News, Good News & Videos 11th December 2015 Dear All There always seems to be so much! Co-production Rocks! (see Accessibility Strategy)
SEND Ofsted Readiness Once upon a time, there was a Government Green Paper (= a set of proposals published to provoke discussion) intent on becoming the Children’s and Families Act – the idea being to overhaul the SEND law and make it more useful, purposeful and friendly. This goes by the name of the SEND Reforms. In Richmond, from October 2012, there was a SEND Action Group, steered by Simon James; a mix of education, health, social care and families who worked together to develop templates for Education, Health & Care Plans, principles for the Local Offer and practical trials for Personal Budgets and more. At some point in 2013, this began concurrently in Kingston (still steered by Simon James). From September 2014, this group became the SEND Implementation Group; the Bill had become an Act and was now Law. This group had merged across Kingston and Richmond (alongside Achieving for Children operating across Kingston & Richmond) and was now coming to terms with the implications and challenges of such a huge change in culture and process. There’s still a lot to be done (reference our “399 & counting” entry in the Dear All dated 1st Dec.) This week… the group has changed its name again. Still steered by Simon James and still including families. Most of the faces are still familiar and it’s called the SEND Ofsted Readiness group. The SEND Ofsted is the ‘accountability framework’ around the SEND Reforms – meaning “How are Local Areas measuring up? What are they doing well and what are the challenges?” There’s nothing like an inspection at short notice to cheer the statutory services… hence the need to be Ready!! The first inspections will start in May 2016. The inspections will be five days and will involve the usual scrutiny of data and processes. Plus working with the local parent/carer forums to hear the views of families; locally this is SEND Family Voices. So… parents, carers, children and young people are ‘still in the room’, working on this project (to our ears, this is another opportunity to make things better!). There are AfC leads focussing on particular elements – parents, carers, children & young people will play a part in these (not specified how yet – but ‘engagement’ is one of the aspects the Local Area will be measured upon). These elements are: Early Years Special Educational Needs Schools Health Social Care Preparing for Adulthood - which includes how children’s services prepare for young people to enter Adult Services. Adult services (post-18) are operated by the local Councils, not Achieving for Children (AfC).