North Somerset SEND Strategy

Our Vision

In North Somerset, we want all children and young people with SEND to be safe and valued, to be ambitious for their futures and to achieve their full potential.

Our aims

Needs-led services

To embed a needs-led approach to shaping and delivering services in every service or agency, prioritising children’s safety and wellbeing in everything we do.

To recognise that children and young people’s needs change and to take a whole child, whole family approach in all that we do.

To actively seek out the participation of children, young people and their families, in shaping services; reflecting their priorities in the ways in which we design and deliver services.

Children’s needs identified and met at the earliest opportunity

To ensure that all professionals in North Somerset are skilled, well informed and confident in early identification of additional needs and can respond to meet needs at the earliest opportunity.

Inclusive systems, services and communities

Design (and redesign where we need to) our services and systems to be barrier- free through co-production with parents, carers and professionals. Creating settings and communities in which children and young people with SEND feel a deep sense of belonging, are valued equally and able to access the support they need to enjoy all aspects of life.

Ambitious pathways, high quality destinations, meaningful participation in society

To reflect in all that we do, that alongside their additional needs, children and young people have a wide range of diverse talents and unique perspectives; it is our responsibility to encourage their ambition and support them to develop their talents and pursue their goals always embracing an aspirational approach for our children and young people.

To ensure that transitions between stages and particularly the transition to adulthood is well supported and equips children and young people with the right tools for their next phase.

Resilient, flexible and cooperative partnership working

To continue to build the strong partnerships with parents, carers and professionals across multiple agencies and disciplines, recognising the value of Co-production, different perspectives and expertise and closing the gaps between services. Collectively prioritising a needs led approach to all our provision.

To be collectively accountable, measuring our success and reporting it openly and transparently. Making sure we spend public money fairly and appropriately in relation to children’s needs ensuring our provision does not disadvantage a child or their family because of their SEND.

Active, accurate and timely communication

To ensure that everyone has access to clear, accurate, accessible and timely information to allow them to play an active role in our crucial work in SEND.

Where are we now?

Our journey to achieving our aims has not been as successful as it should have been. Despite some excellent work across North Somerset and an increasingly close partnership between professionals and parents and carers, outcomes for children and young people with SEND are not equal to those of their peers and we need to change this. An Improvement Notice was issued to North Somerset Local Area in recognition of the need for much greater progress. The outcomes we need to achieve are set out in the section below. Delivering these outcomes will take us much closer to achieving our Vision and our aims. But we don’t want to stop there and once we have delivered these, we will continue to drive change with resources, energy and commitment until children and young people have what they need to thrive.

Outcomes

1 There is an adopted SEND Strategy which enables implementation of SEND reforms. These reforms are driven by strong leadership across the local area which is well coordinated and effective

2 There is enough capacity within the local area to recognise need, and provide support, implementing the SEND reforms effectively

3 The standards achieved by Children and Young People with SEND are in line with statistical neighbours. Increased parental confidence of parents and carers that mainstream school will meet their children’s needs

4 All agencies contribute fully and in a timely way to Education Health & Care Plans which are high quality and aspirational, with processes in place for monitoring the quality of plans

5 Arrangements for joint commissioning are well developed

6 There are robust systems to track outcomes for children and young people with SEND across the partnership. These outcomes and associated targets are regularly reviewed by senior leaders

How will we deliver these outcomes?

We have created a SEND Improvement Plan which sets out all the work that we are going to do to deliver the outcomes described. It includes actions from a range of partners and also makes clear what progress we intend to make over time, what impact we intend for this to have on outcomes and how we will

know when the change has happened. All of the actions are to be delivered within the next 18 months. You can find out more about this in the SEND Improvement Plan.

(https://nsod.n-somerset.gov.uk/ kb5/northsomerset/directory/site. page?id=ivS2N11c_eE)

North Somerset SEND Partners

This Strategy is for everyone who provides a service for children and young people in North Somerset; each has a role to play in helping achieve our Vision. This includes people who provide leisure facilities or transport services for example, as well as Early Years Settings, Schools, Colleges, Children’s Social Care and

Health Providers. Whether you are a provider or a parent or carer, children and young people, we consider your contribution to be valuable. But at the centre of the Partnership and taking responsibility for making sure our commitments become reality are three main organisations. These are North Somerset Council (Nsc), Bristol,

North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Ccg (Bnssg) and North Somerset Parents and Carers Working Together (Nspcwt). But the measure of our success will be when the children and young people tell us that they have everything they need and a pathway which will take them towards the life they want to live.

Where can you find out

more?

Please have a look at the North Somerset Local Offer, which brings together all the information about what’s happening in SEND in North Somerset.

https://nsod.n-somerset.gov.uk/kb5/ northsomerset/directory/site. page?id=uv0DbWYb1cI

31043 0422

Why this page, not just a PDF? The original is a PDF - fine to read, but a poor fit for assistive technology: heading structure is often inconsistent or absent, text doesn't reflow for zoom or a narrow screen, and screen readers can struggle with multi-column layouts and scanned pages. This page is the same content rebuilt as plain, semantic HTML - real headings, text that reflows, nothing a screen reader or zoom tool trips over.

Republished from North Somerset Council under the Open Government Licence v3.0. View the original PDF.