In Suffolk Annual Report Sept 2016 August 2017 1
Contents: Suffolk SENDIASS Annual Report September 2016 August 2017 Page Introduction 3 Overview of the year 4 Meet the Team 6 Working with Families 7 Feedback 11 Independent Support 13 Information sessions and Training 14 Developing our Information 15 How we ve been involved in Influencing Policy 16 Staff Continuing Professional Development 17 Financial Report 18 Key Areas for Development 2017-18 19 2
Introduction: Suffolk SENDIASS Annual Report September 2016 August 2017 The role of Suffolk SENDIASS is to ensure children and young people with SEND, and their parents have access to impartial information, advice and support so that they can make informed decisions about matters relating to their special educational needs. This is achieved by working in partnership with parents, children and young people; providing information, services and training, working with relevant agencies and ensuring parents, children s and young people s views influence local policy and practice. Statutory Framework: The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on Local Authorities to ensure that children, young people, and parents are provided with information and advice on matters relating to SEN and disability. The information provided should be impartial and provided at arm s length from the local authority and CCGs. The information advice and support offered should be free, accurate, confidential and in formats which are accessible and responsive to the needs of users. The SEND Code of Practice: 0-25 years says: 2.19 To meet local needs, local authorities should provide the following forms of support through their Information, Advice and Support Service(s): Signposting children, young people and parents to alternative and additional sources of advice, information and support that may be available locally or nationally Individual casework and representation for those who need it, which should include: o support in attending meetings, contributing to assessments and reviews and participating in decisions about outcomes for the child or young person o directing children, young people, parents and those who support and work with them to additional support services where needed, including services provided by the voluntary sector. These services should include support relating to preparing for adulthood, including housing support, careers advice and employment support Help when things go wrong, which should include: o supporting children, young people and parents in arranging or attending early disagreement resolution meetings o supporting children, young people and parents in managing mediation, appeals to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability), exclusions and complaints on matters related to SEN and disability o making children, young people and parents aware of the local authority s services for resolving disagreements and for mediation, and on the routes of appeal and complaint on matters related to SEN and disability (see Chapter 11, Resolving disagreements) Provision of advice through individual casework and through work with parent carer support groups, local SEN youth forums or disability groups, or training events 3
The SENDIASS in Suffolk is currently line-managed directly by the Assistant Director for Children & Young People Commissioning services, Richard Selwyn. We sit within the Engagement Hub, a team of services who are all involved in engaging Children and Young People in some way. We work alongside the CYP co-production and Children s rights Lead and the CYP Digital Lead. Overview of the Year The beginning of the academic year 2016-17 was a time of change for Suffolk SENDIASS. The service had been carrying vacancies since December 2015. Considering the need for efficiency savings Suffolk County Council decided to put recruitment for these posts on hold until a new structure for the service had been agreed. The new structure needed to take into account the increased remit of the service (from the SEND Reforms 2014) as well as the increased demand for the service but with no additional funding. A consultation with Staff began in July 2016. The new structure was in place from January 2017, however, recruitment to vacant new posts was not complete until April 2017 so the team had to cover casework and try to maintain business as usual as far as possible during this period of transition, which meant that new roles did not become fully operational until April 2017. New staff also needed some time to become confident in their roles and complete initial training. The original structure of the service included: Job title Manager Area-based coordinators Helpline and Web coordinator School Preference Adviser Role overview manage the service, strategic role within Local authority policy and decision making, deliver training to team and other practitioners, some casework direct casework, helpline, delivering information sessions for parents, delivering information sessions for practitioners including school governors, attend information events cover helpline, manage information on the website and social media sites (Not specifically SEND) Information and support to parents re: school admissions and admissions appeals. The demand for casework and the fact that we had vacant coordinator posts meant the all members of the team were spending all their time working directly with individual families which left little time for developing group sessions, managing information, and sharing information about our service at events. It had become very difficult to plan and prepare and we were re-active rather than pro-active. In order to sustain the service into the future and to provide IAS to more families and young people we wanted to develop a service in which we could: Develop our digital offer improve information available on our web pages, develop virtual community for parents and young people to support each other, develop virtual forums for feedback to inform policy and practice, develop online chat support and advice and support via social media routes. 4
