The results are in…

SEND Inspection Report

• Leaders have a strong awareness of the strengths and weaknesses across the area – they have plans to address areas of weakness.
• Families are becoming increasingly influential in the design and implementation of services – WarrPAC is valued greatly
• Schools are being increasingly inclusive.

However, the report also lists a number of areas for development, for example:

• Education, Health and Care Plans are inconsistent and not detailed enough
• More work is needed to prepare young people for adulthood
• Parents are having to repeat their stories and “battle” for services
• There are difficulties in the assessment, diagnosis and post diagnosis support process

This is just a very quick snapshot of the reports findings. The full report lists 34 areas of strength and 22 areas for development.  CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REPORT

Whilst we are obviously very pleased that so many areas of good practice have been found across Warrington, WarrPAC are still concerned that the special needs journey still remains a difficult one for many of our families.  It remains our priority, therefore, to work closely with our professional partners to address the areas for development and ensure that progress is made.  This will be a major theme of our next “Working Together” conference….

We are currently finalising the details for our….

Working Together
What’s Changed?
Conference 2019

Our conference this year will look at the plans we made within the SEND strategy, feedback that we have received and the SEND inspection report to check out what’s changed across Warrington and what is needed going forward.  This year, we are breaking the day into a number of workshop sessions which will focus on parents, carers and professionals working together to develop a plan of the most important areas to work on to bring about real change for our families.

We will be sending out the booking link for this conference within the next couple of days.

One of the areas that we are particularly interested in is what’s been done about the feedback that we have received from parents and carers to date?  We have created a page on our website where we have placed a range of feedback received.  CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE WEBSITE FEEDBACK PAGE.

Additional Mini-Conference

Preparing for Adulthood

• DLA to PIP
• The move from school to sixth form to post 19 and onwards
• Health transitions
• Impact on finances
• Court of Protection

The sessions will be run jointly by WarrPAC and Warrington Borough Council to provide information in this area and to collect feedback on our families’ needs and concerns.

The same session will be run in the evening and in the daytime to enable as many parents and carers to attend as possible.  Venue confirmation and a booking link will be circulated within the next few days.

Evening Session

Daytime Session

Gosh your team have been busy!….

WarrPAC Work Update

SEND Improvement Board

Jean writes “After introductions/welcomes/apologies/previous mins… we started the agenda with SEND Inspection post Mortem. I was asked to lead that. I reported for us, although a huge commitment, it had been a positive experience overall. We felt included, listened too, respected from both our area and the CQC process. We felt that both parent & young people focus groups had been delivered and received extremely well. WarrPAC were thanked and commended for their commitment and professionalism, one partner commented that this had been the 3rd CQC inspection he had done in different areas and had never seen a forum so professional, involved and committed. I was straight in again with WarrPAC update and highlighted our 2 main aims as a forum which are to collate feedback and evidence from our parent/Carers and to feed that info back to our partners. I reiterated that at the same time the membership also have duty of care which is paramount to moving the agenda forward to answer that feedback and evidence. There has been no progress documented against the strands highlighted in the SEND strategy. So I held the Board accountable. I stressed it was important to keep our membership engaged. There was a joint commissioning update around data to support SEND Commissioning in Warrington along with Current SEND data Framework. SEND Behavioral insights – evaluating phase 1 and proposals for Phase 2. SEND Review update. Board has made good progress. Early Years SEND Support pathways have been reviewed/ refreshed. Changes made – EHCP coordinators could now attend Annual Reviews. The new site for ASD school has been inspected and awaiting confirmation or not that we have a successful bid. KS3/4 triage for Social, Emotional and Mental Health at Woolston Brook to be set up for pupils with/without EHCP. Priority going forward … to establish the training plan for “Committed to Inclusion Award” and ASD “Kite Mark” for schools. There was also a discussion around preparation for adulthood and audit information.”

