UPDATE – Over September and the first week of October 2018 5 events are being held to get your views on the future delivery of the physical Impairment and Medical Support Team, Hearing and Vision Impairment teams. The feedback from the events and survey below will be fed back to a working group who will use this to draw up a proposed model for Somerset. The working group is made up of Somerset County Council Lead SEND advisor, Parent Carer Forum reps, Staff from the three teams and parents who use the services. Please contact us if you would like to be involved.

You can see the presentation for the events here PIMS events

If you are unable to attend you can leave your views here. The survey will stay open until Friday 19th October.

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The importance of listening to and having regard for the views, wishes and feelings of the child and his or her parent, or the young person and their participating as fully as possible in decisions relating to them is underpinned by United Kingdom and International law.

The forum ran events in Bridgwater, Taunton, Frome and Yeovil and attended the Bridgwater parent support group. We also set up an online option for parents to feed back their views. The events were split into the following 3 sections based on questions families had been asking. 

  1. Providing background Information on Local And National changes that impacted on the proposed changes.
  2. Discussion on the current situation and the proposed changes
  3. Opportunity to reflect on the information, share thoughts, feelings, experiences and ask any further questions.

In addition the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Information, Advice and Support (SENDIAS) were invited to attend all the sessions to help support families and provide independent advice and suggestions on next steps.

You can find a copy of the presentation here (Please note, this presentation needs Microsoft PowerPoint or compatible to open).

Statement from the directors on 20th April 2018 regarding Proposed Changes to SSE.

The directors of Somerset Parent Carer Forum welcome the announcement from Julian Wooster at todays scrutiny for Children and families policies. Julian began by apologising for the way in which the process had been dealt with so far and undertook to improve the Council’s contact and communications with those children and families that would be effected by any changes and also all members of staff.

We would like to thank all the families who feedback to us and enabled us to compile the report we presented (Please click here). The report was praised by councillors and Somerset County Council have welcomed the recommendations.

We were heartened to see the commitment from Somerset County Council’s officers and parents to work together to find a way forward in light of the financial pressures imposed on our area. As a forum we renew our commitment to continue to work with Julian Wooster the Director of children’s services, Annette Perrington Assistant Director for Inclusion and their officers to improve outcomes for all children and young people with special educational needs,