Co-chairs Tina Emery, Mrunal Sisodia, with the incoming co-chair Sarah Clarke, recently met with SEND AP Implementation Board. Which was chaired by Minster Claire Coutinho. This was the first meeting to be held.
The Board will be jointly chaired by the children’s Minster Claire Coutinho and the mental health Minster Maria Caulfield.
The Board is made up of various experts across the SEND sector to offer support, challenge and solutions to the work set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) improvement plan
The Board will be responsible for challenging the priority areas of work and supporting the rigor and pace that is required for progression of improvement plan.
The priorities of areas of work discussed at the meeting were:
- The importance of Local Plans and Partnerships which determine the priorities of an area across all sectors to successfully deliver the plans for improvements. The NNPCF raised the need for Parent Carer Forums and the lived experience to be central to these discussions, so that improvements were coproduced.
- National Standards and their role in reducing post code lotteries across education and health services ensuring consistent high quality support. The need for a clear understanding of what ‘good’ looked like and importance of that shared national understanding was also discussed.
- How workforce capacity and capability played a vital role in determining that there is sufficient workforce in the right areas to support change.
- The standardisation and digitisation of the EHCP process and the requirements required to implement successfully.
National SEND and alternative provision implementation board – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)