Clinical Commissioning Group Health Forum

Andrea attended the first forum meeting of the year, going over the Terms of Reference and aims of the forum, membership and topics to be covered this year. These include those which come from NHS England and Public Health.

Carers Trust Coffee Morning

Andrea reports back from her attendance: “They are wanting to refresh their offer in Warrington. They wanted to know what services carers would like to see in Warrington to help ‘Care for the Carer’. To enable us to take a break and relax as carers. Looking at weekly groups and partnership working. Covering all carers not separating into adult/parent/young carers etc.  A lady from “Missing Piece” was also there. She runs a coffee morning for carers of people on the Autistic spectrum. Held at Asda Cockhedge cafe on the 2nd Thursday in the month.

Coffee Morning / Afternoons

In order to enable more parents and carers to attend, we having changing around the day / time of our coffee events.  They remain popular and are a great forum to share experiences and feedback.  Our next coffee morning is on Monday 11th March at 11am at the Orchards Centre Training Room, Hilden Road

SENCO Network Meeting

Sharon and Laura attended the February meeting of SENCO’s, sharing their journeys and raising the profile of WarrPAC. They received a note of thanks saying that they had made a “big difference” to the meeting.

Neurodevelopmental Pathway Conference – St Helens

Jean attended this meeting which was ran by the Council for Disabled Children.

Supported Employment Forum

Sharon attended this forum meeting where they discussed what the offer was from three providers of supported internships for young people over sixteen to try to support them getting ready for work 

SEND Information Advice and Support

Sharon met up with Gill Neil who is supporting Iain McDonald on a part time basis.  Gill is really passionate about working with families and we look forward to working with her too!  We have planned the next SENDIASS drop in on Wednesday 6th March 9 – 11.30 at our office in Sandy Lane Children’s Centre.

Consultation – Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism

Have your say on proposals to introduce mandatory learning disability and autism training for health and care staff.

This consultation closes at
11:59pm on 12 April 2019

Consultation description

The government wants to know how we can make sure that health and social care staff have the right training to understand the needs of people with a learning disability and autistic people, and make reasonable adjustments to support them.

The consultation considers issues around the training and development staff need to better support people with a learning disability or autistic people.

We want to know what people think about our proposals on:

the planned content of the training how the training should be delivered how to involve people with a learning disability or autistic people in training how we can mandate, monitor and evaluate the impact of training

The consultation will be of particular interest to:

people with a learning disability or autistic people the families and carers of people with a learning disability or autistic people patient groups providers of health and social care services

For More information follow the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/learning-disability-and-autism-training-for-health-and-care-staff

Happy, OK, Sad training

Sharon attended the “Happy, OK, Sad training session” ran by Caroline Jenkins from public health . Showed us how to navigate around the website – which is a mass of mental health support in many areas for lots of different types of people with a host of issues. There’s lots of free downloads & resources that can be used that’s really useful for signposting & reading up on. The only thing specific to SEND was the link to Mylifewarrington & Ask Ollie which she raised as an issue.

But on the whole if we are supporting parents who need help from a mental well-being point of view it’s a great tool – it’s also useful for us & our crazy lives too 

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE WEBSITE

Preparing for Adulthood Operational Group

Andrea reports from the group: “Paula Worthington was chairing. She spoke about the SEND inspection and how Warrpac played a vital role in supporting, questioning and challenging. She spoke of the areas they identified as needing to get right and areas where they are doing well. Very honest and balanced view. Ange Adams spoke of the independent living plans, Cycling projects had a representative there who spoke about not only recreational opportunities but possible work experience, apprenticeships etc. Liz updated on Ask Ollie and there was a new person taking on Oi Listen with a few new ideas. Lots about the voice of the young person for secondary age, not just 6th form. Transition in health is a massive area. Yvette Mckern, Cathy Jones and myself had a discussion about doing a separate piece of work on this area to feed back into PFA. I also spoke about what we are doing and our conference(s). Good meeting! “