Children and Young People’s information and support

It’s been a busy year for our Children and Young People’s Workers. They have supported young people to make choices and have their views heard at school meetings, for tribunal appeals and in EHC reviews. They have also worked with young people to help them feel more confident about requesting reasonable adjustments at school. They have been into youth centres too, to find out what information young people would like about SEND and their rights.

On the website we have more information about

• Post-16 options
• Study skills
• Staying healthy
• Mental health and wellbeing

Information about funding for children and young people with SEND

 It’s sometimes helpful to know how funding for children and young people with SEND works. Our new web page and factsheet explains funding from nursery to post-16 education, in mainstream and special schools and for EHC plans. There is also information about pupil premium and pupil premium plus, and funding for young people over 16.

Family Hub staff join the Ambassador Volunteer Programme

The Ambassador Volunteer Programme, providing support for parents and carers of children with SEND, has recently expanded! 

Action for Children staff - now called Family Hub Navigators – have completed training to become partner Ambassadors. They are now part of the network across Devon, able to signpost families of children and young people with SEND to the best support available. They also connect families with each other and provide activities and events such as their SENDTastic Summer programme. We are delighted to be working together and look forward to supporting more families through our partnership.

Welcome to Emily, our new Children and Young Person’s Worker!

Emily joined the DiAS team this term and she will be with us for the next year while Anna is on maternity leave. Here she is, telling you a bit about herself.

“I’ve worked in a few different jobs involving children and young people with SEND; including as a child care lawyer for a Local Authority, a Mental Health Support Worker and a Teaching Assistant at a SEND secondary school.”

“I am incredibly excited to have joined the DiAS team, and to be pioneering for children and young people to have their views sought and listened to. I believe very passionately that this should be at the centre of all the conversations around education. If anyone would like to have a chat about any children and young people they think could benefit from having a meeting with me, please don’t hesitate to reach out.”

Training update

We have run one each of our virtual Demystifying SEND, EHC reviews and Listening to your child’s views parent training sessions this term. Thank you to all of those who came.

We are developing two new training offers:

• Making sense of SEND – an introduction to SEND and a parent carers role
• EHC plans and reviews – getting to know your EHC plan and EHC reviews.

Each of these topics is planned as two online and one face-to-face session which will run every term. The focus will be on improving parent carer knowledge and understanding about SEND and on building their skills and confidence to take part. The plan is for these to run for the first time in the Autumn term. Details will be published on our website and Facebook page.

All of these new DiAS publications will be arriving on our website over the summer, ready for the start of the new school year. We base all of our information on the questions we get asked every day on our Enquiry Line. We research topic areas, use good quality evidence and involve parents and professionals wherever and whenever we can.

• Struggling to be in school factsheet (Emotionally based school non-attendance).
• Going to school factsheet (attendance).
• Appealing to the SEND tribunal – a How to Guide.
• Going to Mediation – a How to Guide.
• New web section about suspension and exclusion – including information about being at risk of exclusion.

Devon’s new Family Hubs

Devon County Council and Action for Children are working together to develop a network of Family Hubs across Devon.

Hubs provide a range of support to families with children aged from zero to 19, or up to 25 years old for young people with special educational needs or disabilities. The hubs are also linking-in with many existing local groups to offer a wider range of family support. There are nine family Hubs across Devon.

Families do not need to be referred for support from a Hub by a professional. They can refer themselves by contacting their local Hub directly. You can find your local Family Hub and their contact details by contacting Action for Children by phone, 0800 538 5458, or looking on their website.

Changes to careers support in Devon

Careers South West (CSW) currently delivers advice and support to young people across the South West about careers and the transition between education and employment. It's owned by Cornwall Council, Devon County Council, Plymouth City Council and Torbay Council.

The four council owners have decided that a change in approach is needed and CSW will be closing at the end of June 2025. Some staff from CSW will transfer to Devon County Council and they will continue to provide careers advice and support, particularly around transition which is important for young people with SEND. You can find out more on the DCC news page.

Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision explained

Devon County Council (DCC) have been working with parents, children, young people and schools to develop a new resource to help school staff give more consistent and inclusive support. It's called the Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision Framework.

It brings together in one place simple, every day and low-cost things that schools can do to support children. And that includes children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It has ideas for simple adjustments that teachers can make to their classrooms, to remove the barriers that make learning harder for some. The key principles have come from children, parents and school staff.

DCC are introducing the resource to schools through a series of workshops. These will explain to schools how to use the framework and how it can help them share good practice. After the workshops, schools will use it in their planning for the next school year.

The number of specialist resource base places is growing

Specialist Resource Bases are part of mainstream schools and they give support to children and young people who have more complex needs. They are small, usually around 8 to 10 children, and support those whose needs can’t be met entirely in mainstream school environments. Staff at the resource bases give individually-tailored support. That might include small group work and access to specialist resources, while children are still part of their mainstream school community. From September, there’ll be nearly 50 new resource base places created.

• at Holsworthy College, there will be 10 resource base places for pupils with communication and interaction needs
• at Brixington Primary, there will be 10 resource base places for pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs
• and at Bluecoat Church of England Primary in Great Torrington, there will be 20 resource base places for pupils with complex needs, 12 in KS2 and 8 places in KS1.

The plan is to expand the number of places still further, so that within five years, there will be an extra 200 places across Devon.

Changes to the way parent carers contact the SEND statutory Team

This year the SEND Statutory (formerly the SEN 0-25 Team) changed the way that they take calls and emails. It helps to speed things up and makes sure that all communications are in one place and can be seen by other team members if your caseworker is not available.

This is what you need to know:

• There are dedicated phone lines for the SEN Statutory Team, open from 9am to 5pm each weekday (01392 380434). The calls are answered by the Customer Service Centre team. They also introduced booking call backs with named case officers.
• There is a new system that brings all communication related to an Education Health and Care Plans (EHCP) together in one place and displays it alongside other case information. SEND Statutory Team staff use this instead of their individual email mailboxes for communicating with parents and carers.
• Emails from the SEND Statutory Team will show as coming from ‘Special Education Communications-Mailbox’. When you reply to one of these emails, reply directly to that and not to the caseworker.
• When you want to send a new email to your caseworker, send it to this email address: educate.specialeducationcommunications-mailbox@devon.gov.uk.

Three ways for you to take part and share your views

1. Educational psychologists are running a survey for parent carers about school attendance. The aim is to understand more about what parents, carers and young people think about their school attendance, and what support they need to overcome barriers to going to school or college.

2. The Devon SEND Local Offer has online information for SEND families to help them find the right help and support in their area. There is ongoing work to review the Local Offer website with a view to improving it. The current survey focuses on 'Support that is available'. There is a range of information that may be helpful to parents, carers and young people, and they would like to know if you agree with that list, and whether you have other suggestions.

3. Young people in Devon have said that mental health is a top issue for them. NHS Devon want to understand this better so that resources can be allocated in the best way. They're working with Devon Youth Council and have created a survey for anyone of secondary school or college age (11 to 18 years old) to share how well they think that their schools and colleges are doing at understanding and supporting the mental and emotional health of their pupils.

National data shows a rise in children with Special Educational Needs

The Department for Education has published the information taken from schools in the January census. The headline data shows:

• A total of 18.4% of children in England have some kind of special educational need- up from 17.3% in 2023
• That’s a total of 1,673,205 of children with SEND, which is an increase of over 100,000 from 2023
• There’s been a 7.1% increase in the number of children on SEN Support (children and young people who have support in school without and EHC plan) who have no noted type of assessed need 
• Speech, Language and Communication Needs remains the most common type of need for SEN support, with Autism being the highest type of need for those with an EHC Plan.

You can read more on the Department for Education website.