Hampshire Parent
Partnership Service
Annual Report
September 2011 to August 2012
Impartial advice, information and support to parents and carers of children and young people with special educational needs
Note: reference to “parents” in this report includes
“parents and carers”
What is the Parent Partnership Service?
The Parent Partnership Service provides confidential and impartial advice, information and support to parents/carers of children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) throughout Hampshire. Our service is available to all families for whom special educational needs plays a part.
The Parent Partnership Service aims to ensure that parents play an informed part in planning provision to meet their child’s special educational needs. We aim to build partnerships between parents, the LEA and schools. We also encourage parents to be involved in the development of local SEN policy and practice.
What help can the Parent Partnership Service give?
Calls to the Parent Partnership Service are very varied and range from parents/carers who have concerns about the progress their child is making in school, to parents of children with complex difficulties.
Our approach is to provide the information and advice parents require to make decisions, explore the possible options with them and assist them to get their views across on an equal basis with the professionals who are making provision for their child.
Through this we aim to build good working relationships between school staff, other professionals and parents to help and support their child.
We can help by providing information, advice and support to parents at all stages of their child’s school life, from pre-school early diagnosis through to leaving school.
Parents seek our support for a wide variety of reasons, including statutory assessment, during transition into school and through the four key stages. We also offer help when a child or young person with special educational needs has been excluded.
The Service offers:
-a confidential helpline
-Provision of accurate, user friendly information on special educational needs
-help for parents/carers to express their views
-support through the statutory assessment process
-help to complete forms and to understand complex documents and reports
-home visits and support at meetings
-presentations to support groups
-special needs information days
-information about other services and voluntary organisations available to support parents
Many parents will contact the Service on more than one occasion during their child’s school life, for instance during the statutory assessment process, during transition between key stages and when the annual review of their child’s statement is due.
Our mission statement
Our mission
-to provide impartial advice information and support to parents, carers, pupils, schools and other partners within Hampshire
Our priority
-to assist parents and carers who, for a range of reasons, face barriers in becoming an equal partner in their child’s education
-to ensure that the views of parents, carers and children inform policy and the development of provision
Our aims
-to respect and value the views of all partners
-to seek resolution to disagreement
-to provide objective, balanced and impartial information and advice
-to provide an initial response to all enquiries within two working days
The Team
The Parent Partnership Officers come from a wide range of backgrounds and have a broad knowledge of education and special educational needs. They are Julie Riley, Tesni Mason, Sue Waterman and Helen Alport, with admin support from Elaine Fish.
The team has considerable experience of working with families, schools, the Local Authority and voluntary organisations.
Helen Alport (full time) covers the Basingstoke, Tadley, Farnborough, Fleet, Odiham, Yateley, Aldershot and Andover areas
Julie Riley (term time, 3 days per week) and Tesni Mason (term time, 4 days per week) cover the Fareham, Gosport, Titchfield, Portchester, Locks Heath, Havant, Horndean, Waterlooville, Hayling Island, Clanfield, Cowplain, Emsworth, Bordon, Alton, Eastleigh and Petersfield areas
Sue Waterman (term time, 4 days per week) covers the Winchester, Chandler's Ford, Romsey, Totton, Ringwood, Lymington, Lyndhurst, Fordingbridge and New Milton areas.
Independent Parental Supporters
Ourvolunteer Independent Parental Supporters (IPSs) have provided valuable support to help us to cover our work load during the year. We currently have 21 fully trained IPSs. All our volunteers are CRB checked.
The support provided by our IPSs includes helping parents with:
-their contributions to the statutory assessment of their child
-their responses to proposed statements
-their annual review contributions, and
-attendance at meetings with school staff or the Local Authority
We have continued to recruit new volunteers throughout the year and before they are asked to support parents, they are given a whole day training session, covering a range of topics relating to the Parent Partnership Service, the IPS role and SEN processes.
Ongoing supervision is offered to all our IPSs, on a half termly basis, and each IPS is expected to attend at least one supervision session per term. We also offer termly training opportunities on a range of issues relating to special educational needs.
Attached to this report (Appendix A) are articles by two of our IPSs, giving a flavour of what is involved when they take a referral on our behalf.
How parents hear about us
Over the years, Hampshire Parent Partnership Service has been working hard to ensure that parents and carers are aware of our existence as soon as they have any concerns about their child. We have our own leaflet and logo, and we are continually updating and adding to our website whichnow includes a series of fact sheets on SEN issues, such as School Action (Plus) and statutory assessment, our Annual Report and details about past and future Special Needs Information Days. We have developed confidentiality and impartiality policies which are also available to view on the website.
