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We conducted a parent and carer survey to capture and understand how well local services supported our children with additional needs and their families throughout 2020.
The survey ran during March and April 2021 and we received 165 responses.
The survey findings were from parents and carers from across the range of provision and were statistically relevant.
We have analysed the responses from the survey and the following slides set out what we will do to improve the Local Offer and the wider system in place to support our Dorset SEND families.
This report is a blend of quantitative and qualitative findings.
We organised our survey into the following sections:
This is a summary of:
26% of respondents told us their child is left out of activities such as sports, school clubs and social opportunities.
We are working with early years, schools and the voluntary and community sector to embed accessibility in order to ensure that services can meet the needs of our children and young people with SEND.
We're working on a revised accessibility strategy and guidance to support schools to create their accessibility plans, to drive inclusion and to change the culture.
40% of respondents told us they don’t know who to contact in their locality or how to find out what services could be available to support them or their child.
We have created postcards with details of our locality teams and how to contact them. We'll share these postcards widely from September.
We are improving our SEND Local Offer to promote the use of this widely to all stakeholders in the Dorset Council area.
51% of respondents told us that the information or support received by their locality team made a difference.
We have created an Early Help Strategy to improve delivery of local information and support.
We will embed the graduated approach within schools to ensure the appropriate support is available.
Waiting times for services such as CAMHS, Speech and Language Therapy, Educational Psychology and other educational Services take too long.
We will share these findings with relevant teams at Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group and Dorset Healthcare.
We will establish a set of measures within Dorset’s education system to tell us where delays occur in the system and put in place improvement plans to reduce unnecessary delays.
That for some parents and carers more is needed to be done to explain their child’s special educational or health needs so that parents can support their child.
Share these findings with relevant teams at Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group and Dorset Healthcare.
Dorset Council Children’s Services will introduce a Dorset Education Advice Line (DEAL) resourced from the Education Team so that parents can speak with professionals at the earliest opportunity, understand and access support.
That parents and carers are not aware of the difference between SEN support and an education care and health (EHC) plan.
We will work with our local offer team and Dorset’s education teams to ensure that we clearly explain the levels of support that are available.
Promote the Graduated Approach for all professionals.
We will share the findings with relevant teams at Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group and Dorset healthcare.
Within Dorset Council’s SEND teams prioritise transition year children each and every year during the autumn term to ensure that there is good enough time for open discussion and clear communication.
Not all parents are aware of the need for SEN support plans to be reviewed.
We will share these findings with SENCOs and educational settings. SEN support plans should be reviewed at least 3 times a year with young people, parents and carers.
Delays to health services were too long.
We will share this finding with relevant teams at Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Dorset Healthcare.
The majority of respondents said their child’s education, health and care (EHC) plan reflected the needs of their child, but more could be done to ensure that the review of the EHC plan was better, with more focus on the changing needs of the child or young person.
They also told us that when amendments to EHC Plans are agreed these need to happen in a timely way.
We will:
Dorset SEN Provision Leads will ensure that the statutory process for annual review of EHC plans is followed, including the requirement to inform parent, carers and young people (over the age of 16) if the EHC Plan is to be maintained, ceased or amended within 4 weeks of the review taking place.
Dorset SEN Provision Leads will ensure that EHC plans are amended where needed after annual reviews have happened.
72% of respondents told us that their child’s plan wasn’t doing enough to prepare them for adult life.
Within Dorset Council’s SEND teams we will prioritise Transition Year children each and every year during the autumn term to ensure there is good enough time for open discussion and clear communication.
Less than half of respondents agree the setting tracks progress towards each of the 'outcomes' in my child's EHC plan effectively.
We will work with our parents and providers to ensure outcomes are clear, understood and a central focus of each annual review of an EHC plan.
47% of respondents shared that the 'care' element of the EHC plan was not felt to be as strong or supportive as the 'education' and 'health' sections.
We will work in partnership with the Dorset Parent Carer Council (DPCC) to understand this in more detail and make plans to improve this area for children, young people and their families.
That the funding element of the EHC plan is not always clear.
We will work with the child's or young person's educational setting to ensure that the funding arrangements, including transport where agree, are clear and understood.
That requirements and cost of transport need to be clearer for parents.
We will review the current arrangements for transport and improve areas of service delivery where required.
Only one third of respondents said that finding information and advice was easy.
We will:
Parents would prefer to access information through email. Parents would appreciate regular communication and correspondence through newsletters.
We will:
74% of respondents consider themselves to have caring responsibilities.
Of these:
We will:
For anyone over the age of 18 you can self-refer to the Steps to Wellbeing service which provides mental health support.
84% said they have not had a needs assessment for their caring role with some reporting that they have received some financial support. while others report that nothing has changed.
We will:
Find information about support for carers.
Over half of respondents had no knowledge of short breaks.
We will share our findings with our Dorset Council social care team to promote short breaks information with our families and make sure our Local Offer is updated to reflect what is available.
Parent carers told us they:
Some said their child development improved alongside better mental health, less anxiety and they felt happier.
We will work with the DPCC to understand what we can learn from this experience so we can make improvements where we can.
Our respondents felt that:
Lockdown presented challenges and concerns with rule changes and health risks.
As well as delays and cancellations to appointments, they also reported a lack of:
We will work with the DPCC to understand what we can learn from this experience so we can make improvements where we can.
Find details of the SEND team in your locality to give feedback.