Ed Psychs, Mental Health & Wise Words

Ed.Psychs, Mental Health & Wise Words 24th September 2017 Dear All Educational Psychologists are so very, very important to and for our children & young people…

Ever wanted to informally chat to an Educational Psychologist?

For most children and young people, an assessment from an Educational Psychologist (EP) is one of the most important evidence gathered to support an EHC Plan.

The EP’s assessment and written report describes a child’s strengths and needs; which is crucial in understanding the interventions and adjustments required within an educational setting.

Achieving for Children's Educational Psychology Service (AfC EPS) want to improve their partnership working with parents and carers.

To help them do this, they (the EP's) are holding a series of focus groups with SEND Family Voices where they will listen to what you (parents and carers) have to say about your experiences of their service.

Wednesday 27th September - 10.30am to 12.30pm at The Strada, Griffin Centre, Kingston, KT1 1JT Tuesday 3rd October - 7pm to 9pm at York House, Richmond Rd, TW1 3AA Friday 6th October - 10.30am to 12noon at MeToo&Co, The CrossWay Centre, Twickenham, TW1 2PD * * creche available. Contact Fiona: info@metooandco.org.uk Monday 16th October - 7pm to 9pm at The Strada, Griffin Centre, Kingston, KT1 1JT

Reminder - Review of wheelchair services You may be aware that NHS England are conducting a review into wheelchair services?

Please send your thoughts to Elissa on emetzgen@gmail.com by September 27th (in preparation for the consultation meeting the next day).

Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) For some of us, there has been a lot going on around this theme. Let’s see wot’s occurring…

On the Neurodevelopment Pathway for diagnosis From the Commissioners In Richmond A multi-professional co-productive workshop was held on 12th September and we reported on this in our news of 12th September. There were over 40 parents in the room; follow this link and read the article entitled Labyrinth: http://www.sendfamilyvoices.org/news/

In Kingston There are three follow up conversations with Kingston commissioner Tuesday 3rd October - 1.30pm to 3pm at MeToo&Co, The CrossWay Centre, Twickenham, TW1 2PD To book e-mail: info@metooandco.org.uk Monday 9th October - 1pm to 2.30pm at Express CIC, 452 Ewell Road, Surbiton, KT6 7EL To book e-mail: info@expresscic.org.uk Tuesday 10th October - 7pm to 8.30pm at Langdon Down Ctr, Normansfield, 2A Langdon Park. Teddington. TW11 9PS To book e-mail: sendfamilyvoices@outlook.com

From the parent/carer groups In practice, all the work undertaken by the commissioner will come together as one. So, whether you attend a workshop or a conversation – all input feeds in to the final service.

5 borough letter requesting Consultation - to 5 borough CCG's SEND Family Voices alongside the parent/carer forums and autism groups within the 5 boroughs sharing the same services (from SWLStG's NHS Mental Health) got together and agreed that, collectively, we would like a common, public formal consultation and proposed changes to the neurodevelopment pathways for diagnosis and services.

You can find a copy of our letter here: http://www.sendfamilyvoices.org/booklets-research/

And on Plans, more widely Last week, 20th September, the Richmond Emotional Wellbeing Board’s Partnership Forum explored and rated the current Richmond CAMHS Transformation Plan.

Again, this was a mix of multi-professionals and parents. We could write a lot about this, but instead are just going to use the workshop illustrator’s live graphic…

Richmond and Kingston Health Developing our SW London St Georges Trust Strategy 2018 - 2023 “We want to work with our service users and carers, their friends and families, our local communities as well as our health and social care commissioners, other providers, and the voluntary sector from across south west London to shape our strategy for the next five years.

Come along and join the initial discussion. For more information and to register attendance please call 020 3513 5775 or email: involvement@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk” Tuesday 26 September - 2pm to 4.30pm Cole Court, 150 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 1HD Friday 29 September - 2pm to 4.30pm Earlsfield Library, 276 Magdalen Rd, SW18 3NY

Wise Words…

• • •

We know there is not much money around.

We know that the SEND Reforms are a good idea.

We know that supporting our children & young people is complicated…

The LSMN (London Strategic Managers Network) is a London-wide meeting that mostly focuses on the Health & Social Care aspects of SEND. SEND Family Voices are invited to send a parent representative as part of the NNPCF (= National Network of Parent Carer Forums) The main presentation was a talk from Dame Christine Lenehan, the Director of the Council for Disabled Children (CDC). We like Christine – she is a straight talker! Sam, our SFV parent representative, attended and took ‘scratch notes’ during the morning.

Highlights First off… Christine sat on a ministerial round table with the new Minister, Robert Goodwill.

Christine’s message to him is that these are the right reforms [the SEND Reforms] but they are having to be implemented against wider challenges. They're not embedded yet; they're very fragile. We need to keep funding them or else they will collapse and SEND will either descend into further chaos or regress to where things were years ago.

News on Assessment and Treatment Units (ATUs): • • •

Numbers are up: we need to understand why. We need to know what good community alternatives look like. We need to know why LAs don’t invest or commission these services locally.

