On Tuesday 10 January 2023, The NNPCF Steering Group (SG) met with the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, Clare Coutinho, via Teams.
This was the first time the minister had met the SG and we wanted to inform her what we had been hearing from our forum membership.
It was an excellent opportunity to give an overview of the work that the SG has been involved in, what the challenges are to the SEND system, but also the good production work that has been happening.
We know that in order to make the change to the SEND system, it has to be done in coproduction.
We gave the minister a brief overview of the NNPCF, our membership and the number of forums that we have, their locations and how they are split into regions.
We then spoke to her about the top issues forums have been raising via our regional meetings.
The subjects included:
Access to community-based health services – including access to speech and language therapy (SALT), Autism and ADHD pathways and paediatricians.
Cost of living – how this affects parent carers differently. Not being able to work more hours due to caring responsibilities, the need to use electricity for live saving equipment, the need to keep the heating on constantly as some of our children cannot move independently or regulate their temperatures.
SEN Support and EHCPs – this included the lack of reasonable adjustments in school that can lead to the rise of low attendance, and the need for EHCPs. EHCPs taking longer than the statutory 20 weeks and having to wait months for annual reviews to be completed.
We then talked about the coproduction examples we have in our annual report
In Cornwall they were the first year of the key work project that is now in it’s 3rd year. They have just completed their evaluation. There have been no negative responses to the evaluation. Parent carers, young people and practitioners agree, that the keyworker project is not only needed, its life changing. We have cases of families who are risk of being admitted into tier 4 beds and families who are at risk of going into crisis- this project has saved them. We have children and young people who could have gone into tier 4 beds who are now at university.
In Telford & Wrekin – PODS Parent Carer Forum identified a gap in provision for families whose child was awaiting an assessment on neurodevelopment pathways. They worked together with Educational Psychologist (EP) team and ran support sessions (in person and online) for families to support them with ‘Challenges at Home’. These were based on feedback from families via Annual Surveys. The sessions covered support around anxiety, routines, behaviour and wider concerns within the family. Further evidence was identified, and they have also ran 1:1 sessions. Funding was agreed for two years for the project and this was made available from health
In West Sussex they have established a relationship with Chichester University where they train teachers and SENCo’s. They regularly join sessions and talk through what good practice looks like and what parents carers have encountered. Bringing real life stories to the classroom has had a huge impact on the trainees. They have now been asked to do the same with trainee social workers too.
The session concluded with a discussion on the next steps for the green paper. There is concern, not just in the system, but with parent carers too about what happens next. There is much anticipation for the green paper response and there is concern.
The minister fully engaged with the conversations and reassured the SG that SEND was a priority for her, as was the green paper response.
We are in communication with her office, and hope that she will join us in person at our conference, in Bristol on 28 February.