Parents are advised about us by their child’s school and by other parents, or through other professionals such as:
-the Educational Psychologist
-the Special Educational Needs Service
-paediatricians
-voluntary organisations.
However, feedback indicates that some parents would have appreciated knowing about us sooner than they did, so we continue to raise awareness about our Service by:
meeting with parent support groups
exhibiting at information events held by schools and voluntary organisations
joining professionals at their team meetings and training days
liaising with voluntary organisations and
holding workshops about the Service at conferences.
We have been supported by our invaluable Independent Parental Supporters who have attended some of these events on our behalf.
To give a flavour of the ways we have been publicising our service, some of the events we have been involved in during 2011/12 were:
Newly Qualified Teachers Conferences, Winchester
Visits to support groups for parents of children with SEN throughout Hampshire
AFASIC conference and workshops, Southampton
Carers Week event, Eastleigh
Mini-Olympics Day for parents of adopted children, Southampton
Since 1997, we have been holding Special Needs Information Days, organised jointly with Contact a Family in Hampshire. These annualfree events are generally held in April, in different parts of the county each year. As well as visiting the exhibition area, parents have the opportunity to attend workshops and talks on a variety of topics relating to special needs. Year on year, these days have grown in popularity and are becoming a useful source of information and advice for both parents and practitioners.
A separate report about the Special Needs Information Day held in Petersfield on Saturday 24 March 2012 is available via our website: Next year’s event will be held on Saturday 27 April 2013 at The Mountbatten School, Romsey.
When parents ask for help
(see Chart nos. 1a and 1b: Referral Reason Statistics)
Parents contact the Service for a wide variety of reasons, including:
-provision and support in school
-Inclusion Partnership Agreements
-Statutory assessment
-Statement issues
-Annual reviews
-School choice and transition at primary and secondary stages
-Transition to post 16
Note: the reference to “support in school” in Chart nos. 1a and 1b includes issues around School Action and School Action Plus, Early Identification and concerns about provision in school for children with statements of special educational needs.
The remaining charts in this report identify:
-the age of children whose parents ask for our help (Charts 2a and 2b)
-the educational need of the child (Charts 3a and 3b)
-a more detailed picture of the needs of the children whose parents we have supported throughout the year (Charts 4a and 4b)
Note: The categories of need shown in Charts 3a and 3b are those defined by the Department for Education in the SEN Code of Practice, and will generally reflect the child’s primary needs, as described by their families to us. However, many children are affected by a range of difficulties which are not reflected in the statistics. For example, the category of BESD will include many referrals relating to children with autism and communication issues, and vice versa.
Hard to reach families
Parent Partnership is committed to helping parents who have traditionallyfound it hard to access services. These families include:
-parents who have special educational needs or disabilities themselves
-single parents
-very young parents
-those living in poor housing
-unemployed
-ethnic minorities
-travelling families
We often take referrals from other agencies requesting that we support these families for a variety of reasons relating to educational issues about which they feel they don’t have the expertise.
We work with the Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service and external agencies, such as Lingland, to ensure that parents who do not have English as their first language have interpreters for meetings or to talk through issues such as statutory assessment which affect their child in school. Arrangements are made for reports, statements and leaflets to be translated when necessary.
A lot of these families remain hard to reach and we continue to look at different ways of making sure the Service reaches everyone who needs it.
Monitoring and evaluation
Shortly after the end of each term, we send questionnaires to parents who we have supported during that period. We invite them to give us their views on the support we have provided, in order to gauge the degree of satisfaction with the service and to identify areas for development.
The completed questionnaires received back from parents with whom we have had contact during the last school year indicate that:
-92% thought that the support and information they received was impartial
-90% would call us again for help
-90% would tell other parents about us
The following are some examples of comments received during the year from parents in response to question “the best thing about the Parent Partnership Service is …”
-It was a great help when I had no idea where or what to do next.
-The help we have been given by the Parent Partnership has been invaluable.
-They listen to you as they understand that you know your child. They also understand and explain the procedure of the statement process clearly.
-Since I have dealt with Parent Partnership I have received constant support and that is so valuable with a son like mine and has been so helpful to myself through difficult decisions.
-Having someone to support you during difficult times. Having the option to have them present at difficult meetings.
-That they listen and understand that I am trying to get the best for my child.
-Friendly, helpful advisors. Not judgemental.
-The people are very helpful and they know just the correct things to say to the teachers to get the ball rolling. No-one seemed to listen to us alone. We really did need your help and thanks to you things are looking up.
-The knowledge of the staff relating to SEN/statutory assessment/statement process.
-The lovely support and understanding! It made me feel good to have support writing the report.
