Our strategy for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

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Foreword

This strategy sets out the vision and strategic priorities for the Bradford district during the period 2024- 2028, which will be kept under review on a yearly basis with a 2-year revision if required.

The key partners who are working to develop, implement and review this strategy are:

• Children and young people (CYP) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
• Parents and carers of CYP with SEND
• Health commissioners and providers – NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB)
• Mainstream and specialist education settings
• Voluntary and community sector organisations
• Children's Services and Adult Community Services – Bradford Council and Bradford Children and Families Trust

We aim to run an efficient and inclusive special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision system where practitioners work with parents and carers, children and young people to build trust and confidence and develop good quality partnerships that are focussed on improving aspirations and outcomes.

This will be achieved by practitioners from all sectors working collaboratively to deliver the most appropriate provision, support, and information across the Bradford district. We recognise that local schools, settings, and colleges are central to children and young people with SEND achieving their best possible outcomes.

Children and young people and their parent/carers have access to the Local Offer website, providing information in one place about the SEND support and services available across the Bradford district.

We are committed to reviewing progress made towards the outcomes set out in the strategy annually so we can continue to drive the improvements needed and respond to the needs of children and their families. We will continue to work with children, young people and parent/carers to continue to review, design and develop services and support and continue our co-production journey.

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Our Vision

Our co-produced vision alongside children and young people with SEND is:

All children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to achieve, have choice and control and lead happy, healthy fulfilled lives.

As multi-agency partners we aim to improve the outcomes and reduce inequalities for all children and young people with SEND in Bradford district, so that they flourish and reach their potential.

This strategy, like, Bradford District Children and Young People's Strategy 2023-2025, supports our collective district ambition to ensure all babies, children and young people have equity of access to the resources and support available to help them prepare for adulthood, reaching their full potential.

We plan to achieve this vision through our collective approach to the development and implementation of SEND services and support, across Bradford's continuum of need, through co-production with parent/ carers and children and young people. We will continue to work closely as multi-agency partners to identify areas where more services can be jointly commissioned across education, health, and social care.

New services and provision will be co-designed with service users and will be based on data from Bradford's SEND Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) which predicts future needs and demands across the district, as well as data available in live data dashboards.

From the early identification of SEND, through to accessing the right services and support, multi-agency partners work in collaboration to ensure all babies, children and young people experience a positive SEND Journey allowing for their SEND needs to be met in the right place, at the right time.

Professionals engage and involve parent and carers throughout their SEND journey, providing information, decisions and updates using the most appropriate and suitable methods of communication based on their feedback.

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Our Priorities – 'I' and 'We' statements

Our priorities have been co-produced by children and young people, parent and carers and the Local Area SEND Partnership, including the SEND workstreams and SEND Partnership Board.

We will adopt the following priorities, expressed as “I/We Statements”, which will be embedded in everything we do for CYP with SEND and their families throughout the Bradford district.

We will continue to work as a partnership to allow all our children and young people to be able to express their views, wishes and aspirations in the most appropriate way for each child or young person, to ensure that they can achieve their best outcomes.

Communication and Engagement

I can read and understand information about services.

I can use these services.

I can tell people how the services help me and what needs to change.

We will share information that can be understood, via all channels available including the Local Offer, newsletters, parent/carer groups and contact with professionals.

Our SEND Journey

I will have my needs identified early and assessed.
I access services and support across education, health and care that meet my needs.

We will work together to use all relevant information and resources and hold ourselves to account to/make sure we meet your needs.

Developing Services and Support

I am involved in designing and reviewing the services I use.
I am satisfied with the quality of services I am offered to meet my needs.

We will involve service users when developing, shaping, and reviewing services, to ensure they are able to meet needs and will work to ensure SEND families experience positive relationships with professionals.

Preparation for Adulthood

I have a plan in place which covers all Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) pathways.
I am involved in the changes in my life as I move into adulthood.

We will continue to review the range of support and services available during transition to adulthood, making sure they support young people to have the best outcomes they can.

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Related strategies and plans

The priorities we have established are linked to the outcomes of the Bradford Children and Young People's Strategy 2023-2025.

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Background and context of SEND in Bradford district

A Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is a review of the current and future education, health, and social care needs of a defined community. Bradford has recently updated its JSNA (PDF) to provide more information on its population aged from birth to 25 with SEND.

The reviewed JSNA will help to inform the partnership's joint commissioning priorities and intentions.

