Welcome to the latest edition of Shropshire’s Covid-19 SEND newsletter, co-produced by Shropshire Council, Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and PACC. 

We wanted to issue a special newsletter following the announcement of a third national lockdown.

The newsletter aims to provide easy access to key information for SEND families during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as an opportunity for parent carers to hear from each other about their experiences.

Please do continue to provide feedback on this newsletter, we want this to work for you and we are keen to hear what you think of it. You can email us at local.offer@shropshire.gov.uk

Waves of dread might have consumed many parents when the news of a third national lockdown was announced. The challenge of keeping our family safe and looking after our own emotional health and wellbeing can be a tricky one to balance.

We hear from PACC who write about how the challenges of lockdown don't get any easier, even if we have experienced it before.  

With the announcement of a third national lockdown, we wanted to hear from the SEN team at Shropshire Council about what this means for children and young people with special educational needs.

This letter to parent carers includes information for those with an EHCP, those due an Annual Review and information for parents who are supporting children’s learning who are staying at home. You can read this letter here.

Home to school transport will continue to operate for vulnerable children and those of key workers during the new national lockdown.

To ensure that information is gathered and actioned appropriately, we would be grateful if all parents and carers could inform our office staff in the first instance of any changes, cancellations and amendments to their child’s transport. This can then be actioned with the operator to ensure transport is provided for them and ultimately to confirm that the request is possible within the current constraints of the pandemic, parents can email special.transport.team@shropshire.gov.uk or call 01743 253036 where a member of staff will find the correct officer to action your request.

Please visit our school transport website for further guidance for parents, operators and schools on school transport and Covid-19.

Applications for placements starting in September 2021 will be accepted from May 2021, however, if parents/carers have any questions or concerns regarding placements from next September they are welcome to contact us, and we will try to answer your enquiry to the best of our ability. We would like to thank parents and carers for their support during this unprecedented time, their patience and understanding has been greatly appreciated.

For further information or guidance on SEN school transport please visit the Local Offer.

The NHS vaccination programme is underway in Shropshire as part of the national rollout. The NHS will contact people in the priority groups when it is their turn to receive the vaccine.

Find out more about priority groups, and how you and your family will be notified when it is time for your vaccination in this article on the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.

There have been some recent changes to the Covid 19 Vaccine Priority List since it was first published.  Just before Christmas we received the welcome news that unpaid carers were to be included in priority 6 alongside individuals under the age of 60 and with underlying conditions.  You can read more about this on the Carers UK website

It is advised that you let your GP know of your caring role so that they are aware and can factor this in when inviting patients for their vaccination.

More recently there has also been confirmation that the vaccine will be offered as a priority to Personal Assistants, employed through direct payments, who provide support to people within any of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority groups.  The Covid 19 Vaccine Delivery Plan states;

“Social care staff work in a range of settings beyond care homes, not least in domiciliary care, which makes up a significant proportion of the sector. The diversity of the sector and its workforce has put a premium on strong local leadership and partnerships between Local Authorities, the NHS, social care providers and their representative bodies. Close joint working between these partners, with local authorities playing a lead role, will be essential to identifying and offering a vaccine to all eligible frontline social care workers. To give just one example, it is vital that we identify and reach directly employed Personal Assistants, who support people within any of the JCVI priority groups (the clinically vulnerable and adults) as part of our efforts to ensure full coverage of the priority 2 cohort.”

If you employ a PA to provide support to someone in a priority group you may want to discuss the above with your social worker.

Shropshire Council has issued their latest update on All In Short Breaks provision in Shropshire. You can read more about this here.

This section  of the local offer has been set up specifically to include information, resources, guidance and FAQs in relation to the Covid19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

A new online course ‘Understanding Your Child with additional needs’ has been launched and is available for FREE to all Shropshire residents.

This online course is for parents, relatives and friends of children who may have a physical or learning disability or who may have autistic traits. Some parents describe their child as differently abled, or neuroatypical. This course is in 2 sections. Level 1 lays the foundation for understanding your child. Level 2 looks at some particular aspects of parenting: sleeping and anger management, together with more about how we interact with each other. Understanding this can make it easier to work with your child's behaviour as well as supporting their development. Once you finish Level 1 you can progress to Level 2 if you'd like to.

To access the online course visit the In Our Place website

Then use the access code DARWIN18 to gain free access to any or all the courses below:

• Understanding your child with additional needs
• Understanding pregnancy, labour, birth and your baby
• Understanding pregnancy, labour, birth and your baby: for women couples
• Understanding your baby
• Understanding your child
• Understanding your teenager’s brain
• Understanding my brain (for teenagers only)

Parenting during a pandemic is not easy, but there is help and support available. Here are a few who you can contact if you do want support. You are not alone and it’s OK not to be OK, so please get in touch if you need some help.

Contact have a 1-1 listening ear service  

Scope operate Navigate – online emotional support for parents

YoungMinds have a parents helpline for advice, emotional support and signposting.

Coronavirus (Covid 19): Guidance For Children’s Social Care

Updated 7th January 2021

This document states the following;

Principles

The difficult and complex decisions that need to be taken during this period should be made in the spirit of the following principles:

• child-centred - promoting children’s best interests: nothing is more important than children’s welfare; children who need help and protection deserve high-quality and effective support as soon as a need for help is identified
• risk-based - prioritising support and resources for children at greatest risk
• family-focused - harnessing the strengths in families and their communities
• evidence-informed - ensuring decisions are proportionate and justified
• collaborative - working in partnership with parents and other professionals
• transparent - providing clarity and maintaining professional curiosity about a child’s wellbeing

Short break services (also known as respite)

Families caring for a disabled child or young person are entitled to short breaks services (also known as respite). We recognise the challenges for local authorities and providers in providing short breaks throughout the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as the significant impact of reduced provision on families and on children and young people themselves.

Services which provide respite care for disabled children are able to continue to operate during periods of national lockdown, with specific provision in the regulations allowing for both services which care for children away from home and care which is delivered in the family home, which is for respite purposes either for the child or young person or the carer who looks after the child or young person. This can include continued operation of Residential Holiday Schemes for Disabled Children where appropriate.

We continue to encourage local authorities to prioritise this support for disabled children and to consider flexible and pragmatic options to deliver that support, for example, some local authorities have made more use of direct payments beyond their usual criteria. Direct payments may be used to enable families to purchase respite care and equipment to use at home, for the child or young person and their siblings. Direct payments could also be used to support families with a disabled child whose usual services have been suspended or reduced.

Protective measures for holiday and after-school clubs, and other out-of-school settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak 

Updated 8th January 2021

This document states

Providers who run community activities, holiday clubs, breakfast or after-school clubs, tuition and other out-of-school provision for children, are able to continue to open for both outdoor and indoor provision, provided that they follow the protective measures set out by government in this guidance, in line with the new national lockdown restrictions.

We are aware some providers will want to continue to remain open during the national lockdown to support children of critical workers and vulnerable children. This document sets out national guidance to support them and advise on practical steps they can take to minimise the risk of infection and transmission of the virus for children, staff and parents who attend their settings.

For the duration of the national lockdown, wraparound childcare and out-of-school settings should only offer face-to-face provision for:

• children of critical workers, where it is reasonably necessary to support their parents or carers to work, seek work, attend a medical appointment, or undertake education or training
• vulnerable children and young people

These government guidance documents talk about who can access schools and other educational settings and also guidance on attending out of school settings.  

Guidance on Children of critical workers and vulnerable children who can access schools or educational settings

Guidance for parents and carers of children attending out-of-school settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak