1. Learning, growing and succeeding together Local Offer – our experience
sensory support service
Sensory Support Service
Learning, growing and succeeding together
Local Offer – our experience
30th June 2015

2. Sensory Support Service
Service across 4 LAs
Over 1,200 CYP in our caseload
Provide EY sessions for children and parents/carers - stay or access information sessions

3. Initial consultation with parents
Before we developed our local offer we asked parents what they felt it should be like:
Main points: accessible, clear information about what is available, recognition of early intervention (early years) and emotional needs of children and young people .

4. Initial development of local offer
Answering the 9 questions
What does the service do?
What areas does it cover?
Who does the service provide for?
How can CYP be referred to the service?
How are decisions made about who can use the service?

5. How we communicate with service users and how are they involved in decision making / planning?
How accessible is our service?
What qualifications staff have? What training in teaching / supporting chidlren and young people with SEND staff has had or is having?
Where to get more information?

6. What else in our Local Offer?
Provision in the EY
Provision in schools - including different areas: Assessment,
Planning and Review
Teaching, curriculum and inclusion
Environment and Resources
Independence, Social emotional development and Pastoral Support
Access from our own website - word document - LAs will have a direct link to this - documents for VI, HI and MSI

7. What did parents/carers think?
Questionnaire and links of where to find the local offer for their LA
iPads and laptops available at family sessions
Finding our service in the LAs local offer – very difficult if not impossible – you had to search for sensory support service
Information in our service’s local offer – too much information, formal/clinical, not very parent friendly

8. In practice
Difficult to find our service in LAs Local Offer - some included a paragraph about the service (but not the same paragraph).
Answers to questions are OK but difficult to explain what we do in such short answer
Other information - particularly for school support - complex and too much information - difficult to navigate

9. Reviewing local offer
One LA reviewed their local offer - we were sent a password to review it – we were told to make sure we added anything: blind / deaf / deafblind / multi sensory impairment / VI / HI
Asked parents/carers and CYP what we could do to make it better

10. Improving our local offer - ideas
Pathway that shows the journey and the different agencies / roles
Sections for EY, School age post 16 adulthood
Easy version available
CYP – more pictures (poster), highlight in colour parts they needed to read and CYP version (good to see the information as they need to learn to make decisions as they get older).
More interactive – web-based

11. Next steps - ideas Develop more accessible version
Consider how we can show the journey through a pathway and whether this could be included in the local offer – probably this information needs to be part of our own local offer
Get technical support to develop more interactive web based with age range sections
Get a small group of parents / carers / CYP to work with us to develop further once we have done some improvements
Feeding back to each LA