Local Offer, Personal Budgets, Open Meetings and links 9th April 2015
Dear All More news on the above, plus a confirmation of who will be co-hosting the Open Meetings (see far below). Please feel free to circulate this e-mail to your own groups and networks. The Local Offer The Local Offer website continues apace. The User feedback group includes a number of individual parents across both Richmond and Kingston, as well as specific groups including Richmond Dyslexia, Richmond ADHD, Express CIC, TRAPHIC, RPCAG and LEAD Kingston (total is currently 25 individuals/representatives in the group). We looked at a couple of screen shots of dummy home pages for the Local Offer. Neither were complete and both were for discussion. The User group's initial comments mostly preferred the layout of the Photo page, but with the informality of the Sketchy page (but not the orange!). The group is in agreement that the domain address should reflect the locality (ie Kingston or Richmond). This may not be possible in the short term, but will be post-1st May. The current site map is below. This whole project is 'living' and under constant development. The intention is to have something working for 1st May; we will then slow down the pace and organise wider co-production and participation events in the community. The Local Offer must serve all families of children/young people with additional needs - not just those with statements or EHCPs.
If you would like to be a part of this early development, please reply to this e-mail - either as an individual or as representative of a group.
Below is a statement from Simon James on the Local Offer: Re. Local Offer I am writing in order to provide an update on the SEND Local Offer in Richmond and Kingston. I would firstly like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all families that have already had such a significant role in co-creating the content for the Local Offer. As we continue to develop and evolve the Local Offer, I am confident that this partnership will continue with the same quality. The publication of the Local Offer is phased. The first phase of this is complete and is available via the Richmond and Kingston Council websites. Please find the links to this: Richmond Local Offer: http://www.richmond.gov.uk/send Kingston Local Offer: http://www.kingston.gov.uk/info/200247/supporting_disabled_children_and_their_famil ies The second phase of the process will deliver a fully integrated Local Offer for Achieving for Children. This is currently being developed and will go live on 1 May. I will ensure that the link for this is widely shared. As always, I value any feedback from families in this and any other issue relating to SEND. Kind regards, Simon Simon James Associate Director, Special Educational Needs and Disability Achieving for Children providing children’s services for Kingston and Richmond Phone: 020 8891 7599 Email: simon.james@achievingforchildren.org.uk Personal Budgets The SEND Reforms include the opportunity for all parents of children/young people with an Education, Health & Care Plan to request a Personal Budget. This can be fairly daunting and there is help for families interested in this. This help comes from Sophie Marshall at KCIL and her details are below. Whilst Sophie's hours are equal to 2.5 days per week - Sophie is very flexible about those hours and has made a commitment to respond to e-mails on the same day (it might not be until midnight!!). Also, because this is such a new area, Sophie is very happy to discuss any queries parents or young people have about Personal Budgets - what might work, what might not. Including... what a Personal Budget is. Sophie has written, with the family's permission, a case study of a family who chose to take a Personal Health Budget (with her support) and the difference it made to their lives. This is included at the end of this bulletin. Sophie Marshall
sophie.marshall@kcil.org.uk
Tel: 020 8481 1448
Open Meetings Our programme of Open Meetings begins next Friday 17th April - and the link to the schedule is below (needless to say, I will be sending lots of reminders). This is a great opportunity to listen to an overview of the changes, the new templates and forms - and then to ask questions. We've planned that over half the meeting time is an open forum. www.richmondsendfamilyvoice.org/events Anna Chiva, Head of SEN Services, is planning to attend every meeting, with one of her Principals (so two SEN Team members at each event). Eamonn Gilbert (for Post-16 education commissioning) will be attending on 20th, 30th April and 1st, 11th, 15th May. Sophie Marshall (for Personal Budgets) be attending the meetings on 17th, 24th April and 11th May. And there will be an Independent Supporter at every single meeting. Links... Attached, and the link is below, is the CDC current newsletter. It's quite long, but full of other links and resources. Also if, like me, you spend time trawling the net for different resources, it's helpful to know that the Government has now announced the contracts and grant holders who will be supporting the implementation of the SEN and disability reforms in 2015-16. A list of 'who's doing what' is in this digest: http://www.councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/news/january-june-2015/the-spring-edition-ofour-digest-is-now-available Contact a Family have published the dates for rolling out the Personal Independence Payment (which replaces the Disability Living Allowance): http://www.cafamily.org.uk/news-and-media/timetable-for-roll-out-of-pip-to-rest-of-britain-isannounced/ And for families of young children, the Communications Trust have published their latest resources: https://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/early-years As ever, should you have any questions at all, please ask and I'll do my best to find an answer. With best wishes, Romany www.richmondsendfamilyvoice.org RSFV phone: 07469 746 145
Personal Health Budget Case Study In 2014/2015 the Kingston Centre for Independent Living (KCIL) ran a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) pilot on behalf of the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Achieving for Children (AfC). The pilot’s aim was to support families who were eligible for a personal budget to explore the options a budget would bring and then write and implement a support plan if they wished to. One Kingston family applied for a Personal Health Budget (PHB) as they wanted to try and tailor their support to meet their specific needs. The child in question has complex health needs and as a result the family were assessed as needing three 10 hour night shifts covered a week so that the parents would be able to rest. At the time the family were receiving a care package funded by the CCG and implemented by a care provider nominated by the CCG. Although the support was vital for the family, it was not ideal. The mother felt uncomfortable leaving her child alone with a carer throughout the night so she had started requesting the carers come in for a few hours during the day instead. Due to the nature of agency cover, staff turnover was noted as being an issue. The child in question has dual sensory loss, which meant that he would rely on minimal vision and smell to recognise people. Mum was concerned that he may begin to feel anxious if he was unable to recognise the carers who were changing his feed and providing personal care. After receiving the budget the family were introduced to the support broker at KCIL. The broker and family worked together to develop a plan that would allow a weekly increase of 20% in support hours as well as weekly hydrotherapy sessions for the child. The CCG requirements stated that the staff needed to be trained to appropriate standards so the budget also included full training for all carers. The support plan was approved by the panel and KCIL’s Self Directed Support Service (SDS) supported the mother to appoint and train staff as well as manage insurance and set-up paperwork. Timetables that were more appropriate for the family were worked out and carers started attending to provide support. After a few months of working with the initial support plan, the family altered the plan to again increase their hours of support in exchange for the hydrotherapy. Overall this resulted in an increase of 30% in hours with the family now receiving 39 hours throughout the week. There were initial set up challenges, mainly concerning appropriate recruitment, but when asked if moving to a PHB was the right thing to do the family agree they continue to be happy with their decision. If you have any questions, or want to discuss what having a personal budget could mean to you please email Sophie Marshall sophie.marshall@kcil.org.uk