Inspectors’ findings on SEND offer in Shropshire

Inspectors have given their thoughts about the special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND) local offer in Shropshire.

David Mills and Gareth Dakin, from Ofsted, and Lesley Parry from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), spoke to leaders, children and young people with SEND, their families, and the education, health and care professionals who work with them.

The information gathered will be used when writing a national report that sets out the inspectors’ findings.

The local offer is a single place for information, services, and resources for children and young people aged 0 to 25 with SEND, and their families and practitioners who support them.

The visits were to gain insight into how the local area partnerships develop and review the SEND local offer, to learn from existing practice, and to identify opportunities for improvement.

The inspectors were told that work is ongoing to reduce waiting times for services for children with neurodevelopmental needs and those needing support from speech and language therapy services.

However, according to the inspectors, some parents and carers said that the intended impact of these service developments are still to be communicated to them and to be experienced positively by families.

“We heard how leaders from education, health and care use a shared data dashboard, which paired with the joint strategic needs analysis (JSNA), is enabling them to commission appropriate services to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND,” said the inspectors.

“We were told that there is a clear focus on early intervention and prevention.

“We heard that the JSNA is robust, well informed and co-produced with commissioners, the ICB and parent carer forum (PCF). However, we heard from some parents and carers that this strategic work is yet to be felt fully by them or their children.”

The inspectors added that geographical and other barriers create difficulties for some families when accessing local offer services.

“We learned that the partnership uses a systematic approach when introducing new initiatives in order to establish improved initiatives steadily,” they said.

“School leaders told us that they trust the partnership’s approach to take time to get things right.

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“For example, developments in the local offer such as outreach support which has been implemented to strengthen inclusion in schools and improvements in alternative provision quality assurance.”

The partnership sends surveys to parents and carers to gather their views about the local offer and to inform them about their understanding of services and support available to them.

“However, some stakeholders, such as schools, do not know the outcome of the partnership’s survey findings,” said the inspectors.

“We were also told about how the partnership attempts to gather parent’s and carer’s views and feedback in other ways. For example, the Education, Health and Care EHC plan annual review template includes a feedback form.

“However, again, schools report that they do not know the outcome of this feedback.”

Inspectors were also told that parents and carers’ engagement increases through social media, rather than the local offer website.

“Repeatedly, when speaking to stakeholders, including partnership leaders, we heard that professionals have identified that families want to be part of communities of support, including when online, and the local offer website does not offer a sense of community through a static website,” said the inspectors.

They added that communication between education providers, EHC plan caseworkers and social care professionals has strengthened over time, with regular information sharing and joint reviews of support.

“Within education, we heard about the wide range services and support available to parents, carers and professionals through the local offer,” said the inspectors.

“However, professionals highlighted that new services are sometimes launched without sufficient referral guidance or training.

“In addition, professionals supporting parents and carers emphasised that the wide range of support available through the local offer website can be overwhelming and, at times, difficult to navigate or search.”

Shropshire Council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee will discuss the findings on July 1.