The SEND Local Area has identified a need for strategic alignment across programmes and services for children and young people with SEND. Services in Somerset recognise they need to develop a set of shared multi-agency outcomes for all children, young people who have SEND and their families. This will help to improve outcomes and ensure coordination and consistency across services.
The SEND inspection highlighted nine areas for improvement. As part of the work to address this the local area wants to change the focus from measuring what they do to measuring the impact of what is done. This will help to ensure that the improvements we are making are making a real difference to Children and Young people with SEND and their families
We need your help to shape what those key outcomes measure are for Somerset. To get involved click on the link below or scan the code and you will be asked 3 questions which you can complete in your own time. This will remain open until midnight on the 5th March 2021.
The SEND Code of Practice refers to shared outcomes as a legal ‘should’; e.e, not mandatory in the same way as a ‘must’, but nevertheless highly recommended: “Local partners should identify the outcomes that matter to children and young people with SEN or disabilities to inform the planning and delivery of services and the monitoring of how well services have secured those outcomes.” 0-25 SEND Code of Practice
What has happened so far
A considerable amount of work was undertaken as part of the development of the children and young people’s plan for Somerset. Lots of young people were involved in the design and gave their time to tell services what is important to them. The main four areas they wanted services to focus on as an area were:
Supporting families
Healthy Lives
Great Education
Positive activities
You can read the plan here.
Towards the end of last year, the Council for Disabled Children ran a workshop for practitioners across Somerset to look at the existing frameworks and examples of good practice. Some examples included –
• Hertfordshire’s Outcomes Bees
• Leeds’ Obsessions
• Essex’s Children and Young People’s Plan
Two workshops with parent carers took place on the 26th January to start collecting their views on the key outcomes they want for their children and young people.
Next Steps
An online survey will remain open until midnight on the 22nd February and the results will be added to the views already collected.
We will be launching a series of ways for children and young people to share their views on what outcomes are important to them (more information to follow)
Practitioners across Somerset can also give their views so they are fed into the framework here.
All these views will help us to form the outcomes which will drive the framework for Somerset. Once we have a set of agreed outcomes we will work together to establish how we can evidence if these outcomes are being achieved.
The outcomes framework will create a way for the impact of the work being undertaken as part of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Strategy for Somerset (currently under development).
