Sefton Council’s Cabinet members are being asked to approve a new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Joint Commissioning Strategy at their meeting on Thursday 22^nd June.

Requirement under the Children and Families Act 2014, the new Strategy focuses on four priority areas of work to achieve the best outcomes for Sefton’s children and young people with SEND, and their families.

Priorities

Those priorities are:

• High aspirations for all our children and young people.
• A comprehensive offer of support which is accessible in our local community.
• The opportunity to provide support at the earliest opportunity.
• To work with families and young people to maximise choice and control.

Sefton Council and its partners have high aspirations for every child and young person in the Borough and want to ensure that they all they have the tools to achieve what they want to. In implementing the new Strategy, the commissioning team within Sefton Council and NHS Place Teams will work to ensure comprehensive offer of support which is accessible in our local community.

This means providing support at the earliest opportunity and professionals in Sefton working with families and young people to maximise choice and control and empower families to make decisions based on what’s best for them.

Co-Production

Children, young people and families have been involved in co-producing the new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Joint Commissioning Strategy. This approach has ensured their views and wishes will have a direct impact on the work professionals will be doing.

Results from four years of Parent Carer survey feedback has also been used to ensure the Strategy reflects where Sefton families want the efforts of those working in SEND to be focused.

Cllr Diane Roscoe, Sefton Cabinet Member for Education said:
“The Joint SEND Commissioning Strategy is ambitious and highly aspirational for our children and young people.

“It is our responsibility to make sure families have access a vast range of services and support and can feel empowered to make choices about what type of support is best for them.

“I want to thank all those parents, carers, children and young people who were involved in putting this together with our teams. It is so important that documents like this have a life and a voice running through them and truly reflect the people they seek to serve.

“This strategy will strengthen our SEND services here in Sefton and have a real impact on the futures of children, young people and families.”

The strategy is a requirement under the Children and Families Act which asks the local authority to work with a range of professionals including the NHS and colleagues in education to ensure there is high quality, local provision for children and young people who need SEND support.

Sefton’s newly appointed Director of Children’s Services, Dr Risthardh Hare, said:

“This document sets out our approach to commissioning services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Sefton, jointly developed with those children and young people as well as their families and carers.

“It reflects our high aspirations for our children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

“We want our all of our services to enable and support every child, young person and family to reach their full potential.”

Deborah Butcher, Sefton Council’s Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Health said:

“The Sefton SEND Joint Commissioning Strategy has been designed to deliver impacts and tangible improvements to the lives and outcomes of our SEND children & young people.

Whether that is through improved health pathways, education provision or social care support, we are proud to make our commitment here towards ensuring its success.’

Easy Read

Sefton has committed to producing an easy read version to support accessibility to the Strategy and ensure anyone with communication needs is able to read about the work ongoing in SEND. This will be available on the website shortly.

The agenda and papers for next week’s Cabinet meeting, which takes place at 10am on Thursday 22^nd June, at Southport Town Hall are at https://modgov.sefton.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=139&MId=1103