Lincolnshire's SEND and Alternative Provision Inclusion Plan

We aim to ensure there is high quality local provision available across Lincolnshire with a clear focus on early intervention and access to universal support and services.  An effective integrated system will ensure that children and young people with additional needs are educated and have their needs met in the right place, at the right time in their local community.  Overarching this is an embedded clear inclusive ethos and culture for all children and young people through high aspirational focuses.

What we have achieved so far

• the building communities of specialist provision strategy has seen a £100m investment in Lincolnshire’s special schools.  This has provided over 500 additional special school places through school refurbishments, expansions and new builds
• as part of the building communities of specialist provision strategy, the SEND workforce development platform has been rolled out, providing direct access for professionals and parents and carers to specialist resources and training around SEND.  Sixteen modules are currently available via the SEND online learning platform, which include resources on SEND awareness, inclusion, SEND code of practice, transitions and a wide range of other SEND and inclusion specific subject areas  
• L.E.A.D teaching school hub Lincolnshire is demonstrating positive impact.  99% of leaders felt that the hub had a positive impact in the latest DfE survey July 2023 with those participating or active demonstrating higher outcomes verse those that did not participate 
• speech and language therapy (SALT) has put measures in place to support the children with the highest speech and language needs while the service continues to experience significant demand   
• as part of a pilot, on-line workshops to support around sensory processing difficulties (SPD) have been delivered by the behavioural specialist of Aspens.  Evaluation following the workshops highlighted positive impact with parents andcarers: 
  • 80% felt more confident in supporting their child’s sensory processing needs  
  • 80% felt they knew enough about SPD and how it impacted their child
  • 80% felt they now knew a range of strategies they could implement to help manage their child with SPD
• Kooth Digital Health Ltd is an online mental health and wellbeing support service that provides a counselling and support platform in Lincolnshire via education settings and through Kooth ambassadors, with increased hours of support available from 2023-24.  The support is well used by children and young people in Lincolnshire, including the information and advice pages, moderated forums, messaging and chat functions 
• since January 2022, a new mental health access team has been established for children and young people, parents, carers and professionals.  The access team provides telephone advice, signposting information and takes referrals for all children and young people mental health services in Lincolnshire provided by Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT), including Healthy Minds Lincolnshire, mental health support teams, grief and loss counselling, and specialist mental health services (CAMHS).  This creates a much easier route for referrers to seek the most appropriate support from a wide range on offer, referrals are allocated by the access team for the most appropriate support following screening.  As a result, more children and young people are getting access to the right support, first time 
• the local authority has continued to develop its knowledge skills and practice guidance in respect of Mental Capacity Act (MCA), best interest (BI) and court of protection applications.   There are five best interest assessors in children with disability (CWD) social care. The wider CWD team routinely undertake MCA and BI assessments on all young people 16 + who lack capacity to consent to their care and treatment.  For those young people where there may be a potential deprivation, including community deprivation of liberty (Dols) there is a robust process in place including Dols panel to seek permission for legal advice and progressing applications for the court of protection  
• health visitors are often the first port of call for concerned parents and access to support from the children’s health service is easy through the single point of access (SPA). There is also a daily central duty model for health visitors and family health workers which ensures those needing advice and guidance receive a call back within 48 hours. Health visitors triage all calls to ensure the most appropriate person responds to the call   
• the early learning and portage service has been recommissioned.  The co-delivery of services will empower more families of children and young people with diagnosed or suspected SEND to access universal services. The services are within their local communities and further strengthen best start Lincolnshire services staff knowledge and experience of working with children with SEND. This has a stronger focus on delivery in local communities and partnership working with the best start Lincolnshire early years and family service to ensure young children with suspected or diagnosed SEND and their parents and carers receive the right support at the right time and by the right professional.  The service is delivered by a lead school on behalf of a collaboration of schools with staffing resource aligned to areas of high demand to ensure equity of provision
• the children's integrated commissioning team (CICT), jointly funded by NHS Lincolnshire and ourselves are working in partnership to scope, plan, and review current services to identify gaps and required improvements for future services for children and young people with SEND.  A revised integrated commissioning strategy for SEND has been published and a range of programme projects planned  
• a new and improved autism diagnostic pathway has been designed for children and young people up to the age of 18.  Despite recent investment in Lincolnshire’s existing pathway and improved waiting times initially being achieved, demand for assessment has increased significantly post-pandemic, which is also the case nationally.  This new pathway has been co-developed with the autistic community and specialist clinicians to make it a simpler journey for both children and young people and their families, as well as for professionals 
• the virtual autism hub has been launched to enhance the non-clinical community support available to autistic people of all ages and their parent and carers.  The autism hub is funded by the ICB.  The specialist autism navigators provide information and advice relating to statutory services, diagnostic pathways, signposting to local groups and services along with providing practical help.  The open door policy enables users to step in and out of support as needed with a focus on empowering the autistic community
• Lincolnshire community health services NHS trust (LCHS) launched a new pilot in April 2024 meaning that families are able to access NHS children’s occupational therapy advice and be able to speak to a clinician more easily regarding general fine motor problems, such as handwriting and activities of daily living that affect their participation in terms of play, education, and leisure. It provides parents, carers, and professionals with the opportunity to discuss any problems with a clinician who will offer support and guidance 
• we have produced an alternative provision guidance for Lincolnshire schools that sets out the guiding principles to ensure that children and young people benefit from high quality alternative provision, which is safe, secure and appropriate to their individual needs.  The responsibility for the alternative provision used rests with the school commissioning the placement and so the guidance provides clear support for schools to ensure they have all the recommended and necessary checks, procedures and support in place throughout the placement   

