Local Offer Annual Summary March 2023 (Revised May 2023)

On this page you will find the annual summary of feedback.

Page last updated 6th October 2023

Local Offer Annual Summary of Feedback March 2023 (Revised May 2023) Prepared by: Samantha Clark, Local Offer Coordinator

SEND Local Offer
Finding the SEND Local Offer
Feedback
Data
You Said/We Did

1. SEND Local Offer

Since 1 September 2014, every Local Authority must publish their ‘Local Offer’. The purpose is to set out in one place information about services available for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

The SEND Local Offer brings together a wealth of information from social care, health, education and other services. It sets out the support they are expected to offer to children and young people aged 0 to 25 years with SEND, including those who do not have an Education, Health and Care Plan, and how to access those services. The Local Offer has two main purposes:

To provide clear, comprehensive and accessible information about services available
To ensure local services involve and listen to children and young people in Sutton with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and their parents and carers when they develop and review their services.

Over the years, the Local Offer has been developed with parents, carers, young people and professionals and input from all these people helps us to keep it up to date and relevant.

Local Authorities must publish feedback and comments on the Local Offer and show how these are being used to shape services and information to ensure they meet local needs.

2. Finding the SEND Local Offer

The SEND Local Offer sits on the Sutton Information Hub. The Hub allows for a search engine to be used and for families to filter for SEND specific services, organisations and leisure activities. Services and organisations are encouraged to take ownership of their own page’ on the Information Hub and can make changes directly to their published information.

3. Feedback

Online and in person

There are several ways that people can give their feedback about the Local Offer for SEND online. They can:

use the ‘feedback’ link that sits on the home page of the Information Hub
email Sutton local localoffer@sutton.gov.uk
send a message via the Sutton Local Offer Facebook page
Call the Local Offer Coordinator on 07508985274
ask a professional to share their feedback on their behalf, including through the Family Information Service who are available by phone every working day.

All the feedback is logged, along with details of the action taken as a result. Feedback is published on the You Said, We Did page. Where the feedback relates to a service, it is sent on to that service so they can provide a response. Please visit the You Said, We Did pages. Engagement with Parents: An online survey is available on the Local Offer Facebook page and the Local Offer website. The survey was also sent to parents via the SIASS newsletter. Survey results will be collected in April. At the time of writing, parents reported that they mainly found out about things to do via support groups or social media. As a result, the Local Offer Facebook page will now include links to the information on the Local Offer, rather than making all information available on social media.

The Local Offer attended the Family Hub Conference where parents/carers presented on their experience with local support services. The Local Offer also had a stand at the Start Well Parent Engagement Event and the Start Well Week where families were able to ask questions about the Local Offer and give feedback. Feedback received included families asking for a glossary of terms, which is now included on the Local Offer. Please visit the Glossary of SEND terms.

Engagement with Professionals: Colleagues and relevant professionals are forwarded information about their service available on the Local Offer and asked to comment and make amendments if necessary. Pages will be sent to all teams as soon as the Local Offer moves to the Hub. The new Hub will enable teams to take responsibility for their own pages and the content, which will ensure that information is accurate.

The Education Bulletin is used to promote the Local Offer to education professionals and request feedback.

School nurses and health visitors are sent a monthly email update of information from the Local Offer. This allows health teams to quickly view relevant updates when they occur and allows them to pass on information to families. The Local Offer meets regularly with the Designated Clinical Officer for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Sutton and Merton) to design and update the Health pages. This has resulted in a plan for ‘common health problems’ to be included on the Local Offer as young people have expressed their confusion over asthma, diabetes with health workers.

Sutton Local Offer was paired with Torbay as part of a Peer Review project which provided valuable feedback on the accessibility of the Local Offer website. Feedback resulted in Personal Budget information being made more visible and easy-read. Please contact the Local Offer to request a copy of the Peer Review.

Organisations that attended the Preparing for Adulthood event were asked to contribute any feedback they had about the event and the Local Offer. Feedback was especially positive from mainstream organisations, such as the bank and supermarket. In two cases it led to further opportunities for the organisations to provide workshops and information to educational settings. The attendance of the police, supermarket and other professionals enabled young people to gain confidence in communicating with external agencies.

Cognus’ Managing Director has been promoting the Local Offer at meetings with educational settings. Educational settings that do not have a link to the Local Offer on their website have been emailed a reminder. All educational settings have been emailed asking for their school’s Information Report to be available on their own setting’s website to enable the Local Offer to link directly to that. 23 schools now have the Information Report available on their own website. This has prepared schools for the new Hub when schools will have their own ‘service’ page. The impact will be that families will be able to see all information provided by the school, such as contact details and a map, rather than just the Information Report. In cases where the Information Report is not on the setting’s website, an up-to-date Information Report has been requested.

Engagement with Young People: Over 200 students, all with an EHCP of SEN Support Plan, attended a Preparing for Adulthood event in November. An online survey was available to Young People and three replied that they did not feel welcome and included in Sutton’s local community. This has developed into a plan for the Local Offer to have a Young Person’s page on the Hub where case studies of SEND young people taking part in their local community will be included. The SEND Support Coach led an activity where cards were assigned to a category – shopping, social, hobbies and activities. Air Cadets and Churchill War Museum were added by Young People themselves which has led to the local Air Cadets being visited (upcoming). The Churchill War Museum replied that they were not willing to offer a discount for iCount holders.

Workshops were held for Action Voices and Orchard Hill College in order to work out what is important to young people and what their concerns are. One outcome is that the Local Offer now has details of SEND dating agencies on their Preparing for Adulthood pages. Verbal bullying was raised as a concern – a page on this is being developed for the Hub.

The Local Offer Coordinator has attended and supported sessions run by Knots Art, Workshop 305, Ecolocal cycling, London Futures and Diamond Riding. This has raised awareness of the Local Offer and organisations have reported that it has improved goodwill towards the Local Offer. The Local Offer now has ‘key’ organisations that would be able to support in future co-production.

The Local Offer has joined with the Licensed Lay Minister (Reader/Pioneer) and the Community Space Coordinator to support students from Orchard Hill, Greenholm and Carshalton College. The students take part in gardening, litter-picking and media work. The Local Offer will develop this connection to ensure the Local Offer is included in any community initiatives that will provide feedback.

Social Media: Sutton’s Local Offer Facebook page has grown to a membership of 323 (since it’s creation in November 2021) Posts are many and varied, from highlighting specific local activities and services to national awareness days and condition-specific information.The Facebook page allows parents/carers to add comments and queries which can be responded to quickly and adapted to individual needs or circumstances. This ensures that parents/carers feel they have a voice and are listened to. The Facebook page is also used to signpost to the Local Offer, thereby raising awareness and promotion of the Local Offer.

Promotion: New flyers and leaflets will be produced and distributed as soon as the Local Offer is live on the Hub. This will enable the QR code for the Hub to be available on promotional material

The Education Bulletin is used to promote the Local Offer and obtain feedback.

4. Data

As the Local Offer is currently on the Sutton Council website,data and analytics are not available. Moving to the Family Hub will enable data and analytics to be accessed and used to improve the website.

5. You Said/We Did

The You Said/We Did information is available on the Local Offer.