The JSNA aims to identify ways to improve the health and wellbeing of the local population and reduce inequalities. A JSNA collects data from a range of sources including national and local datasets and incorporates the voices of service users and stakeholders into the process.

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Key facts about the District of Bradford SEND cohorts and services

SEND Support and Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans

There are 14,323 children and young people who receive SEN Support across all settings in Bradford as of September 2023 a rise from to 13,142 in September 2022. This is in partly due to the increased identification of children with SEND in Bradford, also due to the rising numbers of children nationally being added to the SEND registers. Bradford, however, is still below the national averages of children on SEN support with 13.6% of pupils being supported at this level compared to 13.9% in England.

In Bradford, we have seen an increase in the numbers of children with an EHC Plan from 3,441 in December 2019 to 6,001 in October 2023. This has equated to a rise of 74% in the last four years. By April next year we can predict that Bradford will have the second highest numbers of children in England by a non-County Local Authority who support children with an EHC Plan with approximately 6500 children in receipt of an EHC Plan behind only Birmingham City.

Despite this growth Bradford is still below the England levels of pupils who have an EHC plan as an overall population of children with 4% compared to 4.4% nationally.

The Primary Needs of our Children with SEND

We understand that there are many different needs for children and young people who have an EHC Plan in Bradford and we are tailoring plans to meet the needs of children specifically in the Bradford district. Within our EHC Plan cohort we know that the main primary need for children and young people is Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (1622) followed by Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) (1523).

We have an ever-growing population of children and young people in Bradford district, and a proportionally growing population of children and young people with SEND.

Bradford District has experienced a significant increase in demand for SEND provision in the last ten years.

During this time, Bradford has invested significant resources to develop specialist provision within the District with the aim of avoiding the need to place young people out of District enabling them to remain part of our local community.

Bradford supports children and young people with SEND in a range of settings; it has Special Schools, Resourced Provisions (both LA-led and School-led) and Early Years Enhanced Specialist Provision (EYESP) alongside mainstream early year's settings, schools and colleges.

The number of specialist places is reviewed throughout each year against the forecast and projections to ensure that there is sufficient capacity.

For more information on our profile of need and the sufficiency of places see the latest Strategic Plan - Sufficiency of Specialist Places for Children and Young People in Bradford on the Local Offer website.

Health Services: Children and young people with SEND are supported by our local health services through universal health services which are available to all and, following an assessment of need, may be supported to access more specialist provision to meet their identified physical and/or emotional and mental health needs. Health services are delivered in a variety of settings including within the community, within educational settings, from hospital bases or specialist centres.

The Local Offer health category lists the services available.

Social Care: Similarly, the Local Offer Social Care lists details the range of support available for children, young people, and their families.

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Key Priorities - Making it happen

All partners across the Bradford district are committed to the vision for children and young people with SEND and to providing joint leadership to deliver this strategy and the key priorities identified in the table below.

To help deliver the strategy each of the priority areas has a dedicated workstream made up of partners from education, health, social care, settings, and parent/carers. The workstreams meet monthly discuss the priorities and ensure progress is being made. Further information and updates on the work of the SEND workstreams can be found on the Local Offer website page - SEND Reforms: transformation and compliance workstreams.

The local area partnership will be responsible for the support of all children with SEND in Bradford. There is a commitment amongst partners to continue to work collaboratively with parents/carers and children and young people.

Communication and engagement	Our SEND journey	Developing services and support	Preparation for adulthood
How we share information with you about support and services. How we get your feedback on services.	Being able to access assessments and services to have needs identified early and to allow the needs of children and young people aged 0 to 25 years to be met.	Coproducing and improving services and support, identifying gaps where we need new services and support.	Building awareness of the support available, enabling SEND young people to achieve their aspirations and long-term outcomes, allowing them to live a happy and fulfilled life.

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Priority 1: Communication and Engagement

• I can read and understand information on services.
  I can use these services.
  I can tell people how the services help me and what needs to change.
• We will share information that can be understood, via all channels available including the Local Offer, newsletters, Parent carer groups and contact with professionals.

Progress made:

• Co-production of Bradford's Communications plan.
• New Local Offer website co-produced and launched.
• Children's Participation Officer role recruited and in post and established the SEND Youth Forum.
• Implementing a Service Level Agreement on service standards to improve Communication.

Where we are:

• More services are providing updates via the SEND Local Offer newsletter which reaches over 8,000 people.
• Parent carer network providing regular feedback to the Local Area SEND Strategic Partnership Board.

Where we want to be:

• Have clear roles and responsibilities and sharing these.
  Ensuring children and young people and parent/carers know what to expect well in advance allowing for informed decisions to be made and ensuring more parent/carers feeling informed.
• Raise awareness of SEND needs that can be met in different types of provision.
• Raise awareness of SEND Local Offer website and support, and increase the number of families who are aware of the Local Offer and use the Local Offer.
• Ensure the Local Offer pages are kept up-to-date by services and information is family friendly.
• Increase the number of families accessing and reading the Local Offer newsletter.
• Better and more relevant forms of communication for children and young people (CYP) to ensure more CYP feel informed.
• Need to consider how we reach hard to reach families and support the promotion of family friendly service information.
• Increase the proportion of CYP and parent/carers contributing to their annual review and the proportion who feel their views were captured.
• Making sure all professionals supporting children and young people and their families can share the needs led approach in Bradford and signpost and communicate this effectively using marketplace information ensuring more families feel informed.
• Increase engagement with service users and more services inputting into the engagement tracker.
• Ensure as well as parent/carers, as many children and young people are supported to give feedback and influence the services they access.

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Priority 2: Our SEND Journey

• I will have my needs identified early and assessed.
  I access services and support across education, health and care that meet my needs.
• We will work together to use all relevant information & resources and hold ourselves to account to make sure we meet your needs.

Progress made:

• Improved 20-week compliance which is consistently above National and Regional figures.
• Development of a suite of SEND data dashboards allowing for needs to be trends in data and needs to be identified easily.
• A full restructure of SEND services with an increased capacity for assessment and reviewing of EHCPs.
• Introduction of a EHCP Quality Assurance Framework for the Local Area.
• Launch of the SEND EHCP and Annual Review portal.
• Recruitment of a designated clinical officer and a designated social care officer to co-ordinate health and social care support.

Where we are:

• The Local Area has a good understanding of the needs of our children and young people in Bradford with SEND.
• A dedicated Annual Review team is now in place, working towards ensuring Annual Reviews are processed within statutory timeframes.
• An independent SEND Audit team is now in place and co-ordinating the Quality Assurance response across the Local Area and the quality of EHCPs.
• There is strong evidence of early intervention of needs with 40% of EHCPs being finalised in Nursery, Reception and Year 1.

Where we want to be:

• Continue to increase the quality of EHCPs.
• Increased sufficiency of educational places and development of an Alternative Provision (AP) 3-tier model.
• Reduced waiting times for health services, particularly those on the neuro-diversity pathway.
• Ensure that children and young people on a waiting list are receiving appropriate information and support while waiting.
• Increase support for those cohorts which we are seeing an increase in, such as those with complex health needs or emotional based school avoidance.
• Improve the use of data across multi-agency services to inform work and support provided to children and young people with SEND.
• Continue to train and upskill all professionals so that we have a highly skilled workforce able to support the needs of those with SEND.
• Continue to raise awareness of the importance of early transition planning at all key transition points, including the transition from children to adult services for those accessing Health and Social Care services.

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Priority 3: Developing Services and Support

• I am involved in designing and reviewing the services I use.
  I am satisfied with the quality of services I am offered.
• We will involve service users when developing, shaping, and reviewing services to ensure they are able to meet needs and will work to ensure SEND families experience positive relationships with professionals.

Progress made:

• The partnership has agreed to the Bradford District and Craven Strategic Partnering Agreement (SPA) which is a set of key principles about how partners will work together in a cooperative and joined up way, to deliver better outcomes for the people of Bradford district and Craven.
• Implementation of a new SEND Short Break offer.
• Newly commissioned universal service for CYP for sleep.
• New SENDIASS specification to help meet the increased demand.
• Development of Healthy Minds, FYI and BDCFT websites.
• Introduction of new posts and teams to identify gaps in provision including marketplace lead and the contract and quality service.
• Increase in offer to Families waiting via the Bradford Early Advice Team ( BEAT) for those awaiting assessment.
• The establishment of the Start for Life - Family Hubs.

Where we are:

• Bradford's Partnership Leadership Executive have agreed to become guardians of the SPA to deliver our aim of enabling people and communities to be healthy, happy and at home.
• An understanding as to the current services and support available in Bradford, allowing commissioners to work with children and young people and their families to fill any gaps.

Where we want to be:

• Effectively act as one team, working towards one vision, joined in our purpose to improve population health outcomes.
• We will be ambitious for the people we serve and the staff we employ.
• Increase the number of services co-produced by children and young people and their families.
• More children and young people and their families engaged in reviewing and co-producing services they access.
• Explore the expansion and establishment of an Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce.

