We wanted to let you know about the further great progress we’ve made on our SEND services in Medway.
The Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England met with Medway partners on Monday, 20 September 2021 to review the progress made in the area’s SEND provision in addressing two key issues:
- Improving joint strategic leadership between the council, CCG and education providers
- Lack of a clearly communicated strategy understood and shared by leaders across the area
Following the visit, we’re now delighted to announce that we were released from the remaining two areas of significant weakness on Tuesday, 5 October.
The clear and sustained progress we’ve made since setting up a focused action plan means that we no longer require formal DfE monitoring for our SEND services.
You can view the findings of the visit from DfE here
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Celia Buxton has been appointed as the new Assistant Director of Education and SEND.
Celia will join the Council in November from Kent County Council, where she has led on school improvement, skills and employability, alternative provision and exclusions, education and, more recently, inclusive education across the county.
"Every young person is entitled to high quality education that fosters their imagination, creativity and interest in the world and delivers to them a sense of their place within it. For the most vulnerable this is all the more important. As education leaders we are privileged to have such responsibilities. The period of the pandemic has tested us all and it has been inspirational to see leaders and staff rise to every challenge, seeking to minimise the impact on children, young people and their families.”
She added: “I am looking forward to visiting settings, schools and colleges, hearing the views of parents, carers and young people and working with Medway’s educational leaders to address the additional challenges of recent times and continue to build the conditions for sustained success for all.”
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Over the 2020-21 academic year, the Young Peoples’ Disability Group have done a huge amount of work. This includes:
- Monitoring our progress on the Joint SEND Strategy Action Plan
- Working at improving “Preparing for Adulthood” particularly looking at where young people go to for advice and support when deciding on further education and employment
- Contributing towards the councils plans to ensure there is enough good quality and varied short break provision in Medway
- Co-production of the Local Offer website redesign and update of its content
- Co-production of marketing materials to raise awareness of the Local Offer
- Co-Production of leaflets to explain what the 0-25 Social Work Team do.
We wanted to say a big thank you to every young person who has participated in meetings in the last year and for all the hard work you have done as part of the Young Peoples' Disability Group.
If you would like to be part of this amazing group and help other young people with special educational needs and disabilities be heard, please contact Deborah Omijie: deborah.omijie@medway.gov.uk or Wendy Vincent: wendy.vincent@medway.gov.uk for more information.
Our mission statement:
‘We explore communication and assistive technology solutions that enable and empower children and young people (CYP) and those who support them. Our focus is on the CYP’s inclusion, independence and wellbeing.’
We are based at the Old Railway School in Ashford and support CYPs across the whole of Kent and Medway. Our trans-disciplinary team Includes: Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Specialist SEN Teachers, Therapy Assistant Practitioners, Health Care Scientists and Administrators.
One of the main roles of our service is to assess children with complex communication difficulties and find Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) solutions to support them. CYPs who meet the NHS England referral criteria will be offered an assessment. At the start of this assessment process, we will meet with all those supporting the student to find out additional information and decide on the best way forward. At the assessment we may try a range of hardware or software options with the student to see what works best to support their needs or trial a voice output communication aid (VOCA) for a short period.
If the assessment results in our team providing a VOCA to the student, we will continue to provide support and training to everyone involved to ensure that the student and their communication partners are confident in using it. We will also set regular objectives for using the VOCA which will tie in with the student’s EHCP and provision plan. Those who don’t meet the criteria may be offered a consultation meeting for their parents, school, and therapy team to attend resulting in an action plan of strategies and ideas to try. We have a spoke loan bank of equipment available which local teams can borrow to help support and evaluate recommendations that our team might make or to help gather evidence for a referral. SENCOs and local therapists can refer into our service by completing the referral form on our website. Further details about the NHS referral criteria are found on the referral form and more information about our service can be found on our website.
We offer a range of training both face to face and remote, and eLearning as well as bespoke training. Currently we are offering the following remote training: Grid 3, Proloquo2go, Talking mats, Clicker 8. To book onto our training please complete the booking form on our website or phone/email us on the contact details below.
We also offer the following e-Learning modules: AAC Little and Often, Beyond Requesting (for moving student on from PECS), Eyegaze technology - what you need to know, ASD and VOCAS - Factors for success, Why teach literacy to non-verbal children and young people?
To access our e-Learning please go to: https://elearning.theeducationpeople.org/elearning
Please contact us if you have bespoke training queries.
Website: www.kelsi.org.uk/kentcat , Office: 01233 629859 Email: kentcatadmin@kent.gov.uk or kcht.cat-admin@nhs.net
Since 2018, at least 311 people have been trained at level 1 (Foundation Level) including 40 foster carers, 12 shared lives carers and individuals representing 28 schools. 20 individuals have been trained at the Level 2 (Coaches level) and 24 have been trained at the specialist practitioner level.
We also regularly promote the free e-learning training (awareness level 1), however as it is external, we are unable to monitor the uptake. Take a look at how KASBAH, a residential setting who completed the coaches level, have been implementing PBS.
If you’re interested in improving the support that individuals with learning disability, autism and complex needs receive, you can join our Community of Practice.
Meetings are quarterly and the group is a supportive community sharing and learning from others who work with, care for, or support people with a learning disability, autism or complex needs. Join us for our next meeting in November which will look at PBS to address sleeping.
Our PBS website has resources and information for professionals and parents, including some applications to consider around managing challenging behaviour.
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Shine Youth Club
Are you looking for a youth club where SEND young people are welcome?
Shine Youth Club (a Council-run service) is for young people aged 10-18 with additional needs.
Our aim is to provide a safe and secure environment for young people to come together to socialise and have fun, and:
- Develop personal and social skills
- Build confidence, self-esteem & independence
- Support the transition from childhood to adulthood
- Promote equality, diversity and include all young people regardless of their needs.
The club has been running for many years. Providing young people with some wonderful opportunities to learn life skills while having fun:
“I made three friends during one session and we are still friends now, it shows how welcoming the young people in the club really are”.
“I really enjoyed the trips and activities that are organised, some of which included camping trips, water sports and an activity day at Capstone Park”.
“I have two children in my care that have SEN. They are 16 and 17 years old . Shine club is something they look forward to every single week. They are able to have fun and learn valuable life skills, from how to cook healthy food, Duke of Edinburgh, first aid, learning about sexual health and drugs misuse".
Shine runs from Woodlands Youth Centre, Gillingham on Wednesdays, 6pm-8pm.
For further information, please contact Stella Williams, stella.williams@medway.gov.uk or phone 07864 956710.
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Sip & Sign / PANDAs
Sip and Sign is a parent support group run and organised by Medway’s Sensory Service. Its aim is to support parents of children with hearing and/or visual impairment. The group, which has been running for over 10 years, gives children the opportunity to meet and play with each other, while parents have the chance to meet other parents of children with similar impairments. The group, which is now running face-to-face sessions, meets twice a month in term-time at Parklands Resource Centre, Oxford Road, Gillingham.
The Sensory Service falls under the 0-25 SEND Team in Medway and provides support to children with permanent hearing and visual impairments across Medway from 0-25 years old, working with children, parents, nurseries, primary and secondary school as well as Further Education.
For any queries regarding the Sensory Service please contact Jane Elworthy: jane.elworthy@medway.gov.uk.
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