This week the Shropshire SEND system is being Peer Reviewed by a Team of SEND Leaders from other local areas. This process is supported by the Local Government Association and is part of Shropshire’s preparation for the upcoming Ofsted and Care Quality Commission SEND Inspection. The review covers the local SEND Partnership which includes education, health and social care.
PACC has been invited to attend several of the meetings with the Review Team, including the initial meeting introducing the Shropshire system, discussing what is working and not working, along with discussions about local provision of Preparation For Adulthood, Social Care and Early Help and education places planning across all ages.
Yesterday PACC and a group of Parent Carers met with Reviewers to share their experience of raising a child with SEND in Shropshire. PACC sent information about this opportunity to all families on our contact database and all Parent Carers who asked to attend the meeting were able to.
It was a powerful meeting, hearing directly from Parent Carers about their experience of the Shropshire SEND system. There were a range of experiences represented, with Parent Carers talking about supporting children as young as 5 and as old as 25, and sharing the experience of attending mainstream and specialist settings.
The key points raised in the meeting are summarised below;
- There are considerable concerns about the quality of EHCP’s overall, with many containing out of date information. It was recognised that this is an area where work has been done by the Local Authority, but the majority of families are not seeing the benefit of this as yet. Parent Carers stressed the need for EHCPs to be meaningful and dynamic documents, which actively inform the delivery of support and progress towards agreed outcomes.
- There is an inconsistent experience of support in schools, with Parent Carers experience depending very much on the knowledge and approach of individual SENCo’s.
- Parent Carers / Family Carers consistently feel that too much is left to them to do and there is little proactive support or effective early intervention. They feel that the system takes no notice until they or their child is in crisis and even then, support isn’t always guaranteed or timely.
- Parent Carers/Family Carers feel that too often the Shropshire system defaults to blaming them as its initial response when families ask for help. They do not feel that their knowledge and skills are sufficiently recognised when planning support for their child.
- There are insufficient, accessible Short Break opportunities especially outside of Shrewsbury, meaning that Parent Carers / Family Carers do not get sufficient breaks from their caring responsibilities and young people miss out on opportunities to develop independence skills.
- There are insufficient opportunities for Parent Carers / Family Carers to come together and benefit from peer support.
- There is a lack of clear information about what support is available in Shropshire and how to access it. Families reported having to learn SEND law and then having to ‘fight’ for support.
- There is a need for practitioners from across the system to have improved knowledge about SEND legislation and what support families can access in Shropshire
We would like to express our thanks to the Parent Carers who joined us at the meeting and shared their experiences on behalf of the Shropshire SEND Community. PACC will be joining the Peer Review Final Feedback session on Friday afternoon and will share the key outcomes of this process as soon as we can.