Three Tweets, Gold, Puberty and Scrutiny 3rd November 2016 Dear All Having had a gently reminder from a parent recently, we’ve hopefully minimised the acronyms in this newsletter…
Three Tweets Two parents (Sam and Caroline) from SEND Family Voices attended the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) annual meeting on our behalf. The day covered a lot of information with, unsurprisingly, Education, Health & Care Plans (EHC Plans) being a popular subject for Question Time. ie The spirit of the reforms is a great idea. The implementation is another matter. As it stands, the Department for Education (DfE) expect all Statements to be transferred to EHC Plans by March 2018. No exceptions. But… this is nationally proving to be a near impossible task – certainly hard to do and ensure quality and legality. The DfE are determined not to extend the deadline (so in theory all Statements not transferred will cease to be legal documents by March 2018) but the DfE might offer local authorities more funding. Surely, extending the deadline would make for better plans – and a better long term implementation?? Our attendees’ views were clear to the DfE representative. On the plus side, it’s good to know that co-production is still the way forward! TWEET#1 We're networking today at the National Network of Parent Carer Forums #letsparticipate. 90% of the country represented here – lots to talk about, lots to learn. TWEET#2 Department for Education #letsparticpate pledges: we will continue to ... coproduce, listen, work with parents, act on feedback and intervene where things aren't working. TWEET#3 DfE: 'EHC official timescale data only includes new EHCs. DfE will be monitoring March 2018 deadline for transfers, as not being extended.' More top-up money to come? #hopeful #letsparticipate
Golden Binder updates News from the Golden Binder Process Governance group (a multi-professional group jointly chaired by SEND Family Voices and Achieving for Children). A more detailed e-mail has been sent to every SENCo and major stakeholder. The highlights are: “When we launched the Golden Binder last April, we committed to reviewing it every 6 months to update any aspects of the forms or guidance that users were telling us needed improvement. We have just concluded that review process for the first time and are reissuing certain chapters of the guidance as well as many of the forms. The main changes that have been made are: