Rotherham SENDIASS

Note – Local Data taken December 2021 shows;

• 45,189 CYP are in Rotherham Schools
• 8,450 children are considered to have SEND
• Rotherham has 2,583 children and young people aged 0-25 on an EHC plan
• 911 children attend Special Schools via their EHC plan with a further 225 in PRU’s
• 6,552 CYP have their needs met at SEN Support

SENDIASS Data for this reporting period compared to past three financial years.

Number of New Referrals to the Service (including parents/carers, children and young people)

This indicates SENDIASS has offered IAS for 14.72% of CYP with SEND in Rotherham if each referral to the service reflected a different service user. This is an increase from last financial year (11.06%).

How was contact made

How had service users heard of our service

SENDIASS may help families from the start of their SEND journey as a family may contact us prior to speaking with schools/settings or if they feel school have not considered SEND as a reason for a child not making progress. As such we offer advice around discussions with the settings SENCO, make families aware of SEN Support and the Local Offer and where needed, support with those first conversations with the school or setting.

Historically the service has always seen a higher number of boys come to the service than girls. This has also been the case this reporting period. The unspecified cases are as a result of contacts coming into the service or emails being sent via the service website which don’t specify the child or young persons details. Please note, this data is captured from the schools system and doesn’t account for children and young people who may identify as a different gender or gender neutral.

The Chart above shows that service users coming to the service for disagreement resolution has remained like the numbers last year. However due to the changes we have implemented to the service, there has been a lot more service users making use of the advice section of the service which has in turn supported families in a more proactive and empowering way ensuring there is capacity within the service for those who need a more in depth offer of support.

Ethinic Minority Monitoring

Rotherham has a mainly White British population with the percentage from minority ethnic groups being about half the national average, although the Pakistani and Slovak Roma communities have above average proportions.

The following figures do not include the service involvements taken via the Website enquiries as these often don’t include any identifying information.

The figures show that the service is being predominantly used by families who identify from a White British background (87%). 2% of service users are from a Pakistani background and only 2 families accessing the service from a Slovak Roma background. There is an under representation from these groups.

Looked After Children

Service staff work alongside colleagues from Social Care.  In this period the Service has received 3 new referrals involving a ‘looked after’ child (0.29% of new referrals to the Service which is a slight decrease from previous year). However, when reflecting on the types of meetings the service has attended, there were multiple occasions where the service attended CIN and TAF meetings (led by Social Workers or Early Help staff). These have been reported under the school-based meetings. The Service has also reported that 12 service users have gained IAS around Social Care matters specifically. During this period, we have started to capture data when we are informed by the service user at the start of involvement if they are considered CIN or if they are placed under a Special Guardianship Order (SGO). As such the next reporting period will have some further data around this area although this won’t capture the full CIN picture.

Referrals to Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal

The LA were notified of 33 referrals to SENDIST within this timescale. Rotherham SENDIASS were actively involved with supporting the families of 21 of these Tribunal cases. However, SENDIASS actively supported 23 families around SEND Tribunals during this period due to some cases being lodged prior to the start of this period but remaining active during this financial year.

Of the Tribunals SENDIASS have actively supported, the following outcomes (13 cases are still in progress) were reached. During this period, the Tribunal system had significant issues with their capacity and as such appeal timescales were moved from a 12-week process to 50 weeks. As such this has impacted on the number of cases that remain ‘live’ and awaiting their hearing date.

During this period 62 service users contacted the service with the sole purpose of gaining information, advice and support around SEND Tribunal. This is an increase from previous year (41) and shows the impact SENDIASS advice can have to help families consider all their options with regards to rights of redress as some of these 62 service users will have gone on to access mediation rather than appeal straight away, and some will have made use of the information contained in the LA’s decision letter to continue their work with the school or setting taking into account the evidence based process of EHC Assessments and Tribunal involvements.

Advice given around Tribunals includes the process and timescales, the need to consider mediation where necessary and how to action this process, the options available which may not result in a tribunal including: looking in detail at the reasons why the LA has made their decision and how this could then be used to support processes in the future and conversations with settings, utilising the timescales to appeal wisely to ensure additional evidence is available to support ongoing discussions with the LA via mediation or informal discussions, consider what the support currently looks like for the child or young person at SEN Support and offering advice and support around further discussions with the school or setting.

Support for Tribunal work could include helping the family to register the appeal, gathering information, helping them to understand the paperwork and processes and supporting them to keep to deadlines. The service helps to establish or maintain communication with the LA in a positive way, build working relationships and offer support at the actual hearing date including preparing the family and offering advice and guidance to any witnesses that have been called by the family too. The data above supports the proactive work that SENDIASS (alongside the EHC Team) have undertaken in an effort to bring a mutual agreement to the forefront where possible, due to the number of consent orders that were requested prior to hearing dates.

Of the 21 appeals SENDIASS supported with, all except 2 cases included section I in their appeal (and in most of these cases either sections B, F or both were also included).  One case included social care and one case included health. None of the cases SENDIASS Supported with related to refusal to issue a plan or refusal to assess.

Mediation

40 service users specifically contacted SENDIASS around Mediation which is a decrease from last year (55). We supported in 38 mediation meetings over this time frame (a slight increase from the previous year).

Support at mediation may include things such as; preparation beforehand ensuring the service user has a clear understanding of the process, possible outcomes, and clarity around their situation including points to share/questions to ask. It could also include encouraging self-advocacy and where appropriate asking questions of the service user to prompt their thought process based on prior knowledge and discussions. SENDIASS also act as a point of reference to the legislation around the EHC, mediation and appeals process which may consist of reminders around the relevant legal tests which would need to be considered if a tribunal were to be lodged

Over this period, mediation reasons and outcomes were as follows;

Case work development

During this period, parents contacting the Service for the first time were able to have an in-depth conversation with Kerry Taylor (Service Lead) or Leanne Taylor (Children’s Information Officer) about their concerns and receive detailed advice and information, this was followed up in writing and emailed to the parent.  We aim to return calls to service users within a 5 working day period. We believe most cases complied within this 5 working day period, however from next reporting period we will capture specific data around this matter.

To ensure all service users are responded to within 5 working days, and since the phone lines are always in use, service users are encouraged to leave a voice message on the machine on first contact. During this period, we have been unable to make return contact with 24 service users. In such circumstances, the service will always attempt contact on at least 5 different occasions and leave messages wherever this facility is available, before considering the contact lost. We also had a further 11 service users whose situation had been resolved within the 5 working days of our return call. These 35 service users are not included in our statistics within this report and do not receive an evaluation of service delivery.

Ongoing parental case work support was provided by Rachel White, Kendall Stacey and Andrew Lound who supports around Mediations. Maria Ridge has also supported some parents during this period. Leanne Taylor and Maria Ridge have provided case work involvement for children and young people. A significant amount of casework involves actively engaging with parents/child/young person, schools and LA staff to prevent or resolve disagreements.  The complexity of case work has increased during this period which has been evident in the increase in service users wishing to gain IAS around SEND Tribunals and the disagreement resolution work needed. The service has implemented some changes to how we work with families this period and so more detailed information, advice and one-off support has been provided on first contact wherever possible. As such we have tried to reduce the number of service users who require ongoing input from a team member. This has helped to increase capacity within the service enabling more service users to gain IAS in a timelier manner.  During this period 22.75% of parent and CYP service users went on to require more in depth 1:1 support in the form of ongoing case work involvement, following the initial in-depth conversation, advice and follow up written information being received. This is a decrease from previous reporting period (41.1%).

Exclusions

Over this period, the service has been contacted by 72 service uses requesting information, advice or support around Exclusions from school. This is and increase from previous year (46).  

Education, Health and Social Care

The following chart provides information relating to each area service users contacted the service for. For the first time, we have been tracking the number of service users who have contacted the service due to their diagnosed condition impacting on their education.