Develop community capacity offer information sessions to parents in groups so that they increase their knowledge and skills to become empowered and able to take an active role in their child s education without the need for individual support. Parents have told us that they prefer to get support from other parents. Provide training in skills and knowledge to established parent groups and support networks so that they can support each other. Provide training in skills and knowledge to Children and Young People so that they can be more active in their own learning and planning and so that they can support each other. Young people have told us that they prefer to help their friends and gain help from their friends when needed. Provide skills and knowledge training to professionals working with CYP who have SEND and their families to reduce the likelihood of issues arising, and to enable them to positively resolve issues when they do arise. Parents have told us that they would like us to offer more training to practitioners, particularly in schools. Continue to provide a level of individual support by email and telephone and, to the more vulnerable families, face to face, to ensure that families feel valued and listened to. We know that families value the direct support we offer. The new structure includes: Job title Manager Senior Information Advice and Support Worker Information Advice and Support Workers Information Coordinator Training and Development Worker Role overview manage the service, strategic role within Local authority policy and decision making, deliver training to team and other practitioners Establish good reporting and recording to enable us to plan and develop the service based on need and effectiveness, to support IAS workers and to work directly with families especially through tribunal processes and complex cases direct information, advice and support to parents, children and young people tailored to the individual (up to and including tribunal) and may include telephone, casework support, representation and key working, with the aim to build upon the individual s skills, knowledge and confidence to promote independence and self-advocacy. To develop our range of information to families and practitioners and the way that we provide this information by co-producing with service-users To develop and deliver training for practitioners re: working with parents and the law around SEND, develop and deliver information and skills sessions for Parents, Carers, Children and YP and parent supporters. The service is offered all year round now rather than term-time only as demand for our service during school holiday times had increased significantly. 5
Meet The Team Stacey Ford, Manager Sian Monteith, Training and Development Worker Nicki Howlett, Information Coordinator Debbie Amor, Senior SEND Information, Advice and Support Worker Gillian Tate SEND Information, Advice and Support Worker Kate Langston SEND Information, Advice and Support Worker Natasha Podevin SEND Information, Advice and Support Worker Stephanie Knight Independent Supporter Nikki Brownlie Independent Supporter 6
Working with Families. Recording Information: We have a web-based data base which is separate from any of the Local Authority recording systems. We use this to log information about the work we are doing, particularly with families. Debbie has spent some time towards the end of this academic year looking at the way we record information and what we report on. She has made significant changes to the data base. The changes will enable us to record other work that we do which supports our direct work with families. We will also be able to identify more easily when there are patterns in the requests we are getting. This will help us target the information and support that we offer. We will be starting to use the new way of recording information from September. Statistics for his year do not cover August 2017. This is because changes were being made to the database during this time. The service does experience much less demand during the summer holiday period. 01/09/2016 31/07/2017 During this period we worked directly with 1675 individuals; parent/carers and children/young people. Many of these families will have had contact with the team many times. The total number of contacts (this could be anything from an email or telephone call to meeting support and home visits) was 2,531 Most of our contacts were made by telephone call. Because of the reduced staff numbers for most of the year we made much less face-to-face contact, and we saw an increase in contact by email. More parents are using text messaging as a way of keeping in touch although this tends to be just to confirm dates and times and would not necessarily be recorded as a contact. Where text messages have been recorded as a contact they will have been providing some level of information or advice. Fig. 1 Contact Type (by number) 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Face To Face Text Email Telephone Call Written 7
Fig. 2 Contact Type (%) Written 0% Email 17% Face To Face 4% Text 0% Telephone Call 79% We offer Information, advice and support on a range of issues. Education, Health and Care Plans is the most common reason for contacting us. This could be about anything to do with the plan and includes questions about the provision being made etc. Independent Support is recorded separately but is also specific to anyone going through the EHC needs assessment process or a transfer from a statement to an EHC Plan. As expected, we also receive a lot of calls about SEN Support. Admissions and Placement issues include those children who are currently not in school because suitable provision hasn t been made and who may be looking for appropriate specialist provision, and those who are unable to attend mainstream education due to medical needs. Fig.3 Referral Reason 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 8