What we will do next 

• the local authority and the ICB will participate in the partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools (PINS) project.  Working collaboratively with LPCF, the project will test an innovative model for the efficient deployment of the specialist health workforce and strengthening of parent effective carer and school partnerships in mainstream education settings. Focusing on supporting neurodiverse pupils, who represent a fast-growing group among the children most likely to benefit from more inclusive mainstream environments
• where independent specialist provision is appropriate we will implement block commissioning arrangements to maximise value for money from our spending within the high needs block. SEND placement management meeting will be embedded, in which we will look strategically across all independent placements and incoming referrals.  Considering referrals that are live, alongside the demand that is coming through the system, it will facilitate co-ordination of placement sufficiency in both maintained settings and the independent market to ensure that the right children and young people are placed in the right settings and accessing education as close to home as possible
• CICT will complete a fully costed review of Lincolnshire’s SALT service.  This review will lead onto a wider review of other children and young people therapy services, for example, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, for children and young people in the home, community and within education settings
• SALT will  continue to prioritise those children and young people with the highest need, providing safety netting advice whilst children are waiting for therapy so that the team of support around the child have strategies and programme of work in place
• the extended communication and language impairment provision for students (ECLIPS) team will pilot an early intervention offer to settings to support staff with meeting children and young people’s language and communication needs.  Aiming at supporting schools via auditing training needs that identify bespoke training needs in the delivery of relevant evidence based programmes
• the L.E.A.D. teaching school hub Lincolnshire will continue to work in close partnership with LEARN to ensure provision and training meets demand and is inline with east midlands and regional updates  
• the L.E.A.D. teaching school hub Lincolnshire will continue to embed the DfE accredited tiered approach to SEND professional development - how best to support provision in mainstream, across headteachers and senior leaders, middle leaders, teachers and support staff 
• the recommissioned early learning and portage service will be carefully monitored in relation to positive impact, key performance outcomes and value for money for children and their families  
• the work completed to support SPD will be built upon to support the growing demand.  A universal, targeted and specialist support pathway for SPD will be developed from recommended options for next steps. The ICB continue to commission a behavioural specialist from Aspens to deliver bespoke SPD workshops for families and professionals; a further six workshops shall take place throughout 2024-25 
• the children and young people’s mental health transformation programme will make recommendations to transform and improve provision, pathways and access to mental health support and services.  The programme will help further embed a clear understanding about the range of universal, targeted and specialist support that is available and children and young people get the right support, first time 
• as part of the building communities of specialist provision strategy, we will further develop the SEND workforce development platform and its sustainability to continue supporting those professionals working in specialist or mainstream settings so that they have the skills, knowledge and ability to provide meaningful support for children and young people with SEND
• the rising demand for domiciliary care provision will be met through engagement with specialist domiciliary care providers to match demand with capacity in the marketplace and block commission requirements on a locality basis
• the core health offer that will be delivered within our special schools will be designed by working with partner agencies, health providers and LPCF. The offer will focus on meeting legislative requirements while maximising positive impact for children and young people through an effective and efficient offer, workforce and training   
• Lincolnshire’s dynamic support register (DSR) is used to monitor the risk for autistic children and young people and those with a learning disability who are identified as being at risk of going into hospital if they do not get the right care and treatment in the community.  We will undertake a review of the processes for inclusion and addition of children and young people onto the Lincolnshire DSR as well as multi-agency monitoring and support and care planning
• we will gain an overview of the alternative provision providers that schools are commissioning in Lincolnshire to further support schools with ensuring they implement and maintain robust checks, procedures and oversight of any arrangements they have in place  
• where there are gaps in our children and young people autism and neurodevelopmental diagnostic pathways, we will develop appropriate commissioning plans and seek to put in place the necessary arrangements  
• we will develop plans for how the existing autism diagnostic pathway for children and young people can be transformed in order to implement the new improved co-produced pathway.  The new pathway includes more focus on offering support to the child or young person and their family throughout the assessment process, as well as post-diagnostic outcome. This would help us to achieve reduced waiting times, address increasing numbers of referrals for assessment and simplify the process for families
• Our occupational therapy team have invested in creating additional occupational therapy positions and a dedicated team manager position, to support timely assessments taking place and take the recruitment to these positions forward.  Robust case triage will continue to be used while the recruitment takes place
• greater promotion of how personal budgets can be accessed by families of children and young people with an EHC plan, working with all stakeholders to ensure families are able to make an informed choice 
• further invest in our specialist provision with the building of an additional new special school that will specialise in meeting children and young people’s social emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs
• as set out in our strategic plan and as part of Lincolnshire’s ongoing transformation work and the building communities of specialist provision strategy, the next phase is being rolled out with the introduction of Mainstream SEND hubs.  These will be created through the local partnership and will be part of our mainstream offer that is run by mainstream school as an integral part of their school.  The provision will provide personalised educational delivery across the curriculum to support children and young people as they progress through their educational journey and prepare for adulthood.  This phase will also further explore developments around a possible community outreach support offer from our special schools that will compliment and strengthen provision in mainstream schools and their ability to meet need    
• we will monitor, review and evaluate the initial impact of the newly introduced occupational therapy advice line, pilot project to inform next steps and actions