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Education health and care plan (EHCP) pathway redesign update

Published
This autumn, in line with the GCC SEND and inclusion strategies and the government’s green paper priorities for SEND and alternative provision ‘Right support, right place, right time’ we will be making improvements to the EHC pathway to give a better experience for families and practitioners.

EHCP pathway redesign principles:

  • Children and young people with SEND are at the heart of our planning
  • Listening, supporting and coproducing with parents and carers for children with SEND
  • Working collaboratively with schools to provide the child with the right support early
  • Develop an accessible EHCP process that is easy to administer.
  • Develop efficient and accessible digitised improvements for families and professionals.

Piloting of new digital EHCP portals and a new digital EHCP audit tool

We have developed two new digital portals which are secure, one stop shops to make it easier to access EHCP plans and information.  There is a ‘Professionals Portal’ and a ‘Citizens’s Portal’ (for family access). Permissions are granted to allow families, schools and other professionals to view and add documents throughout the process. Therefore, when we rollout, you will be able to track where a case is at, see what the next stage is, and have easy access to all relevant documents.

Throughout the summer term we tested the portals in a pilot with 12 primary schools. From September we have continued our pilot with an additional 14 primary schools and 15 secondary schools. These schools span across Gloucestershire. We are looking to launch the portal to all in January 23.

We are working closely with the schools to regularly review and gain feedback to continue improving the portals before the wider rollout later this year. In addition, to improve the quality of our EHC plans we are piloting a new quality assurance EHCP audit tool which has been successfully implemented elsewhere in the UK.

What difference will this make to you

For both professionals and families, we intend for your experience to be simpler and accessible where plans are available in one place whenever you need it. With increased visibility and transparency you will be able to track the progress of a child’s assessment process, view the status of a plan, and have easy access to relevant documents.

FAQs

Questions most asked by families and professionals on the portals have been posted on the Gloucestershire Local Offer.

Coming soon

EHCP Pathway for Children and Young People - a new snappy visual of the EHCP pathway has also been developed so that children and young people can also see what the pathway looks like and how it works.

A new ‘Children and Young People’s Pledge’ has been produced with children and young people to set out 10 key principles that they want professionals involved in their plan to commit to so that they feel involved and listened to.