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Thursday 18 May 2023
Welcome to the May edition
We are all absolutely thrilled to announce that Fair Play Day is returning on 17 August after three years. This is a fantastic free event for SEND children and young people and their families. Please see below for more details and a link to get tickets.
Our recent online event 'What do I do if my child has SEND?' also highlighted some of the areas where parents would like more support. Thank you to everyone who attended this and our regular community forum at Paignton Baptist Church. By sharing your views, your voice is being heard and it’s having an impact on change. We have two forums left this term; the next one is in June and will focus on education. More details will follow on our Family Voice page and website.
The annual SEND survey will soon be released and we are very keen to hear from parents/carers and children/young people about your experiences of services in Torbay. Your voice is very much valued and helps to inform partners who support our families.
Family Voice representatives are helping to share their lived expertise in quality assurance work, neurodiversity, alternative provision, post 16 transitions and workforce development. As a parent carer forum, we are always looking for volunteers to help us in representing families' views, concerns, successes and experiences in Torbay.
We hope you all have a wonderful half term break and look forward to meeting or hearing from you in the next few weeks and months.
Rebecca Box and Karen Roofe
Co-Chairs SEND Family Voice Torbay
Fair Play Day - back for 2023!
Torbay Children’s Services, in collaboration with SEND Family Voice, and with thanks to the DeVey family, is bringing back the popular free play day on 17 August from 10:30am to 12:30pm at Torre Abbey Meadows.
There will be fairground rides, lower-level music and slower speed rides as well as a sensory tent and an area for children and young people who appreciate floor time and sensory experiences.
Advice and support will be available to families from organisations including Torbay Council's SEND team, Family Hubs, SEND Family Voice Torbay, SENDIASS Torbay, and Tissues and Issues.
Tickets are going fast for this event, which is for Torbay children and young people with SEND, young carers and cared for or care experienced children and young people and their families.
Anyone who registers will get a wristband on the day which gives access to the fair and you will be asked for proof of postcode at the event. This could include a utility or council tax bill or driving licence. Free parking at Torre Abbey car park is on a first come, first serve basis.
 Meet Hannah Spencer
Hannah has been working in the Torbay SEND team for the past nine years and before that, spent five years working with children with disabilities.
Tell us about your role Hannah.
In September 2022, I was seconded from the senior officer position to Head of SEND Improvement and I have recently been promoted to Head of SEND and Inclusion. As part of this role, I’m working with our partnership to improve our services, and I’m committed to making the system and support easier for families.
What was your first task in this role?
We needed a SEND Strategy that was ambitious but achievable to ensure we could deliver against it. Our SEND Family Voice worked alongside professionals from all our partners to create a new vision for SEND in Torbay. In this we co-created five areas of priority.
What are these priorities?
Firstly, SEND is everyone’s business – this is about changing the culture, a big one! Torbay children and young people told us they wanted SEND needs treated as equally important across all areas and services. Secondly, early identification and intervention is essential to children and young people having their needs met in the right place at the right time at the earliest opportunity.
Thirdly, we need to understand people’s needs and make best use of our resources together and ensure all settings are more inclusive and finally, we must improve transitions to adulthood and increase the services and awareness of services that are available to young people with SEND. We have an action plan to monitor each of these areas and we’ll be sharing our progress with you.
How have you involved parents and carers?
We know that many parents and carers reported that they used to feel that their voices weren’t heard or listened to and had to keep retelling their story. Our SEND Family Voice and other parent groups now regularly co-produce and co-design with strategic leaders and report feeling as partners alongside us.
Children and young people have created a pledge which our schools, nurseries, social care and health providers have signed up to. We have set performance indicators and we have an annual parental feedback survey. We’re also looking at setting up an app so carers don’t have to repeat themselves to different organisations. We are working with the voluntary and community sector to get as many voices from our children and young people too and will update you here on those groups.
Has this led to better joint working?
Things are improving but we are not there yet. We’ve now held several events which reflect joint working and give advice and support from different agencies and we hold monthly virtual drop-ins which include our partners.
What about schools?
Torbay has co-produced a Belonging Strategy to support children and young people maintain their school place and get the support they require – leading to them not being excluded or suspended. All secondary schools also have access to Autism Education Trust training.
What about support for young people leaving school?
There is support from careers advisors in schools, South Devon College has a help hub for information and support is available from Careers South West.
The SEND team is working to re-engage and support young people who are at risk of becoming not in education employment or training and our data shows improvement in this area. We are looking at developing the offer for post 16-year-olds and have a new supported internships worker and job coaching to create disability confident employers.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
It's an absolute pleasure to work with families, children, and young people with SEND, and I consider it an honour to be in this position. We have achieved small steps so far, but we are in no doubt of the journey we have to go on.
Have you read the Partnership Pledge?
Our pledge is at the heart of providing high-quality services across Torbay. This document has been created to describe the values and behaviours that our children, young people and families wish to experience in the delivery of SEND services and support.
Regardless of role, employer or organisation, our pledge asks for everyone within the local area to work in the way that is important to our children, young people and families, turning this into the lived experience that we all deserve.
It has been designed to provide an easy reference and description of the values and behaviours required across our system.
Graduated Response update
Over the last few months, groups of parents, carers and professionals have been working together to create our new Torbay Graduated Response toolkits.
These are documents which explain how the needs of our young people should be met. They have been written with education, health and care professionals to ensure our young people have support from all our services.
This is an exciting development and will support our goal of SEND being everyone’s business.
The five toolkits are organised into themes:
- Neurodiversity
- Speech, Language and Communication
- Cognition and Learning
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health
- Sensory and Physical
The new toolkits will be used across all services and by all ages (with the Early Years having their own).
These will be developed over the next few weeks and will be launched in June on the Family Hubs website. We’ll be updating you in this newsletter about these toolkits, so watch this space.
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