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Derbyshire Local Area SEND 0-25

SEND Strategic Board –November 2017 Newsletter

The SEND Strategic Board

The Derbyshire Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategic Board meets 6 times a year and is responsible for identifying, directing and driving forward the strategic priorities for SEND Services across the Derbyshire local area. (Full terms of reference are available*). The Board is made up of a wide range of Stakeholders and Strategic Leads across Education, Health and Social Care including parent/carers.

Minutes of the Board are widely distributed, however, it has been identified that a newsletter which highlights the areas discussed would be helpful as a general update for all those with an interest in this area. It is now planned to produce a newsletter following each Board meeting. This newsletter is a summary of the areas covered at the November 2017 meeting of the Board.

Parent / Carer Feedback

Derbyshire Parent Carer Voice(DPCV) gave an update on the work they have been doing with the local forums. They are also holding ‘Meet the professionals’ events. The last onesin November were with Jayne Hankins the Designated Clinical Officer for Derbyshire which looked at SMART Outcomes. These were held in 3 locations in Derbyshire, Buxton (North), Ripley (Central) and Swadlincote (South). These went well with a good attendance.

Thanks to a grant from NDVA (Derbyshire Voluntary Action) they were able to hold a Christmas themed Health and Wellbeing event in Chesterfield to help parent/carers to focus on their own health and wellbeing for the day. This was a popular event and parent/carers appreciated the time to concentrate on keeping themselves healthy.

DPCV are currently developing an Early Intervention Toolkit which they are hoping will be a collection of resources that professionals working with Children and Young People with SEND will be able to use. This is aimed at when needs have just been identified but will also be able to be used whenever needed. It should also link to and compliment the My SEND Learning Programme.

Feedback on Progress and SEND Local Area Plan

The SEND Local Area Plan*has been updated and was reviewed. Some items are complete, others are in progress and new items have been added. The Quality Assurance and Accountability Group monitors this closely and the document is constantly being updated.

Feeding into and driving the Action Plan is Derbyshire’s Local Area Self Evaluation Summary document. This has been comprehensively updated by all stakeholdersand the updated Self Evaluation Summary* was agreed by the Board.

Data/SEND Indicator Overview

A range of data and SEND indicators were provided to the Board and discussed. Derbyshire’s timeliness at producing EHC Plans within the 20 weeks’ timescale has dropped to 58% which is the national average. This is partly due to the priority work on conversions. Close monitoring of timeliness is in place to improve on this.

Derbyshire still has a large number ofconversions of Statements of SEN to EHC Plansleft to complete. This must be completed by 31st March 2018.Additional capacity is now in place to address this including assistance from external organisations who specialise in this support to Local Authorities and additional agency staff. All those still remaining with Statements will now start the transfer process and a letter has gone out to inform them of this.

SEND Commissioning Hub

The SEND Commissioning Hub has now started using the case study approach and looking at themes in the commissioning work that they are undertaking. They have been reviewing exclusions, tribunals and out of county placements and looking for learning and data to inform commissioning from this.

Related to this;SEND health data and links across the Derbyshire and Derby ‘Footprint’ were discussed. Work has been undertaken with health providers to ensure that consistent data is produced across the whole Derbyshire and Derby ‘Footprint’.

An update was also given on the Derbyshire Transforming Care Plan. This is looking to support those with Learning Disabilities, Autism and Mental Health needs who are at risk of being admitted to hospital and aiming to support their needs in the local community as an alternative.

SEND Home to School Transport Review

Ally Kendrick (the Project Lead) provided a Highlight Report on this project: She is now moving into the engagement phase and starting consultations with stakeholders to test out the feasibility of the options that have come out of the first phase of the review.

SEND Sufficiency Review

The Department for Education has allocated funding to Local Authorities to carry out a detailed review of their High Needs SEND Provision. The SEND Stakeholder group has helped develop the plans regarding this. The Board agreed to a report going to Derbyshire Cabinet to seek Councillors’ approval to go out to tender for this piece of work. This will provide the capacity to undertake this work and also for an independent view of Derbyshire’s High Needs SEND Provision.

Development of the Derbyshire Local Offer Website

Derbyshire’s website was reviewed for a second time as part of a regional peer review programme and there has been substantial improvements noted from the first audit. In the 23 areas being audited; Derbyshire’s site either fully met or partially met all of these. Previously there has been areas where the site was not meeting these requirements. An action plan has been developed to aim to make the site fully meet all of these areas. Some of these improvements will be dependent on the move to the new website platform.

The preferred option for the new platform is now being considered and the Steering Group and Parent Representatives have been invited to meet with the provider to review this prior to making a final decision. Once agreed the site will be re-designed and re-launched.

SEND Needs Assessment

This is a comprehensive report that brings together a range of data and information about the number of children and young people in Derbyshire with SEND, their needs and how they are being supported to achieve their potential. Most of the information and analysis focuses on the County of Derbyshire, however, data relating to local health services also includes Derby City. This reflects the increasing level of joint working in health across this wider geographical footprint.

The full report is 90 pages long. An executive summary was produced for the Board and this was discussed. Various recommendations and actions have been drawn from the report and are captured in the executive summary.

Both documents are available on request.

High Needs Capital Money Allocation

The Department for Education has made available 3 lots of Capital funding which will be released each year for the next three years. This is to be used to increase provision for those with SEND. Other work has identified that provision for those with Autism is a current area of need and priority in Derbyshire. The Board agreed to consult with various stakeholders around the option to use this to invest in provision for those with Autism.

Other reports considered by the Board:

  • Report ‘Good Intentions, Good Enough?’ into residential schools and colleges by Christine Lenehan.
  • Ofsted/CQC: ‘Local Area SEND Inspections one year on’.
  • Association of Directors of Childrens Services Report:‘High Needs Funding Survey’.

All availableon line or on request

31 December 2017

Alex Howlett

Programme Manager SEND Reforms

Contact for further details: 01629 538993

*Those documents marked ‘*’ are available on request please use the email contact details above.