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Priority 4: Preparation for Adulthood

• I have a plan in place which covers all Preparation for Adulthood pathways.
  I am involved in the changes in my life as I move into adulthood.

We will continue to review the range of support and services available during transition to adulthood, making sure they support young people to have the best outcomes they can.

Progress made:

• Improved information relating to Preparing for Adulthood( PfA) available on the Local Offer website, including a PfA Pathway, One Minute Guides, and a PfA Prospectus (PDF).
• Development of the post-16 offer to allow for a greater level of choice for children and young people in Bradford district.
• More EHCPs referencing PfA needs and outcomes, meaning more families are having discussions around PfA and transitions to adulthood.
• Young people with EHCP's often have a positive destination, with a high % of young people remaining in learning.
• Have a good understanding as to where our Post 16 EHCPs are, allowing for professionals to proactively support young people to access a suitable destination.

Where we are:

• The support and services available to support children and young people with preparing for adulthood is broad and varied, however families tell us that they are not always aware of this.
• PfA content in EHCP's varies and children and young people and their parent carers tell us that the PfA discussions sometimes happen too late for them to explore all opportunities and make the most informed decisions.
• Measuring and monitoring young people post-16 that are Not in Education, Employment and/or Training (NEET).

Where we want to be:

• Continue to increase the quality of PfA content and contributions in EHCPs.
• Develop a whole population approach to the support young people transitioning to adulthood.
• All children and young people are ready for the next stage achieving their PfA outcomes, including educational and vocational outcomes linked to award scheme development and accreditation network offers and skills for life.
• Better understand what the SEND journey looks like for those children and young people with complex needs and their parent/carers who care for them.
• Understand the pathways into support and the care that can be received and the funding processes (for example, continuing health).
• Raise awareness of the support available in Further Education and how this differs from secondary settings.
• Develop the workforce and raise awareness of the 4 PfA Pathways - Employment and or Higher Education, Independent Living, Community Inclusion and Planning for good health, and the importance of starting early, developing skills for life, and planning for changes like travel arrangements.

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SEND Governance

Local Area SEND Strategic Partnership Board and SEND Workstreams

The purpose of the Local Area SEND Strategic Partnership Board (LASSPB) is to act as the Strategic Governance Body to oversee the delivery and implementation of Bradford's SEND Strategy and the Local Area Improvement Plan (LAIP), across the Local Area (Local Authority, ICB and Public Health).

The Board receives progress reports from operational workstreams, tasked with delivering key elements of the SEND Strategy and in turn will report progress and risks in-line with the agreed governance structure. Co-production is fundamental to all activities relating to the role of the LASSPB and associated workstreams.

Each Workstream will complete on a regular basis, a report that states:

• What we did (actions taken).
• The impact; and
• What next.

 

 

Membership of the Board will be representative of SEND stakeholders including:

• The Parents' Forum for Bradford and Airedale
• The Parent/carer network support group;
• Headteachers (from all types of settings)
• senior leaders and budget holders in education and social care, public health, Integrated Care Board (ICB), healthcare professionals and voluntary sector.

The Board:

• Maintains clear communication with all SEND stakeholder groups in Bradford's district.
• Monitor outcomes for children and young people with SEND as outlined in the SEND workstream plans.
• Challenges and supports the achievement of actions within the SEND workstream plans.
• Review the SEND strategy priorities as identified and represented in Bradford District's SEND Strategy to ensure they reflect national and local policy.
• Monitor and review actions and progress in the accessibility strategy.
• Report on progress of implementation and future priorities to the Health and Wellbeing Board.

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SEND Youth Forum

Our SEND children and young people participation work has seen us strengthen the involvement of children and young people across the district in the design and delivery of our services. This work has started within our schools and with other post-16 providers by developing SEND forums and more recently the emergence of Bradstarz – our district wide SEND young people forum for our SEND youth voice.

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SEND Parent/ Carer Ambassadors

Our SEND parent/carer ambassadors have been in place since before 2020 supporting our transformation journey and helping to co- design services. The group meets six times a year to discuss SEND services and several group members now also attend the SEND workstreams.

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SEND Parent/ carer group network

The network group started in 2022 as a forum for all SEND parent/carer groups in the district to meet to both improve communication, share common themes and priority areas. The group meets monthly and is regularly attended by representatives from across the partnership to share updates, gather lived experience and further improve service provision.

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Helpful SEND glossary and acronyms

SEND glossary and acronyms