Home / HPCI Member update 6 March
Welcome to your newsletter from HPCI, which this week is covering:
Flexi schooling (where a child attends school part time and is educated elsewhere, usually at home, the rest of the week) has increasingly been raised with us. It’s a complicated topic, with lots of different reasons that it might or might not be suitable for a child or young person.
We want to know what families with children or young people with SEND are experiencing, so that we can best represent them.
If you have experience or thoughts, we’d really love to hear from you. As with all our feedback, personal or identifying information will not be shared outside HPCI – we are looking to better understand themes in families’ experiences. You can reply to this email, contact us on Facebook (where we’ll also be posting the questions), or arrange a phone call to tell us your experiences. We’re asking about all children or young people with SEND, with or without an EHCP.
There have been media articles this week about a potential change to SEND laws by the government. We know that there are concerns about what this might look like and how our children and the support that should be provided for them might be impacted.
At the moment we don’t have a clear understanding about any changes that might be introduced, or the timings of any potential change, but we will keep members updated as we learn more. If you want to look at an example of the press reports, you can read an article on The Guardian here. Lots of responses have been published, including this from Contact.
Services for Young People (SfYP) want the opinions of young people and their parent carers, as they are proposing changes to their “Preparing for Adulthood” offer.
The proposals include some individual work with young people becoming group sessions and changes to the timelines for support before post 16 phase transfer. HPCI reps will be feeding back our comments and concerns, but feedback from families is essential in ensuring that their services meet the needs of all young people with EHCPs.
The SfYP SEND Team works with young people with EHCPs to help them decide what to do when they leave school. Please read about the changes and have your say by completing the survey here.
We know it’s a very short deadline – hopefully you have already seen this on our Facebook page which is updated frequently in between our newsletters.
Hertfordshire County Council is creating a new plan to support all children and young people over the next 5 years. HPCI will be feeding in our views but it would be great to have lots of input from families of children with SEND, which will help HCC decide what to focus on. The survey is open online until 16th March. Complete the survey here.
If you have any questions or need the survey in an alternative format please contact p&d.team@hertfordshire.gov.uk
The Hertfordshire Directory is an online list of services, groups and activities for people in Hertfordshire, managed by Hertfordshire County Council. HCC describe the directory as having “a wealth of services for children, young people and adults, as well as people with needs and disabilities”, but they want to hear views about how to improve it for its users.
They are asking people (Hertfordshire residents and service providers) to complete the short survey.
If you’d like to know more or want the survey in a different format, please email anne.ardley@hertfordshire.gov.uk
Healthwatch Hertfordshire have a new survey open, about dental care for children. It isn’t SEND specific, but it’s really important the voices of families with children or young people with SEND are heard on this topic. If you have any thoughts to share, please take part by clicking here.
Members with young people who are aged 18-25 (with an EHCP) might be interested in finding out more about the supported internships that are offered by Mission EmployAble, an education programme aimed at getting young people with learning disabilities into permanent part time paid employment. To find out more click here.
If your young person is aged 18+ and has a learning disability and/or is autistic, you might be interested in this event which is taking place in Hatfield on 17 March (10-3). It’s looking at healthcare for this group – what’s currently available and future plans. For further information or to book tickets please click here.
Many thanks for reading and, as always, we welcome feedback on this information, as well as anything else you’d like to share about improving services for children and young people with SEND in Hertfordshire.