Lincolnshire's SEND and Alternative Provision Inclusion Plan

We aim to ensure that we commission and provide the right support and provision to meet the needs and aspirations of children and young people and their families as part of our ordinarily available provision offer.  We aim to ensure that providing access to robust services as part of early help and intervention prevents needs escalating and deteriorating, resulting in high levels of need requiring specialist provision.  Crucially, we also aim to ensure that parental and school awareness of the wide and diverse range of different services in the local offer is clear and easily accessible.  

What we have achieved so far

• the autism and learning difficulties (ALD) outreach service was recommissioned.  The working together team is a National Autistic Society beacon status accredited service that provides all Lincolnshire mainstream schools with an allocated outreach teacher.  They provide an externally validated programme of training, bespoke interventions and verbal consultations for schools alongside a wide range of workshops and sessions for parents and carers.  Increasing mainstream school’s knowledge, skills and ability to meet autistic children and young people’s needs within their settings
• Lincolnshire’s inclusion toolkit has been designed to guide early years settings, schools and colleges in the education and development of children and young people with SEND. It aims to support SENDCos translating baseline assessment outcomes, such as those from valuing send (VSEND), into evidence-based, robust and responsive support plans
• SEND advice line for Lincolnshire (AskSALL) has been embedded as an early advice service for SENDCos, SEND managers and other professionals.  The latest survey response report (30 November 2022 – 03 April 2024) indicated 98% of contacts found the interaction very helpful in supporting the needs of children and young people with SEND. On the rating scale for satisfaction, 88% rated the service at the highest bracket (9-10) with 98% of contacts indicating they have actioned or were in the process of actioning recommendations SALL had made as part of their graduated approach. 95% stated they would definitely use the service again
•  we have continued to support SENDCo’s with access to information, knowledge, skills and advise via the continued roll out and development of termly SEND graduated approach briefings.  Using feedback and evidence from each briefing to inform the content of future briefings as part of a sector lead approach
• Lincolnshire’s local offer provides a wide range of information regarding services, events and advice and guidance across education, health and care for children and young people with SEND and their families.  The local offer has been expanded and developed through coproduction with Lincolnshire’s Parent Carer Forum (LPCF) and Lincolnshire Young Voices (LYV)
• Lincolnshire has launched family hubs which support families through Start for Life from 0-25 (SEND) with a focus on 0-5 year group.  The family hub services have been launched in all ten identified children’s centre sites.  There is a speech and language pilot in place with a speech and language therapist allocated in each of the hubs
• the early support and learning provision was recommissioned. This is a non-statutory service delivered in children’s centres offering support to families so that children with disabilities can be ready for school, access universal services and engage with their peers whilst giving parents and carers a break from their caring role
• we have continued to support short breaks for children with a disability in Lincolnshire who are assessed as a child in need. This is through the maintenance of two dedicated units; a third site is being commissioned in collaboration with an education trust that runs a special school.  Direct payments are also promoted to support children and families with short breaks and ensure that the short breaks offer meets a wider range of needs
• we have recommissioned domiciliary care services for children with a disability, moving away from a block contract to expand the number of potential providers in the marketplace and better meet need within each locality
• termly leadership briefings are well established and embedded to provide a robust forum for Lincolnshire’s school leaders to collectively shape the future of educational provision in Lincolnshire through a sector lead development focus
• promotion of the different mental health services and how they can support children and young people has continued. Z-cards are produced and circulated within secondary schools, a simple directory of services produced and shared with schools and GP practices, improvements made to the LPFT website to make understanding the services available in Lincolnshire clearer and referral much simpler, including self-referral for parents, carers and young people
• Lincolnshire has achieved increased good level of development outcomes for children in the early years foundation stage and narrowed the gap with national levels
• Lincolnshire has a start for life website in place which is a one-stop-shop for information and services available during the period of conception until the child turns 2 years of age. We have joined up the start for life branding with the family services rirectory and local offer so families clearly understand what is available to support them
• all schools, including mainstream, special and alternative provision commissioned by the LA, have a termly support meeting with the LA to discuss the attendance of pupils as part of the DfE’s ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance.  Schools facing barriers to good school attendance will have advice and guidance on how to remove these barriers
• the holiday activities and food programme (HAF) is a government funded programme that provides free holiday clubs for reception to year 11 pupils in receipt of benefits-related free school meals in Lincolnshire over the summer, Christmas and Easter holidays.  We have re-commissioned the targeted positive activities for three years from April 2024, including a requirement to work more closely with HAF and expand provision across the county 

What we need to do next

• Lincolnshire’s local offer will continue to be developed by the local offer working group to further expand its information and use by families and professionals
• the family hubs will be further developed to meet identified needs as the work progresses and provide further opportunities for multi-agency working to identify and meet needs through earlier interventions
• as part of the family hub programme, an antenatal education programme will be developed offering face to face groups delivered at times most suitable to prospective parents, such as evenings and weekends. These will supplement the current online offer
• through the family hubs programme, a speech and language early support offer for children in their early years aged 3 to 4 years will be piloted within Lincolnshire’s children's centres.  These are also designated family hubs
• we will develop home learning environment outreach support to early years settings through our CPD offer for settings, including a sustainable approach for making it real through LCC train the trainers
• we will develop quality 0-2 provision support as part of the childcare reforms. We will continue to narrow the gap with national levels in good level of development outcomes for children with SEN at the end of their foundation stage
• we will further enhance our start for life focus through the development of strategy that identifies and takes forward key areas of development and will also support children achieving a good level of development