Fig.4 Referral Reason (%) Statement Of SEN 1% TAC /CIN Social Care 1% 0% SEND Appeal 3% Transport 1% School SEN Support 17% Unspecified Helpline message 10% Admissions / Placement Issues 16% Attendance / School Refusers 4% Bullying 1% Disability Discrimination 1% Early Yrs SEN Support 1% Post 16 2% Personal Budget 0% Informal Disagreement Resolution 0% Information Session 4% Independent Support 7% IEP/Annual Review 1% Exclusion 7% Health/Medical 3% EOTAS 1% EHCP 20% Suffolk is divided into 5 localities by the local authority for the purpose of organising local support. We use these locality areas to monitor where demand is. Where the area is recorded as unknown it may be because we do not know where the caller is as we have only had phone or email contact with them which has been brief. The small number of out of county include calls from other areas who have found our contact details (often in google search) and have mistakenly contacted us. In this situation, we would always signpost to the correct service, or from families who are looking to move to the area. Fig.5 contact by area 2500 Number of contacts 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Central And Coastal And South NE Ipswich Suffolk Lowestoft And Waveney Out Of County Suffolk County SW Ipswich West Suffolk Unknown 9
Fig.6 Contact by area (%) Number of contacts Central And South Suffolk 13% Suffolk County 0% Out Of County 1% Unknown 11% West Suffolk 13% SW Ipswich 12% Lowestoft And Waveney 26% Coastal And NE Ipswich 24% Fig. 7 Time spent by area (minutes) Minutes spent 40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 Central And Coastal And South NE Ipswich Suffolk Lowestoft And Waveney Out Of County Suffolk County SW Ipswich West Suffolk Unknown Fig.8 Time spent by area (%) Unknown 9% Minutes spent Central And South Suffolk 14% Suffolk County 0% Out Of County 1% West Suffolk 15% SW Ipswich 13% Lowestoft And Waveney 21% Coastal And NE Ipswich 27% 10
Feedback from families: During the year we established an online feedback form using Survey Monkey. This is sent out randomly via email to families who have received support from us. There is also a link to the survey on our web site. Feedback is not collected systematically and we are looking at better ways of collecting feedback and recording outcomes for families. Feedback has been very positive. 97% of respondents felt that we understood their questions or concerns very well and a further 3% saying that we understood them well, 0% saying not at all. 93% said that the information, advice or support we gave was very helpful with 4% saying helpful. 0% said not helpful at all 96% felt that we were completely neutral, fair and unbiased, with a further 4% saying they felt we were mostly neutral, fair and unbiased. 86% of respondents said that our information, advice and support made a great deal of difference, 14% said we made some difference and only 4% said that we made no difference at all. When asked about the kind of difference we made parents said: I feel that my child s needs are better understood than they were 32% I now have a better relationship with my child s school or setting 7% I now have a better relationship with the Local Authority 4% I feel more confident 46% I have a greater understanding of the SEND Code of Practice and the 36% arrangements that should be made for children and young people with SEN I feel more involved in decisions about my child s education 25% I am happier/less worried about my child s future 25% I feel my child has benefitted as a result of the service being involved 32% Other 14% Respondents were able to choose more than 1 response so the % will add up to more than 100. Some of the Other differences we made were: I know where I stand, having been directed to the correct policy. Many thanks We are now well advised as how to best take the next steps in the help that our son needs I felt less alone in trying to make the right decision and get information from the LEA I've been asking for for the last 4 months 11
Other feedback we have received from families: I want to thank SENDIASS for the years of support they have given me. They have been reliable, knowledgeable, and supportive. Thank you so much. I feel like a different person today & it has all been thanks to your support. I'm not sure what I would have done without you! Thank you for yesterday it was really informative & has helped me & my husband immensely on my journey in understanding SEN. Today's meeting was a success & we feel really confident at where we are at & how to move forward positively Many thanks for getting back to me so promptly. I will indeed follow up with the information and form links you have provided. I am most grateful for your help. Thank you so much for once again explaining something that seemed so overwhelming! I now completely understand what everything means & feel so much more capable of attending another meeting with the school. 12
Independent Support: As part of the SEND Reforms the government made additional funding available through the Council for Disabled Children. This funding has been awarded to IAS services and to independent charitable organisations to provide Independent Support for families going the Education Health and Care (EHC) assessment process, either as part of a transfer from a Statement or for a new EHC. SENDIASS in Suffolk have received 20,000 from this fund each financial year since the grant was in place: 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. We are not expecting the grant to be available beyond the end of this financial year. SCOPE also provide Independent Support in Suffolk and can be contacted on 0808 300 3333. We have used this funding mainly to employ 2 part-time Independent Supporters to work alongside the team delivering specific support to those families going through the assessment process. They help with completing the Family/Young Person views form, understanding the draft Plan and attending EHC assessment related meetings such as the Co-production meeting. They provide a point of contact for families when they have questions or concerns throughout the process. We have had some changes in staff since the beginning of the grant. Steph joined us in August 2016 and Nikki has been a more recent addition to the team in April 2017. Both our Independent Supporters have attended national training and have been keen to develop their knowledge and skills around all things SEND. They work closely with the Independent Support team from SCOPE. As well as offering individual support to families they have offered support to schools and colleges as they are able to meet with groups of parents and explain the transfer and assessment process. Nikki delivered a workshop, at an ASD information event, giving information about EHC assessment and Plans. Up to 30 families attended this. During the year there have been 200 new referrals for Independent Support and a further 98 families continuing to receive Independent Support who were referred before September 2016. Many of these families will have had ongoing support and there was a total of 957 contacts with these families. Parents have said that they find the support really useful and that, without it, they would not have been able to participate so fully in the process. 13