Categories of Enquiry

The next chart shows this reporting periods referrals broken down into categories of enquiry, (topics the service users come to the service for). Over the past few years, enquiries about EHC related topics have been one of the highest topics reflected in our statistics, and this is the case for this period too.  The Service has also noticed an increase in those coming to the service to gain IAS about Annual Reviews, Tribunals, Exclusions, and health related issues. We have however, also noticed an increase in those coming to the service around general education issues. This covers subjects such as exam adjustments that may be needed, choosing a school and general communication with senior staff within the setting.

As previously stated, as of December 2021, the LA had 2,583 EHC plans in place. SENDIASS has worked with 361 service users around the EHC process this period. This equates to 13.97% of those with EHC plans in the LA.

As of December 2021, the LA had 6,552 children and young people being supported at SEN Support. SENDIASS has worked with 301 Service users specifically around SEND Support matters this period (4.6% of SEND Support CYP in Rotherham)

Breakdown of EHC related cases

As the number of cases that are EHC related remains significantly higher than most other areas and topics it is useful to see how this is broken down further.

Breakdown of SEN Support Related Cases

As the number of cases who are SEN Support based remains significantly higher than most other areas and topics it is useful to see how this is broken down further.

Working with Children and Young People

Service outcomes

As well as the outcomes from mediation and tribunal as listed above, the service also gathers outcomes on the close of each involvement. During this period, the outcomes were as follows;

SENDIASS You Tube Channel

The SENDIASS You Tube channel has received a total of 528 views over this period. With the most popular videos being SEN Support in mainstream schools, EHC Assessment and plans, Creative ways of gathering CYP’s views and the Guiding Voices SEND Support video.

Website

Rotherham SENDIASS has its own dedicated website which went live on the 1st May 2015. The Website is also placed on the Local Offer. Updates are added when appropraite.

Summary of terms used:

Sessions: Sessions track how often the site was visited, and what actions were taken during each visit. A session defines a period of consecutive activity by the same use and persists until a user stops interacting with the site for a period of 30 minutes.

Page views: measures how often a specific page is visited, for example if a visitor visits page A, goes to the home page and then comes back to page A, it’s counted as two page views.

Top five pages:

Training within the Team

During this period, the team have accessed the following training sessions/ whole staff events

• Early Years SENDIASS training
• Exclusion Advocates training
• SENETA (SEN Expert Training and Advocacy Ltd)
• Tribunal Training (a practical approach),
• Safeguarding Everyone
• Keep them safe – Protecting children from child sexual exploitation
• Prevent Awareness course
• Induction training
• Online RMBC training
• IPSEA levels 1,2 &3
• IPSEA refresher
• Exclusion training
• Restorative Practice
• Key Performance Indicators
• Update and overview of Specialist Inclusion Team
• Overview of Requisitions
• Staff Forum – LA CYPS
• Leadership forum – LA CYPS
• SENCO Network
• Quality Assurance
• Drugs Awareness
• Preparing for Adulthood
• Early Years SEND Improving Access and Inclusion in the Early Years event
• Suicide Awareness
• Signs of Safety
• Psychological impact of trauma in childhood
• Compassionate Approach
• GDPR training and mandatory e learning modules

SENDIASS Input to other training events

During this period SENDIASS have delivered or supported on the following

• What is SENDIASS – to new SENCO’s
• What is SENDIASS – to SEND Champions in Early Help and MASH
• What is SENDIASS – to the EHC Team (due to new staffing)
• What is SENDIASS – to Commissioning Team
• Quality assurance comparators – EHC QA Event
• Guiding Voices Delivery to practitioners

Workshops

During this period the service has facilitated two workshops covering the topic of SEN Support in mainstream schools, and EHC Needs Assessment and Plans. These two topics were chosen due to the number of involvements we have related to these processes.

The workshops were delivered both face to face and virtual and had the following interest.

Sen support:

(9 attendees) 8 people in person 1 online (23 booked onto the event)

Needs Assessment

(17 attendees) 14 in person 3 online  (25 booked on to the event)

Feedback for the workshops was positive (see evaluation report for detail)

Virtual Workshops via You Tube

To support the advice we provide, we also have our workshops pre-recorded which are available via our You Tube Channel. We have had the following views to these same tools.

SEN support in Mainstream Schools – 132 views this period

EHC Needs Assessment and plans – 76 views this period