Participation and Family Support

Our vision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is the same as for all children and young people - that they achieve well in their early years, at school and in college, that they find employment; lead happy and fulfilled lives; and experience choice and control. In 2014, we made significant changes to the way the SEND system works.

Those reforms were designed to put children and young people with SEND at the heart of the process, by joining up services for 0-25 year olds across local authorities, schools and colleges, and health and social care, and by focusing on positive outcomes in terms of employment, independent living, health, and community participation. Effective involvement of parents and young people in the design and delivery of SEND services and provision was a fundamental principle of the Children and Families Act.

Local authorities are statutorily required to ensure that the views, wishes and feelings of children and parents are taken into account when deciding what support they need, empowering them to make informed choices and supporting them to influence SEND policy at a local and national level. They are also statutorily required to ensure children and young people with SEND and parents have access to impartial information, advice and support.

The move to the new system involved significant changes in the way that local agencies work together and while encouraging progress has been made, there is still some way to go before the reforms and associated cultural changes are fully embedded across the education, health and care sectors. This project supports this continued improvement of co-production, including supporting the continued embedding of the voices of SEND stakeholders in national policy development and improving communication of national policy messages.

The functions of the Participation and Family Support will include, but not be limited to the requirements set out below. Participants are invited to populate Section 3 of the attached, however as previously specified the requirement, objectives and structure of the potential opportunity going forward may be subject to change.