Further plans
20. Plans for 2023
In addition to continuing with business-as-usual work, the SEND Local Offer team will be working on the following projects and initiatives in the coming year:
Engagement, co-production and feedback:
- Launch the annual review survey for young people. This will be accompanied by a video produced by and featuring local young people and a guide for annual reviews written by local young people for young people. We have a number of young people who are very keen and excited to be involved in this
- Build on engagement with children and young people by growing membership of the SEND youth forum and having ongoing project work. We will also investigate the option of SEND Champions within schools and settings that can come together in cross-setting meetings and be representatives for the wider SEND community at their settings
- Continue to capture the voice of parent carers, young people with SEND and professionals and feedback to management and decision makers
- Support the refresh of the co-production charter
Content on the SEND Local Offer pages:
- Work with young people with SEND and continue work with parent carers to develop information pages on the SEND Local Offer for a range of specific conditions
- Develop visual `route maps`to help parent carers navigate the SEND system. Work has already begun on this. LORG also suggested a range of videos, including those that use animation and interactive graphics. For example, a new interactive Flowchart for the EHCP Assessment process and what to expect as a parent with a newly diagnosed child. As mentioned in the Local Offer pages section of this report, we have already started to create video's but will continue to do this
- Improve information for young people on the Local Offer. A review of this has already been undertaken by our volunteer who is a young person who has drafted new text, and some parent carers and professionals have also given their views on what should be included through a Your Local Offer Your Way session. LORG suggested having a section that can be updated and maintained by young people with SEND, for young people with SEND, so we will investigate this option
- Recreate some documents that are currently attached to the Local Offer pages as web pages to improve accessibility
- Improve the key word search facility on the website
- Involve service users in a re-design of the look and feel of the website
- Develop guidance information about private assessments and reports as this is an area that we have been told is not currently clear
- Publish stories from families and young people with SEND that are happy to share their journey. This suggestion came from a LORG meeting
- Audit all directory records on the SEND Local Offer, checking relevance, accuracy and how the records are categorised
- Complete actions to resolve issues identified by the Local Offer advice and guidance page accessibility audit carried out between October and December 2022. This will include rewriting information which currently has a Flesch-Kinkaid score of under 60 to improve readability
- Review the content of a number of pages on the website (particularly those noted as needing development in the SE7) and add to them to ensure they are sufficiently detailed
- Recreate some documents that are currently word attachments as web-pages
- Encourage providers to do 360 degree tours of their provision that can be posted on the website so children and young people know what to expect. Club Ink have already created a video. This suggestion came from a LORG meeting
Other actions:
- Finalise the Local Offer section of the action plan that will underpin the Southend SEND Partnership Strategy. Linked to this, we will also update the SEND Local Offer comms plan. Focused communications and marketing activities will be undertaken to continue to increase awareness of the SEND Local Offer and news channels among parent carers, young people with SEND and professionals. Within this we will form stronger links with education settings and SENCOs
- Explore options for increasing the capacity of the SEND Local Offer Team. A key action here is to investigate the possibility of recruiting an Apprentice