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Friday 14 February 2025
Welcome from SEND Family Voice
Have you got questions about your child's school placement?
If you’re a parent of a child with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) who’s about to move up to secondary school, you will have recently received a letter naming their school or setting.
If it’s not the placement you were hoping for and want to know what to do next, we're holding a drop-in information session later this month.
It’s at our Parkfield House offices in Paignton on Tuesday 25 February from 10am to 12pm. No need to book, just drop in.
The council's SEND team and SENDIASS will be there to provide support, answer your questions, and help you move forward. Please join us!
We hope everyone has a restful half-term break.
Children and Family Health Devon - waiting times update
We understand it can be difficult to wait for support from CFHD. We are committed to seeing children, young people and their families as soon as possible.
Waiting times are now live on the CFHD website and will be updated quarterly.
It can be hard to give exact timescales for how long you might wait due to many factors, including:
- The number of people needing a service
- Current staffing
- Increased demand for the service
- Being guided by our triage of your needs
We provide this information to help you understand typical waiting times.
If you have any questions about your referral, contact our Single Point of Access team by calling 0330 0245 321 or emailing CFHD.DevonSPA@nhs.net.
We can also offer support while you are waiting.
Neurodiversity parent support programme
This programme, jointly run by SEND Family Voice, Torbay Council, CFHD and NHS Devon, has been a huge success since its launch in January.
We created the workshops after you told us there were areas you needed help with as parents of neurodiverse children.
So far we’ve covered autism and sensory differences but there are still eight workshops planned between March and July covering:
- Communication and positive relationships (11 March)
- Autism and anxiety (13 May and 10 June)
- Transitions (8 July)
Each date will have two sessions – one online and one in person at Parkfield House in Paignton.
Letters from our SEND team
The team is considering a change in how they send letters to you and want to hear your thoughts.
Instead of attaching letters as Word or PDF files, they would include the content directly in the email. Why?
- Improved accessibility: emails are generally easier to read on devices compared to PDFs or Word documents, which may not display correctly on all platforms.
- Convenience: you can access the information immediately without needing to download and open an attachment.
- Reduced technical issues: there’s less risk of compatibility problems or issues with opening attachments.
- Enhanced security: direct email content can reduce the risk of malicious attachments.
Please complete the short survey by 28 February.
Post-16 Transport Policy 2025-2026
We’re looking for feedback on changes we’re making to our Post-16 Transport Policy for 2025-2026.
This is to improve the information available to learners and parents / carers ahead of decisions about post-16 education choices in September.
The engagement period closes on Wednesday 5 March.
Please be aware that the website is slow to load in some browsers, but the page will load eventually.
 Locality model
Thanks to everyone who took part in our locality model consultation last year.
We’ll be trialling this model for education services for children with additional needs.
It means financial and other support will be directly awarded to groups of primary schools working alongside partners in health, social care and Family Hubs to help them enhance their usual provision to meet children’s needs more effectively.
We’ll be working with several schools on the pilot, which aims to identify needs and provide support as early as possible and reduce the need for EHCPs.
We hope that more children and young people with additional needs can gain help faster, cutting waiting times for assessment.
 Thanks for your feedback on our EHCPs
In the autumn term, the SEND and safeguarding quality assurance team carried out an audit of new EHCPs.
As part of this, 10 families of children and young people who had gone through the needs assessment process provided their feedback.
Thanks to those of you who told the team about your experiences.
Parents had praise for the process and made the following comments:
Everyone was involved who I wanted to be involved.
Deaf CAMHS were outstanding
It all went smoothly. I was very pleased with the process and want to say thanks to the school, who were very supportive.
The EHCP Officer who met with us regularly to make sure the plan got through was lovely.
I’m very happy with the experience – communication was good and was completed quickly.
The educational psychologist and a teacher who has been working with our child have both been helpful.
It was a good experience; the SEND Officer was helpful and worked with us well.
There are also some areas where we know we need to improve based on some of your other comments. These were:
The process was initially very difficult.
It seemed like all the services we were trying to engage with had huge forms, in which we had to retell our story, and the decision was generally no.
It took a long time. SENDIASS were involved and I had to appeal the decision, so it was quite frustrating.
We had to regularly chase requests for assessment.
There should be multiple people writing the plans as the person writing my child's went on holiday three times.
Initially I was told no to assess, I had to go to mediation and everyone in mediation was shocked that it was a no.
We would have liked assessment and support from CAMHS as well as an outreach / transition worker.
I knew that my child had needs other than just hearing impairment from the age of three, but he was not assessed until he was 17. The GP kept saying his needs were linked to his hearing loss.
It feels like we have fallen between thresholds for support from different services.
It feels like as a family you get palmed off to different agencies or dropped off completely.
It was difficult to get educational psychology input.
All these findings are shared with the SEND governance groups of the local area partnership. Your representatives from SEND Family Voice are members of these groups.
The groups will then support their colleagues to develop action plans so they can improve the way they deliver EHCPs.
Artificial intelligence webinar
A free webinar will explore how AI can improve the quality of EHCPs.
The online event, aimed at parents and carers, is on Monday 3 March from 12:30pm to 1:30pm.
Half-term fun
Colour My Street is coming to Torquay, Paignton and Brixham over the half term.
Expect circus skills, street games, art activities, street performers, storytelling, music workshops, a colour quiz and much more.
Turn up anytime from 11am to 3pm and join in the fun by wearing something bright and colourful!
Colour my Street is funded by Torbay Council and delivered by the team at Tonic Creatives.
- Monday 17 February & Tuesday 18 February Torquay (Lower Union Street)
- Wednesday 19 February & Thursday 20 February Paignton (Victoria Street)
- Friday 21 February & Saturday 22 February Brixham (Fore Street)
 Could you be a baton bearer?
Torbay is hosting the Baton of Hope later this year and baton bearers are needed to make it an event to remember.
The Baton of Hope was devised as a similar icon to the Olympic torch, celebrating mental, rather than physical, wellbeing.
This national event will see the baton carried across 20 UK towns and cities and Torbay is the only South West location to host a one-day leg of the tour. This will take place on Tuesday 30 September.
Individuals will need to carry the baton at a steady walking pace for between 200 and 500 metres before passing it on to the next person.
The route is expected to go through Torquay, Paignton and Brixham and feature events and activities along the way, at different locations in each town, before ending in a final celebration event with entertainment for all.
The closing date for baton bearer applications is Monday 31 March.
 Let's Talk sessions for dads and male carers
Following on from the success of its Let's Talk programme, the Safer Devon, South Devon and Dartmoor Community Safety Partnership (CSP) is offering bespoke sessions specifically aimed at dads and male carers throughout March.
Follow the links below to reserve a space.
Healthwatch autism study
Has your child had mental health issues and have you found it difficult to access local mental health services?
Healthwatch wants to hear your experiences (this can be anonymous). Call 0800 052 0029 or email info@hwdevon-plymouth-torbay.org
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