Evaluation
17. Local Offer Review Group
The Local Offer Review Group (LORG) was set up to fulfil the following purposes and functions:
Purpose:
- Key service users, education, health and social care representatives will collectively review the Southend SEND Local Offer to ensure that it meets the statutory requirements above so that children and young people with SEND and their families have access to high quality provision, support and services across education, health, social care, including leisure opportunities, preparation for adulthood and support with independence
- The group will draw on both data and intelligence from children and young people with SEND and their families to identify gaps in local services, support and provision, referring to the SEND Operations Group or Joint Commissioning Group as appropriate to address those identified gaps
- To identify opportunities and ensure accessibility to enable SEND information to be provided to those who do not use computers or mobile devices and agree ways to encourage others to use it and give feedback to help inform its review and development
- To consider the views of children and young people with SEND which will be collected through other forums, groups and activities
Functions:
- Support the review, audit and development of the Local Offer website and accompanying social media platforms to ensure that information is current, accurate, accessible and meets the needs of children and young people with SEND, their parent carers and practitioners/providers (this will include what and how information is presented and the design of the content and functionality of the website)
- Provide feedback about the quality and accessibility of local provision so that it can be passed onto the relevant services/groups in order to improve the experiences of children and young people with SEND and their families
- Promote communications in the community across schools, services and groups
In defining the membership of LORG, we have sought to bring together a range of stakeholders including representatives from community and voluntary sector organisations that support children and young people with SEND and their families; SENDiass, Southend SEND Independent Forum, professionals that work in education, health and social care and representatives from Southend City Council.
Representatives from the following organisations are members of LORG:
- Southend SEND Independent Forum (SSIF)
- SENDIASS
- Head of Insight and Engagement Lead/Patient and Community Engagement Officer - Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board
- Healthwatch Southend
- Careers Hub Lead - Southend and Thurrock Careers Hub
Community and Voluntary Organisations:
- Little Heroes
- A Better Start Southend
- Trust Links Charity
- SEND the Right Message Charity
- SAVS Southend
- Friends and Places Together
Education settings:
- USP College
- Southend Adult Community College
- South Essex College
Southend City Council teams/officers:
- SEND Team
- Children with Disabilities team (Social Care)
- MASH Team (Social Care)
- Southend Family Centres
- Elective Home Education Team
- Preparing for Adulthood Team
- Early Years Team
Termly LORG meetings are held; co-chaired by a representative of SSIF and the Local Offer and Co-Production Officer. Half termly Your Local Offer, Your Way sessions are designed to complement LORG meetings by providing a `hand's on`opportunity for parent carers, young people with SEND, LORG members and other professionals to come together to discuss the specific content of SEND Local Offer sections and pages, identify improvements required and develop content.
17.1 Feedback from the Local Offer Review Group:
The Local Offer Team support feedback from the Local Offer Review Group by way of highlight reports to the SEND Operations Group.
Feedback was gathered on provision and activities for SEND children and young people over the summer holidays which included through the Holiday Activities and Food Programme and Short Breaks programme. This was fed back to the HAF Team and the Short Breaks Team and through the Joint Commissioning Team. A review of the Short breaks programme is underway.
The group has also fed back the following would be helpful on the SEND Local Offer:
- 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
- 360 tours of local service providers
- User stories of families / CYP to the website who wish to share their story / journey / experience of a service
- A section that can be updated and maintained by young people with SEND, for young people with SEND
Several video's have been produced to date, which are mentioned in another section of this report, but there is more that can and will be done in this area. We will also be exploring use of flowcharts and this work has already started in our conversations with parents about what a SEND `route map`could look like.
18. Governance
The Local Offer Review Group (LORG) is a sub-group of the Southend SEND Operations Group. An annual Local Offer report is provided to the SEND Operations group. Any urgent items are raised via a highlight report.
The Local Offer and Co-production Officer uses the Self Evaluation Framework (SE7) to review the quality and completeness of information published on the SEND Local Offer website, record progress and developments and identify next steps.
Information about gaps in provision, services and support are shared with strategic groups and boards across Education, Health, and Social Care.
A LORG Action Log is maintained to show the outcomes/progress of points raised at LORG meetings.
19. SE7
The Local Offer website content is reviewed against the requirements of the Code of Practice using a tool called the SE7 template. Initially developed by SE7, supported by Portsmouth, Leicester City and Nottinghamshire, the template provides a helpful checklist of the required content for the Local Offer and also supports the evaluation of the principles and qualities underpinning the Local Offer. This evaluation process is overseen by the Local Offer and Co-Production Officer to ensure that requirements and principles are met.
The SEND Local Offer channel of Livewell is ever-evolving and the current key areas identified for development are:
- Information about decision making - strategic and at individual level
- Personal budgets and information about support for young people in how to manage personal budgets in health and social care
- Information about joint commissioning
- Support available from colleges for young people with SEND
- Post 16 provision for young people with SEND
- Apprenticeships, traineeships and supported internships
- Information about the process of moving from children's social care to adult social care
- Support for children and young people with SEND who have been released from custody
- Employment support, and support for careers planning
- Information about independent living
- Information about support for medical conditions
These will be worked on over the coming year.