-When you feel you don’t know what to do next or which way to turn, they are there to help and advise on the way forward.
-The way you make a parent feel when you first make contact with you. Very professional, approachable, prompt, impartial, constructive, supportive, caring, sensitive manner to parents’/carers’ needs. Deal with problems efficiently, confidentially in an unbiased honest way. Just a phone call or email away for any problems what may arise or updates either way. You all very good at keeping in touch.
Although it is difficult to quantify the impact of the support we give to parents, the responses we receive from our questionnaires, plus the informal feedback show that, as a result of our support, parents:
-feel able to ask questions, arrange meetings and contact other organisations
-make informed choices about decisions being made for their child
-feel supported and better able to understand what is happening when the PPS joins them at meetings
-have a better understanding of processes and jargon.
The Service has its own Integrated Services Plan (ISP), which in turn is linked to Hampshire Local Authority’s ISP. Our targets are reviewed and monitored on an annual basis.
The Service takes part in an annual benchmarking exercise undertaken by the National Parent Partnership Network (NPPN). This has enabled comparison with national and regional services as well as statistical neighbours. The NPPN national benchmarking reports are available to view on their website, under “Useful Documents”. Hampshire Parent Partnership Service’s analysis of the benchmarking data is available on request.
Informing policy and practice
Parent Partnership Services have always been expected to play a part in informing and influencing policy and practice. There is an increasing emphasis on parent consultation and involvement in the planning and delivery of Children’s Services. We are well placed, through our work, to ensure that parents’ views are represented at a strategic level and to help the local authority to be aware of their concerns.
Summary
We have learnt from our work that parental trust and confidence in our Service comes through a number of things:
-the impartiality and confidentiality of the Service
-the ability to start at the point of a parent’s perception of what is happening
-the knowledge and expertise of the staff
-the ability and willingness to act as a critical friend to schools, the LA and parents when necessary
-ongoing professional development
-ability to signpost to other agencies when relevant.
Parent Partnership ServiceTel: 01962 845870
Hampshire County Councilemail:
Elizabeth II Court
Winchester SO23 8UG
Appendix A
(The names mentioned in these two articles are fictitious)
NOTES FROM AN INDEPENDENT PARENTAL SUPPORTER’S
CASE FILE
Thursday: Phone message from PPS. Support requested at Annual Review next Tuesday. Apologies for short notice, Mum has just heard of PPS from a friend. She has concerns about behaviour problems. Reply agreeing to support. Will phone Mum as time too short for usual home visit. Standard docs in post, in meantime preliminary info by e-mail. Received.
Re: Callum G (dob 12/08/04) Year 3 at Well Lane Juniors
NoteSummer birthday: young for age group
Statement criteria: Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulty. Awaiting diagnosis re Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Friday: Phone call to Mum. Callum got on OK at Infants but change of school was a difficult time. Several incidents occurred at school in Autumn Term.
Werereports for the meeting sent to parents in advance?
Reports to be available at the meeting
Usual lapse in procedure. Ignore. Move on.
According to Mum, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) seems to think Callum should be in a SpecialSchool. Mum anxious for him to remain in mainstream.
Statement specifies 15 hours Learning Support Assistant (LSA) time.
How is this time distributed and utilised?
Callum is becoming more difficult at home. Flare-ups when frustrated. “Always insists on doing his own thing”. Mum welcomes support as a number of people are expected at the meeting. Agreed to meet in school car park half an hour before meeting for personal introduction, signing of IPS Scheme Agreement and quick scan of Statement.
Tuesday: Annual Review meeting taken by SENCO. Also present Head Teacher (HT), Class Teacher(CT), LSA, and Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) who sees Callum once a week. LSA supports in class and withdraws Callum for 1:1 work three times a week.
Partially completed Review report form and reports from CT and LSA given out. Notes of observation visit by EP available. Nothing from CAMHS yet. No mention of SpecialSchool by SENCO.
Misunderstanding by Mum?
HT reassured Mum that Callum has settled and is happy at school. He is making progress academically and socially. She confirmed no intention of suggesting a special school alternative for him this stage.She agreed to keep Mum informed of any significant behaviour incidents. No recommendations were to be made re Statement provision.
(Later) Mum felt presence of IPS gave her more confidence in raising and discussing issues
Wednesday: Note of proceedings e-mailed to PPS for database.
WORKING WITH A TYPICAL FAMILY AND CHILD
A recent case was referred regarding a preschool child (John) who had a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome.
John was already known to Parent Partnership. Support had been given when a request for a Statement of Educational Needs had been turned down and the family wanted some support in contesting this through the appeals process.