Introduction to the SEND newsletter

We are very pleased, as the leads for our Nottinghamshire’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Partnership, to welcome you to the first edition of our SEND newsletter.

This is part of our ongoing commitment to improving communications with children and young people with SEND, and their families.

We want to keep you up to date with our programme of improvements and share opportunities for you to influence what we do, and how we do it. Together, we can ensure that outcomes for children and young people with SEND in Nottinghamshire are improved.

Colin Pettigrew 

Corporate Director, Children and Families, Nottinghamshire County Council

Rosa Waddingham

Chief Nurse, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB

Get involved!

Nottinghamshire Parent Carer Forum is a parent carer led charity where every one of the working team has a child or young person with additional needs and/or disabilities.

The forum is run by an independent group of parent carers united by their experiences, passion, and commitment to improve provision and outcomes for children, young people and their families.

It creates a bridge to the providers of services and works in partnership with them, sharing the lived experience and views of families across the county, to help inform and build better services for all disabled children and young people.

The forum would love to hear from all parent carers with a child or young person with additional needs and/or disabilities in Nottinghamshire.

Join the new SEND improvement parent carer reference group or simply subscribe to the SEND newsletter.

Overseeing SEND improvements

The Nottinghamshire improvement board was set up to ensure improvements in Nottinghamshire’s SEND services for children, young people and families.

Dame Christine Lenehan, Independent Chair of the SEND improvement board, talks about her role working with parents and children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and making sure improvements to Nottinghamshire’s SEND services are on track.

Holiday activities and food programme

Nottinghamshire’s HAF programme offers a variety of SEND specific activities.

The HAF programme is for school-aged children in full time education from reception to year 11 who receive benefits-related free school meals. The government initiative offers support to families on lower incomes, giving young people the opportunity to take part in activities and a healthy meal during the October half term holiday.

Investing in educational psychology

Nottinghamshire County Council has agreed an investment and recruitment drive to help reduce the time children wait to get the education, health and care assessments and early intervention support they need. 

Increasing the capacity of educational psychology is part of the council’s priorities to address ongoing demand and following recommendations from the local area special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) inspection.

Updates about health services

We are very aware in Nottinghamshire that it can be very difficult to access health services for your child, and that there can be very long waits to do so. This is something we are working hard to change urgently.

The SEND improvement team within Nottinghamshire health services has spent time mapping the services that are currently available for local children and young people with SEND. This will make it easier for you to navigate services and for us to pin-point where change is needed. Extra capacity has been added to teams where waiting times have been excessively long, and we are looking at alternative ways of offering your appointments to ensure that you get the same quality of service, much quicker than you have been.

Preparing for adulthood events

The Preparing for Adulthood family information events are for young people with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in Year 9 and above. It’s a great chance to meet with services that can support young people as they make decisions about what they want to do as they move into adulthood.

Young people in Mansfield, Ashfield, Bassetlaw and Newark can come along to the next event on 25 November 2023 from 10:00am until 2:00pm in Mansfield.

EHCP assessment figures 

An update about education, health and care plans (EHCPs)

We have detailed work underway to improve the timeliness of assessments and the delivery of EHCPs. We have been reviewing the processes our families experience and recruiting additional staff to meet the increase in demand for assessments.

SEND plan on a page

The Nottinghamshire improvement plan details all of the actions and activities that are happening to bring about the changes that are needed to improve experiences of children, young people with SEND and their families.

This at-a-glance infographic highlights the areas for focus