LOCAL REFERRAL PROTOCOL

Background to the Service

Independent Support is a national programme commissioned by the Department of Education through the Council for Disabled Children.

Its main aim is to support children and young people up to 25 years old and their parents and carers, through the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reforms. There is a specific focus onchildren and young people with statements of special educational needs (SEN) and learning difficulty assessments (LDAs) who will be converting to an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan), along with any new requests for EHC needs assessments.

Within Trafford, the Independent Support team is led by Voluntary and Community Action Trafford (VCAT) who are providing the infrastructure support and is managed by another local organisation, Wraparound Partnership, who have extensive experience in providing support to parents, children and young people who have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

The role of Independent Support isto support parents, children and young people through the process of the development of an EHC Plan, and to support parents and young people to facilitate the coordination and liaison across a range of agencies to help gather the required information for the EHC Plan.

The service is 100% independent and is tailored to the needs and circumstances of the individual and their parents and/or carers.

Our Service

We aim to:

  • Focus on high aspirations for the child or young person.
  • Put the views, wishes and feelings of the child, young person and their parents/carers first.
  • Be family friendly.
  • Be as convenient as possible.
  • Be readily accessible.
  • Have a person-centred approach.
  • Have a good multi-agency working ethos.
  • Be independent of the local authority.
  • Work closely with all key partners in the authority to ensure a joined up support service.

The Team

We are a large team, made up of people who have a wide variety of experience, knowledge and skills. Staff come from a variety of backgrounds, are able to speak other languages and can provide interpretation services if necessary. Our Independent Supporters undertake intensive training provided by Wraparound Partnership and the Council for Disabled Children. We follow all VCAT’s stringent policies and procedures including data protection, confidentiality, safeguarding and complaints procedures. All staff have an up to date enhanced DBS certificate.

What We Do

  • Support the parent or young person to transfer from a Statement of SEN or LDA to an EHC Plan.
  • Support the parent or young person who is new to the EHC process.
  • Support the parent or young person to understand the local offer and personal budgets.
  • Act as a named contact person for the parent or young person throughout the assessment and planning process.
  • Liaise across a range of agencies to gather information for the EHC Plan.
  • Support the parent or young person in contributing to the EHC Plan.
  • Signpost to other services if necessary.

How We Work

  • We can meet children, parents and young people at any time of day that is convenient to them.
  • We can meet children, parents and young people at a community location, their home or school, wherever is the most appropriate place.
  • We can also meet in our offices in Old Trafford.

Developing Relationships

  • We actively encourage parents and young people to contact the service, even if just to ask questions.
  • We are developing our relationships with education, health and social care agencies in order to publicise the service as widely as possible.
  • We are developing our relationships with other local organisations and support groups within Trafford so that we make our services known to as many eligible families, children and young people as possible.

Flexibility

Parents, Children and Young people with special educational needs and disabilities are rightly at the very centre of the planning for their future. The Education, Health and Care Plan is about them, their needs and aspirations for the future.

We are flexible enough to offer support to parents, children and young people, through a variety of means.

Our service is fully committed to working in partnership with all involved in aiming to ensure their EHC Plan reflects that.

Limitations of the Service

  • We only support those families, children and young people who are transferring to EHC Plans, or who are new entrants to the system.
  • We can only support parents and young people through the EHC development process, we cannot advise the parents or young person if any areas of dispute arise.
  • We must adhere to the legal timeframe for the development of EHC Plans.
  • We are time-limited in our support and though very flexible in our approach, have set an average support time frame per family, child or young person of 10 hours, but we are realistic enough to know that some EHC Plans will be more complex to develop than others.

Referrals

We actively encourage self-referrals from parents and young people.

We also accept referrals from any other statutory provider or agency working with the child or young person as long as the agency have the parent or young person’s consent for the referral.

For our service to be as easily accessible as possible we have aimed to make the referral process as simple as possible, as much of the information will be gathered from the parents, child or young person themselves.

The Process

A parent, young person or any other statutory provider or agency can contact us the following ways:

Telephone:0161 872 6879

(9am-4pm answerphone out of hours)

Email:

Write: Independent Support Service, Ground Floor – East, Oakland House, Talbot Road, Manchester, M16 0PQ

Social Media: @IS_trafford

Initially, we will requirethe following information:

Name: Young person/child

Name:Parent(s)

Contact:Telephone/Address

DOBAge/ School Year

Consent:Approved by

Referral:Contact name and details

Once we have a referral, we will assign an Independent Supporter. The Independent Supporter will then contact the family and arrange an initial visit.

We aim to contact families and/or young people by the end of the next working day of receiving the referral, if there is no contact made by the parents, or young person for 5 working days following our initial contact, we will assume that the service is not needed and will return the referral to the original agency.