Guidance and support materials for SEND – FROM THE DIRECTOR OF CHILDREN’S SERVICES

Sent on behalf of Tolis Vouyioukas, Corporate Director, Children’s Services

Dear Colleagues,

The current crisis in relation to C-19 is having, and will continue to have, a significant impact on our collective ability to meet our SEND statutory obligations. The combined impact of:

· Schools and other educational settings closing
· Partner agencies reducing their involvement with children and young people
· Staff within the service self-isolating and/or being in a high risk group and unavailable for work.

Priorities

The most important duties placed on the Integrated SEND Service is to respond to any critical incident; this activity will specifically involve the Educational Psychologists responding to any incidents appropriately. It is in these circumstances only, in line with government guidelines, that we would see the potential for conducting a home visit or face to face work with families and other professionals. This will be only be necessary in very exceptional circumstances and where the risk to not doing this outweighs the safety risk in doing so. In such situations, protective equipment (gloves and masks), will be made available as will the latest Public Health England advice in relation to social distancing and hygiene. However, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to work directly with children and their families, complete direct work with children or hold professionals meetings.

We have therefore produced the a suite of guidance documents, in liaison with schools, for each of the following pieces of work to indicate how these will be delivered going forward in a more remote / virtual way:-

· Critical Incidents
· EHC Needs Assessments
· Annual Reviews
· Placement Decision Making
· Specialist Teacher
· Local Area SEND Improvement work

All of this information can be found via the Schoolsweb link below; we have also included these on the SEND Local Offer.
https://schoolsweb.buckscc.gov.uk/covid-19-corona-virus-latest-advice/covid-19-send/

It is important to note that this guidance will be reviewed regularly and may be subject to change as further information is provided by the DFE, but we wanted to enable a mechanism for support during this difficult time.

I would also like to confirm that each SEND Area Team Manager is directly linked to a Social Care lead to provide joined up support for our families and settings at this time; these officers are linking in daily to ensure effective response to situations that arise.

Area                                                   SEND Lead                                 Social Care Lead
Aylesbury                                              Hero Slinn                                Paulette Thompson-Omenka
Chiltern and South Bucks                  Hayley Nowley                         Errol Albert
Wycombe                                              Ian Peters                                 Amanda Andrews

The SEND Team have also been busy developing resources to support families at home with their children; these can be found at the link below. The resources are organised according to specific areas of need and we would be most grateful if you could highlight these to the relevant families that you are working with.
https://schoolsweb.buckscc.gov.uk/covid-19-corona-virus-latest-advice/covid-19-send/

The team are in the process of setting up a helpline and forum, particularly aimed at Senior Leaders from schools to support their mental health and wellbeing during this time. We are working work with the Family Support Service to provide an online forum specifically for parents of children with SEND to provide peer support between families, with professional support to be given if specific themes or issues are raised, as this will be monitored. We will provide more information on this next week as soon as the technology is set up but, in the meantime, should you require any support of this kind, please make contact with the following people:-

Tim Jones Principal Educational Psychologist Tim.Jones@buckinghamshire.gov.uk
Jenny Feeney Senior Educational Psychologist – Aylesbury Jenny.Feeney@buckinghamshire.gov.uk
Shami Rait Senior Educational Psychologist – Chiltern and South Bucks Shami.Rait@buckinghamshire.gov.uk
Keith Willshere Senior Educational Psychologist – Wycombe Keith.Willshere@buckinghamshire.gov.uk

I understand that unfamiliar pressures have been placed on everyone’s shoulders at this time and want you to know that we are here to support you however we can during this time.

Take care

Tolis Vouyioukas
Corporate Director
Children’s Services