Example of outstanding practice is in Ealing, who have an outstanding therapeutic crisis team. 18 children in this service cost the same as 1 child going to an ATU. Preventative strategies cannot happen without housing departments being on board. Prevention is as much about positive behaviour support as it is about poor housing, environment, lack of sleep etc

News on the residential schools’ review CDC are undertaking for the Dept. for Education (DfE): • •

Fieldwork update: CDC have so far visited 36 residential schools/colleges, 40 LAs and have collected 200 pieces of evidence.

What triggers a residential placement? o a) exclusion from mainstream (so how can we reward mainstream for taking on these kids; in turn, how can we get Ofsted to reward these schools and their efforts accordingly) o b) lack of appropriate short breaks provision.

Tribunal news •

88% of tribunals are lost by LAs (96% of these in refusal to assess) – there is a defeatist attitude towards Tribunal process now, with LAs often conceding the day before. This is not good practice.

Ofsted SEND Local Area inspections: CCG/Short breaks •

39 inspections carried out to date; 14 written statements of action. Ofsted's inspections are robust, and hard. The bar is also going up.

• • •

Ingredients for good inspections are good/outstanding/demonstrable evidence in the following areas: leadership, joint commissioning (with SMART outcomes), health engagement, quality assurance, accountability in all areas, co-production Ingredients for good health inspections: Roles of DCO and DMO must exist; therapy and nursing teams must exist and be effective, well-resourced and well managed; there needs to be a joint commissioning mindset; there needs to be co-production Half of LAs are in breach of their duty to provide short break services

Independent Support Contracts/31 March deadline •

We are getting to a point where a national EHCP template needs to be issued. AND this needs to be signed by ALL three agencies: education, health and social care, so that they are all responsible; all accountable.

Commissioning • •

Local areas do not always know why, how or what they are commissioning - there are 20% of children in Out of Borough (OOB). There is a lack of understanding about who these children are and why they are OOB. We need to move away from a situation where we need diagnosis. We have a duty to respond to a situation as and when we find it.

More?

Please reply to this e-mail and we can send you a full copy of the scratch notes. More on all the points above, plus Early Years and the High Needs Funding Block

@SENDFamilyVoice Over 200 tweets this week, and have lots of new followers - please follow us on twitter as there really is so much to say…

Social workers reveal the extent of the social care meltdown http://careandsupportalliance.com/social-workers-speak-out-report-from-the-care-andsupport-alliance/?platform=hootsuite The fabulous kids' theatre, Polka Theatre in Wimbledon - disabled children get a concession and carers go free - just £10 for two tickets for the theatre https://polkatheatre.com/home/about-us/contact-us/ It's been developmental language disorder week - good piece in The Guardian: https://amp.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2017/sep/22/developmentallanguage-disorder-the-most-common-childhood-condition-youve-never-heard-of Govt launches new enquiry into alternative provision e.g. Pupil referral units https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commonsselect/education-committee/news-parliament-2017/alternative-provision-inquiry-2017-19-/ Update on how LAs are implementing reforms - well worth a look https://contact.org.uk/news-and-media/department-for-education-publishes-latest-forumsend-survey/

What News on the Local Offer?

Express have launched a low-cost counselling service to parents and carers of children with autism and additional needs. If you are interested in this service, please email counselling@expresscic.org.uk

https://www.afcinfo.org.uk/local_offer/blog_articles/1572-a-new-counselling-service-fromexpress-cic Kingston Council is reviewing its transition protocol (the move from children to adults’ services). Please follow this link for more information. https://www.afcinfo.org.uk/local_offer/blog_articles/1579-review-of-kingston-transitionprotocol-survey “The SEN Team continuously review the quality of the service we provide for children and young people with special educational needs or disability (SEND) and their parents/carers so that we can assess our performance and identify areas where improvement may be made.” https://www.afcinfo.org.uk/pages/local-offer/information-and-advice/assessment-andeducation-health-and-care-planning/sen-customer-service-standards

SEND Action Board Since the start of term, it’s marked that our Batphone (as we call the SEND Family Voices phone number) has had a marked increase in queries about local school placements; particularly for those that are both able and have relatively invisible disabilities.

Achieving for Children (AfC) are looking to increase local provision – unfortunately this takes a frustratingly long time.

AfC hold a twice-termly SEND Action Board that reviews the project plans from the SEND Education Review. https://www.afcinfo.org.uk/local_offer/blog_articles/1447-send-education-review?term= We will include a short update in next week’s news.

Dyslexia Richmond Dyslexia’s most recent publication is a quick reference guide providing some useful checklists, websites and suggestions for parents and teachers.

Available to buy £4 (members) £5 (non-members).

E: info@richmonddyslexia.org.uk to order a copy.

Their Autumn programme is detailed here: http://richmonddyslexia.org.uk/index.php/autumn-courseprogramme-2017/ Please contact RDA for any queries about Dyslexia (it doesn’t matter if you’re in Richmond or Kingston, or anywhere…) http://richmonddyslexia.org.uk/ As ever, if you have any queries at all, please ask and we'll always do our best to find an answer.

With best wishes, Caroline North (for Kingston) and Romany (for Richmond) Phone: 07469 746 145 www.sendfamilyvoices.org