Sheffield City Council and Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group have published the Sheffield Inclusion Strategy setting out their commitments to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in a strategy document approved by councillors. The local area SEND inspection in November 2018 identified significant weaknesses.
The document details Sheffield’s plans to provide more high quality provision to meet the growing demand for services; reduce waiting times for specialist support; provide training to schools and nurseries so that they have the knowledge and skills to identify needs early and provide key workers for the most vulnerable children.
Dr Anthony Gore, GP and Clinical Director for Children, Young People and Maternity at NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said “Feedback from children, young people and their families made it clear that we can do better in making sure they are at the centre of all decision making and that services meet their needs in a timely and co-ordinated manner.”
Katie Monette, chair of the Sheffield Parent Carer Forum said: “Many parents have told us that previous SEND strategies had very little impact on their children and we believe that the best way to avoid this happening again is to have a strong, coproduced action plan with clear timescales, accountable officers, and success criteria.”
“Our forum was involved in coproducing this strategy and we want to continue to be involved in developing and monitoring this action plan to ensure that things really do improve for families in Sheffield. We will continue to act as a critical friend to both the council and the CCG.”