Information Sessions and training: The Annual Conference took place in March. 80 parents attended. There were presentations from Health and education professionals as well as an information market place. Feedback has informed planning for next year. The conference is always an opportunity for parents to share their views with us so that we can inform Local policy and practice, as well as being a valuable time to share experiences with other parents. Parent comments and questions and answers can be found on our web pages. Since April Sian has been able to concentrate on developing our training offer. She has visited many parent support groups including Opportunity Groups around the County, Parenting Hubs, a Downs Syndrome support group, Little Miracles (a group for parents of children with a variety of needs including ASD and ADHD). Sian has shared information about the SENDIAS service as well as delivering taster sessions. She has also delivered taster sessions to 6 stepping stones groups (Stepping Stones is a parenting programme for parents of children with additional needs). There has been really positive feedback from these sessions. Sian has been working closely with the Clinical Psychologist at the Woodbridge Clinic. She has met with the psychology therapies team to explore what their main issues are when working with parents whose children have SEND. This will lead to a tailored workshop for staff to be delivered around the county. From this work Sian is also working with Nicki and a small group of parents to create a video explaining our service. The idea was so that it could be shown to parents at post-diagnostic workshops rather than a member of the team travelling to workshop to deliver a 10 minute slot. The video will be used much more widely than this. Work with the clinic has also led to us setting up a surgery for some of the most vulnerable families referred to the clinic by paediatricians. Many of these families are struggling to move on due to educational issues and we can now offer to meet with them face to face in a familiar environment (the clinic). This is still in it s infancy. Surgeries are monthly and parents can book via the clinic. Sian has attended a Headteacher s Conference to share information about our service. She is also working with the SCITT programme to develop a training session to be included in teacher training and with those delivering Newly Qualified Teacher support to see if there are sessions we can offer for NQTs. We have delivered SEND sessions to school governors as part of whole governing body training as seminars organised by governor services. We have also delivered working with distressed or Angry parents as part of a school PD day. Sian has also developed a SEND Parent Champions programme. This will be publicised next term and delivered in the Spring. The idea is to offer skills to parents who may already be actively but informally supporting other parents in their own community. 14
Developing Our Information. Since April Nicki has been able to focus much more on developing the information we offer. One of the main priorities has been to improve our information for children and young people. Nicki has worked with a group of young people with SEND at Lowestoft college to look at the information we offer and spent time with them designing publicity materials. These young people also told her that they would like to be able to contact the service by text. This is something we are introducing in the early part of the autumn term. This focus group also suggested Sendiass have some webpages dedicated to young people, our subsequent request for our own website was approved. This will enable us to improve our digital offer both to parents and young people and this exciting project will get underway during the 2017 Autumn term. Nicki is now involved with the Young Person Network (YPN) and plans to help facilitate future discussion groups and help to increase engagement. Nicki sent the first edition of our E-newsletter in July, this went out to over 1200 service users (mostly parents), a link to it remains available within our news webpage which will be updated to each termly E-newsletter and visitors to our website can subscribe to receive this. The Summer term provided some essential networking opportunities for Nicki, with attendance at the SEND roadshows and further establishing links with local providers including Health. We have had approval to offer Webchat, this is now in the planning stage and we hope to roll this out very soon. We are also exploring offering Webinars. Our mostly used leaflets, including the helpful contacts card, have been updated. We have a new facts, figures and feedback page on the website and this will be further developed ongoing. We opened a Twitter and Youtube account, our Facebook page continues to grow with over 500 followers currently. 15
