Council improves website for parents of children with SEND issues

A Buckinghamshire Council project to help the parents of SEND children get information fast and easily when they first suspect their child has a SEND issue has led to a huge raft of improvements for parents.

A working party of councillors on Buckinghamshire Council Children’s Services and Education Committee set out to improve things following research revealing 95% of parents of children who flag that their child has a SEND issue turn out to be right when the child is finally diagnosed.

After councillors Diana Blamires, Julie Ward, Sophie Kayani and Paul Turner visited half a dozen schools and gathered information from organisations recommendations were put forward in their Pathways To Send report. The recommendations have now been implemented.

One of the biggest problems was how difficult it was for parents looking for information on a SEND issue to navigate the Council's website. The part of the website with details relating to SEND issues, The Local Offer, has now been transformed. As recommended by the Working Party, videos have been added, the first point of contact made clear and the website now meets national public accessibility criteria. There are now webinars for parents and an area devoted to SEND issues. The council has surveyed 153 families who say it's far more user friendly and the search function is much better than it was.

The report also recommended a neurodiversity pack so when parents first suspect their child has autism, ADHD or other conditions affecting behaviour when they contact school, nursery, a health professional or the council they will get the pack.

Another recommendation was school staff receive training on recognising neurodiversity traits. This has been hugely successful with 100% of those who have done the training saying it was very helpful.

Other actions include Neurodiversity being talked about with pupils in secondary schools to raise awareness and address bullying issues. This is now happening in PSHE lessons.

Wing ward councillor Diana Blamires, who led the working party, said: "The Council's Education Department has done a tremendous job bringing about drastic, much-needed improvements to the part of the website providing SEND details.

“Parents who are seeing their children display worrying, new traits may be stressed and need to find help quickly and easily. They can now do that.

"To have 100% of those who did the neurodiversity training saying it was effective is staggeringly good.

"However, there's still a colossal amount to do to speed up daignosus for every SEND child in Buckinghamshire who is in need."

In the Children's Services and Education Select Committee two weeks ago Buckinghamshire Council Head of Achievement and Learning Gareth Drawmer said: "We know there's still more to do but it's really positive that we have seen improvements. That's been recognised by parents. The work by the Committee was very helpful and the impact will be felt for time to come."