Annual report what we have been doing on your behalf final

Extract from the Annual Report What we have been up to on behalf of families this year

SEND Family Voices is a parent / carer forum for Richmond and Kingston. We exist to work with the local authority, health providers and other professionals to make sure that the services that they plan and deliver meet the needs of disabled children and families. We also provide specialist advice and support to families of children and young people with SEND. Our steering group is made up of 19 parents of children and young people with disabilities.

We are all volunteers.

What we identified as needs during the last year Communication and Information 1. Provide independent information to parents on the SEND reforms, other relevant legislation and local changes 2. Provide a local “single version of the truth� around the EHCP / Transfer review and other SEND reform processes to empower parents to get the best support for their child 3. Provide information on local services from both statutory, commercial and voluntary sectors Influence local policy and decision making around services 1. Create a strong, representative parent / carer community and voice 2. Ensure that the parent voice is heard when major policy or strategy changes are being discussed to directly influence commissioning and improve local services.

Provide Support to the Parent / Carer Community 1. Provide an independent parent-led place to get questions answered, get advice and signposting to services, accessible to as many parents as possible 2. Get more help for parents and carers that are struggling with their responsibilities – in particular against the backdrop of changes in thresholds relating to social work Year 2015-2016

Communication and Information What we did

Outcome

Created a SEND Family Voices guide to the SEND reforms for parents & carers – over 5000 distributed.

Widely requested by SENCos, parents and professionals. Is the de-facto communication relating to the SEND reforms in Kingston and Richmond.

Set up a series of 10 open meetings involving the Head of the SEN team and the post 16 Commissioner from AfC to inform parents of what the changes mean and to give them an opportunity to ask questions directly of AfC.

Attended by circa 150 parents and carers.

Very robust discussion and real dialogue. Very positive feedback from attendees.

Ran a full day event with Steve Broach (leading SEN barrister) to communicate the legal framework around the SEND reforms.

“Sold out” – attended by ca 100 parents and carers and professionals. Feedback was extremely positive,

Worked with SEN team and other professionals from health and education to create a definitive guidance document (the Golden Binder) with detailed chapters on: Early Years, SEN support in School, EHCPs, Transfer Reviews, Annual Reviews and many other aspects of support.

Extremely positive feedback from professionals as well as parents so far.

Distributed to all schools and professionals in hard copy. Available to parents and anyone else electronically via Local Offer.

Set up a multi-agency governance group to maintain the information in the binder.

All multi-agency participants invited are planning to attend the next governance meeting in September 2016.

Distribute (weekly / fortnightly) “Dear All” communications containing a wealth of information that may be of interest to the community.

Recognised as de-facto source locally for SEN information by both parents and professionals; also by individual professionals and parents in other boroughs.

Regular contributor of content to the Local Offer, including running a Local Offer working group that continues to monitor and recommend changes. SFV organized and jointly funded Local Offer launch.

Local Offer recognized by London meeting as an example of good (best) practice. Local Offer Launch was attended by over 100 parents and professionals and recognised as a relaxed, family event by all.

Co-produced SENDIASS service specification to ensure parent/carer needs were included and measured.

We continue to challenge the quality of local services. SFV attends SENDIASS Contract Monitoring meetings as parent representatives.

Year 2015-2016

Influence Local Policy and Decision Making around Services What we did

Outcome

Expanded our Steering group to cover Kingston and to better cover some disability groups (e.g. physical disability).

Kingston and Richmond now equally represented. Strong links developed to most local disability groups.

Open meetings deliberately held across all locations in the boroughs to encourage as many of parents to attend as possible. Held both during the day and evening meetings.

Circa 150 parents / carers have attended our Open Meetings over the year. Feedback was positive and on the whole people found some answers to their questions.

Held open meeting within a Twickenham school locality group (involves several schools) at the invitation of the school.

50 parents attended the two meetings. Most had had no previous contact with SFV as their children did not have EHCPs or statements .

Website development, which joined up parent/carer communications across Kingston & Richmond.

Receive large numbers of hits when particular topics are posted (e.g. easy read guide to short breaks.)

Developed an issues tracking log that records (anonymised) all issues and queries received

by SFV and shares this consolidated information with decision makers at AfC, the Council and other important forums in order to demonstrate what the parent community is concerned about.

Co-produced (with Richmond HealthWatch) a local survey of the CAMHS service

Over 400 separate issues logged so far. Taken seriously by decision makers in terms of understanding where changes are needed.

Has been used to galvanise change around guidelines for the SEND reforms and Short Breaks provision (or lack of).

Organised a steering group and consultation process for the SEN Transport policy review.

Facilitated the meetings.

Around 70+ families directly involved. In attending meetings or providing written feedback. Robust discussions but agreement reached and cost efficiencies made Joint Kingston and Richmond policy for SEN transport has been agreed.

Organized “chocolate cake’ consultations (to encourage young people to attend) relating to revised accessibility strategy

Around 40 parents, carers and young people were involved in the process. A new accessibility strategy and a brochure on Reasonable Adjustments called “I just want to be like everyone else” has been produced from the work. Recognised by the DfE as an example of national good practice and is a first of its kind. Brochure has been distributed by SENCOs to all teachers at many schools.

In the process of organizing and running consultation meetings on new Free Special Schools proposed within the boroughs

These have been well attended to date and have been characterized by robust debate.

Summary of findings and feedback being collated at the moment.

SFV and CAMHS reported to the LSCB QAG (Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, Quality Assurance Group); they used the data to influence policy and commissioning decisions

Year 2015-2016

What we did

Outcome

Attendance at  SEND Implementation meetings chaired

by AfC  Ofsted readiness Meetings chaired by AfC  regular meetings with Head of SEN / SEN management team to discuss issues and try to resolve problems  Regular attendance at ISCD strategy management meetings  regular meetings with Health commissioners for both Richmond and Kingston  regular meetings with Richmond Council to discuss Children and Young People with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties (CYPwDLD)  regular attendance at Aiming High meetings

Presented concerns that have come up in the parent community. Attempt to position these in such a way that action is taken. Recent topics that have been raised are: 1) EHCP / Transfer review process – still many complaints 2) Short Breaks – lack of consultation and poor communication relating to changes. Concerns over perceived reduction in services and insufficient services to meet the needs of families 3) Concerns relating to proposed change of location of social work team to Moor Lane 4) Concerns relating to lack of Education Psychology resource

Provide support to the Parent / Carer Community What we did

Outcome

Provide an e-mail address and telephone number where parents / carers can ask individual questions and receive support and advice.

Circa 400 separate queries from parents / carers answered by email and telephone.

What is offered: Signposting to statutory and voluntary sector services. Helping parents find the right person to address their concern or query to (SFV is well connected within many organisations and can often find a short cut that helps). Putting parents in touch with other parents who may have had similar issues or have some expertise.

Numerous issues expedited and sometimes solved as a result of SFV intervention.

Identified the statutory duty to have a “Parent Carer Needs Assessment” and co-developed the assessment with the AfC Strategic Lead for Family Support.

A first: nationally. Richmond and Kingston have the first Parent / Carer Needs Assessment.

Communicated the new assessment to the community (Dear All and Open Meetings).

Too early yet to know whether it is making a difference to the support that parent / carers receive but early indications are encouraging.

Funding We are entirely independent of Achieving for Children and other local service providers. The majority of our funding comes from the Department of Education via the charity Contact-a-Family and is spent largely on creating resources and information for our parent / carer community. We do sometimes work in partnership with service providers, such as AfC, as we believe that this is the best way of driving improvement for families. We always put the interests of the family at the centre of what we do.

Year 2015-2016