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Changes to our education support services
Published
We are making some changes to the way that our teams support children’s special educational needs.
The changes help us increase our focus on meeting need and providing access to the right support, at the right time. To support us in achieving this we have secured additional funding from the Council to increase the capacity and make changes to the structure of our educational psychology and EHCP teams.
There are several drivers for considering alternative ways of designing the service, these include:
- An improved customer journey and person-centred experience for children, young people and families.
- Developing better relationships with our stakeholders.
- Improving the ability to respond to Annual Reviews in a timely and consistent way.
- Increasing capacity in the service to meet the increased demand for statutory processes
- Ensuring equity in access and quality of EHC support for children and young people at all stages of their life.
- Increasing capacity to achieve earlier dispute resolution.
What will be different?
Educational Psychology services
We know that parents and carers value proactive planning for your child’s needs, so we have removed the need for schools to pay for support from our educational psychologist team.
In future, all schools will have a named educational psychologist that will be able to advise schools on early identification of need and good planning of support. Schools will have greater equity of access to EP support. There will also be a particular focus on key stage transitions so that children, families, and schools feel confident in the support provided at these crucial times.
In addition, the service is going to be working with schools more closely to identify their SEN training requirements, putting together training packages to help teachers support the wide range of educational needs.
Education Health and Care, Case Work Teams
We also know that timely communication and information is very important for everyone involved in supporting a young person with special educational needs, particularly when the support required is more than can be provided through a MyPlan or MyPlan+. So, we are making changes to the way that our EHCP team will engage with your family and with schools and settings in the future.
Our EHCP service will have three teams that focus on distinct elements of the EHCP process:
- A team with responsibility for the initial assessment stage and lead on dispute resolution.
- A team with responsibility for pre Year 9 Annual Reviews, phase transfers and ceasing plans, and
- A team with responsibility for Year 9 and above Annual Reviews, transition to adulthood including ceasing plans where support ends.
The assessment and review teams will be supported by the EHCP Support Team currently known as the Process Team. There will be two distinct teams, one will focus on new assessments and the other will focus on Annual Reviews.
These changes mean that we will be able to build in dedicated and knowledgeable support at all stages of a child’s journey through education.
We thank you in advance for your patience as we work through these changes to our services. More detailed information will be circulated to parents, schools, and settings over the next few weeks.