How we ve been involved in influencing policy IAS Quality Standards state: 2.1 The IASS informs 2.2 The IASS contributes policy and practice at the to policy and practice at LA and CCG level by the regional and national working with parents, level by working with children and young other providers and people, the Parent Carer relevant stakeholders to Forum and local share, promote and voluntary groups and develop best practice. organisations. We are involved in a number of strategic groups involving Health, Social Care, SPCN, Education providers and the LA. We help to inform policy and practice based on our knowledge of Families experiences, both through our direct work with individuals, through work with support groups and through consulting parents at our annual SENDIASS Conference. The conference has also provided a forum for parents to meet providers and practitioners directly to share their own views and experiences. Groups that we have been involved in this year include: SEND Implementation Board EHCP Core Partners Group Digital EHCP Hub testing and feedback SEND Communications Group SEND Engagement workstream SEND Area Inspection met with Inspectors SEND Workforce development Unlawful exclusions strategy group Local Offer workstream SEND Strategy development workshops Young People s Co-production Champions Group SEND Keyworker/key working stakeholder workshops 16
Staff Continuing Professional Development IAS Quality Standards 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 require staff within IAS services to be trained and knowledgeable. Staff within the Suffolk IAS service are well-trained and confident that we are able to give correct, up-to-date advice and information in a way that empowers families. We always continue to update our knowledge and skills. Training that the team has accessed during the year includes: Whole team resilience training Full induction training for new starters including Data Protection and Safeguarding Signs of Safety training IPSEA Legal training levels 1,2 & 3 National SEND Conference Person Centred Planning Independent Support Managers conference Positive Mental Health Management Young People s Participation training Fire safety Training Suffolk Transitions training Breaking down barriers let s talk about mental health Exclusions legal training Preparing for Adulthood training Bullying in Schools training Social Media training IASS Staff Association Conference SEN and Disability in the Early Years (National policy development Day) Eastern Region SEND IASS Group Suffolk continues its membership of this regional group, comprised of the eleven LAs represented in the region. The Managers of the SEND IAS Services meet termly in Cambridge and the group provides a vital opportunity to share developments and initiatives within their services, and to develop regional tools and resources as well as training opportunities which are extended to all members of the SEND IAS Services. The group provides a confidential and supportive space for managers of SEND IAS Services to discuss issues affecting their services and also serves as a link to the National IAS Service and also IAS Services Staff Association. 17
Financial Report Suffolk SENDIASS Annual Report September 2016 August 2017 SENDIASS expenditure for the period 1/9/16 to 31/8/17 Staff Salary costs (including NI and pension 153,009 contributions) Staff Training/conference attendance fees 1,886 Staff Travel costs 7,020 Publicity/Information materials-printing costs 3,847 Conference costs 1,585 Other supplies & services costs 6,900 NCB grant spend (Independent Supporters) 23,071 Total spend 197,318 The greatest cost to the service is for staffing. Training for staff is essential and the high travel costs are due to the geographical size of Suffolk and the travelling involved in reaching all areas of the county. Other supplies and services costs includes 5,000 paid to Suffolk County Council for our premises and resources such as photocopying. The NCB grant spend is additional funding provided as a grant to support families going through the EHC Needs Assessment process. We have received 20,000 each year since 2014-15 and the costs are mainly Staffing and travel costs. We have been able to spend over the 20,000 as we had a significant carry-forward in the first year of funding. There is an expectation that this grant will not continue into the next financial year. 18
Key areas for development 2017-2018 Co-Production we will be working closely with our service users and with SPCN to develop what we offer Publicity We are working closely with YoungPeople to develop publicity to appeal to them We are increasing awareness of our service by getting out and about into the community Text Service Families will be able to contact us and ask for advice via a short text number We will be able to offer information via text Parent Workshop days In response to feedback after our conference we are offering workshop days Workshop days will be an opportunity to network and share experience as well as learning practical skills and knowledge Data Reporting We are improving the way we record information Improvements in recording will mean we can target our services more effectively and report more clearly Sendiass Website We are developing our own website we will have the flexibility to display information to better meet the needs of service users Web Chat We are introducing a web chat option on some of our web pages Young people particularly have said taht this is a way in which they would like to ask for information Videos We are developing short videos for our web site to provide information in a more accessible way We are also developing videos for use in our trainnig and information sessions Reaching Young People Close working with the YP SEND network to ensure the views of YP with SEND are used to inform Policy and practice Developing our work with YP to ensure that they are better able to participate in decisions about their education and care. Social Media Facebook can be used as a forum for parents and young people to share information Twitter will be used to keep followers up to date with what the service is doing Webinars We will develop webinars as an alternative way of getting information to families webinars will be interactive so tht the information is tailored to families' needs SEND Parent Champions We will be offering training to parents who are involved with supporting other families within their community SEND Champions will be offered the skills to support others in a positive, solution-focussed way 19