updated with families who may be affected.
Preparing for Adulthood
We know that this is equally important and anxious time for both our young people and their parents and carers. The Adults Reaching for Independence (RfI) Team have linked with some of the Supported Internship Programmes in Devon. They will provide a follow up for young people whose supported internship doesn’t result in paid employment. This will help our young people to complete the employment pathway with the support of an enabler.
The Preparing for Adulthood team is achieving it’s target to visit all 16 – 17 year olds who are referred to the service and are using an updated, goal-orientated independent toolkit when they work with young people, families, and other providers to make independence a reality.
Our vision for more young people to live in their own homes in Devon as features in the Housing and Accommodation Strategy. We want young people to make an informed, well supported and planned choice about where they live. We are taking this forward through the Joint Commissioning Plan with Children's Services.
Overcoming barriers in Speech and Language Therapy
We know that this is another area where waiting times are really frustrating and the pandemic restrictions have seen speech and language therapy wait times increase over the past 12 months. Devon County Council have recently allocated some Local Authority Covid Management funding to issue support to our health providers and we are working together to help reduce wait times more quickly.
We know that the pandemic has been a factor particularly in the Antenatal to 5 years age group. We are rolling out the ‘Let’s Talk Read and Play’ across the Devon County Council footprint. This is a multiagency approach to early identification and intervention.
The programme delivers sessions in the home, early years and educational settings, to support parents and those closest to the child. It also includes working in the community to train other partners who may be involved with the child’s development.
Transforming our SEND service
We are mapping all of the resources available to see what an 8 SEND hub model will look like. We are also working on understanding how this will work for families and what we need to have in place to ensure that all of the back office work runs smoothly .
SEND Improvement Board
This month at the SEND Improvement Board, members went into breakout groups to discuss how they will promote and embed Devon’s SEND Strategy within their service.
Idea’s included connecting the four priorities (trust, coproduction, access, and life chances) used in the SEND Strategy to everyday activities, such as in meeting agenda’s, reports, performance targets, training and to new pieces of work. This will help ensure the SEND priorities are reflected across strategic work and our services.
It was also suggested we should share more examples of how the strategy priorities have been achieved.
We are, however, determined to do more – please do tell us about your experience and how we can improve by sending an email to the SEND mailbox. |
