An ambitious programme to transform special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support services across Warwickshire is moving forward with the aim of making a real difference to the lives of children and young people in the county.
The programme, which was launched in July 2020 set out plans on how the service would be transformed. This included seeing a major revenue investment in the SEND transformation programme and a capital investment in the flagship Warwickshire Academy. The programme has seen the reinvigoration of the Warwickshire Parent Carer Forum, which aims to represent the voices of Warwickshire parents and carers, creating a single clinical commissioning group and implementing system changes to improve integration between health and social care.
Despite the impact of COVID over the last year, outstanding progress has been made in reducing the number of excluded children and young people in alternative provision from 96 to 26, with all the children and young people successfully sustained within their new mainstream placements. Similarly, through a relentless focus on timely and good quality assessments between May 2019 and May 2020, the backlog of children and young people with disabilities with overdue assessments has been completely eliminated.
Feedback from parents, carers and families is crucial to improving the way in which we deliver our services. To date the majority (82%) of parents and carers rate WCC above 7 out of 10 when issuing an education and health care plan. Our Children’s social care is rapidly improving with major transformation since 2019 and the CQC says health services provided by South Warwickshire Foundation Trust (SWFT) are outstanding.
Councillor Jeff Morgan, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services said:
“In Warwickshire we have the highest aspirations for all our children and young people, including almost 14,000 with special educational needs and disabilities. As a local authority we believe that we have the right plan in place to deliver the best outcomes and in the last year, we have been working hard to fundamentally rethink and transform the way that we deliver local services through our SEND and Inclusion Change Programme.
"Whilst COVID has had an impact both here in Warwickshire and nationally, it hasn’t stopped good progress being made, which is a testament to those working in SEND provision across the county.
“We recognise that change will take time and there is still more work to be done, but we remain committed to listening to the voices of our children and their families and working with our partners, we will continue to support all our children and young people to be the best they can be, so that Warwickshire is an inclusive and child friendly county.”
For more information on the SEND local offer in Warwickshire, please visit https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/send