Please share this newsletter with colleagues and parent carers. If you know of anyone who would like to be added to the distribution list, please let us know.
The next edition will be in February 2024, copy deadline 26 January 2024. We welcome your ideas for articles - please contact Kathryn Kellagher.
As we approach the end of a busy term with the build up to the festive season, we are sending you a range of useful information and guidance to support you into 2024.
You will be aware we have just had our Ofsted and CQC Local Area SEND inspection. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who contributed either directly or indirectly. We really appreciated the commitment across the system to our children and young people with SEND. We are expecting to receive the inspection report in February.
This will be my last editorial for a while, as I am taking up an 18 month secondment with the Department for Education. This secondment will be to help the Regions Group to support sector-led improvement, by providing advice and training to drive positive developments in local area provision for SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) services. I know I am leaving the SEND and Inclusion Service under strong leadership across the services we provide, with partnerships across health, social care, schools and settings, which will support positive outcomes for children and young people with SEND in West Sussex.
Thank you again for all your efforts and expertise and enjoy the festive season!
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We are pleased to announce the county-wide roll out of the Individual Support Plan (ISP), following a successful phase two pilot.
The finalised documentation is now available on Tools for Schools, so please keep an eye out for uploads of more supporting materials over the coming weeks.
The document is now streamlined with a suite of annex pages to use if/when required. It scaffolds non-specialist practitioners effectively through the assess, plan, do, review (APDR) process so that early intervention information is recorded and builds to a holistic profile over time.
All schools are invited to use the new documentation to strengthen their APDR systems and processes. For those just considering implementation, please don’t worry… we’ll be holding termly quality assurance and best practice events to help you learn from our pilot practitioners. Most of our pilot schools have built up the use of the document over time rather than making one big change, mainly starting with their youngest cohort, and building year on year.
Here’s where the materials are hosted: Individual Support Plan (ISP) | Tools for schools (local-offer.org)
Here's the link to sign up for the first event: https://schools.westsussex.gov.uk/Event/213012 (there is no additional charge to schools for this).
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My name is Lauren Boal and I started in September as a Voice & Participation Officer within the WSCC Voice and Participation team.
A big part of this role is being the lead on participation work with SEND children and young people, listening to what they have to say about their experiences accessing council services and ensuring they have a say in decisions that affect them. As a team we do this through campaigns, co-production, consultation and training.
My background is teaching in special schools, and I hope to be able to use the experience and the skills gained there in my new role.
We have a regular group for young people with SEND, ‘Young voices 4 u’ with fun activities, trips and socials as well as focused voice and participation work. As well as this, we can do specific pieces of work with individuals or other groups of young people around the services they use.
My focus for the next few months is to learn more about the different services in West Sussex that young people with SEND access and how their voices are being heard. I’m keen to meet more young people and expand the regular groups to ensure a breadth of young voices are represented from across the county. Children and young people do not need to have an EHCP, specific diagnosis or be on schools SEN registers to take part, they should live in West Sussex and be between ages 10 - 25.
If you have young people with additional needs, who might want to participate, please reach out to voice@westsussex.gov.uk and check out the YourVoice page for more info and FAQ.
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 The new academic year sees the launch of our new network locality meetings for Senior Mental Health Leads (SMHLs) in schools.
The initial meetings took place in October with 87 schools attending. The next round will take place in March. If your SMHL did not receive an invitation please could you send their details to the Schools and Colleges Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Advisor, Vik Machin vik.machin@westsussex.gov Please include the person’s name, email address, and their job title. These will be added to our database which will ensure that SMHLs receive all of our mental health and emotional wellbeing updates, be invited to events, and be made aware of initiatives, projects, and resources.
We would also like to remind colleagues that all state-funded schools and colleges are eligible to receive the DfE’s £1200 grant to access SMHL training from a list of DfE-approved providers. We have also had confirmation from the DfE that if your previously-trained SMHL has moved on to a new role, you are now eligible to apply for a second grant. More information on how to apply can be found here: Senior mental health lead training - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) For those who would like more information about the SMHL training, we also have a pre-recorded Q&A session with the DfE’s Regional Mental Health Delivery Lead for the South East, Charlotte Wilson, which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYbJCGgcluY
This term Thought-Full, Mental Health Support Teams in School launched in three new areas. In addition to our work in Chichester, Bognor, Worthing, Mid-Sussex and Crawley, we now work in Horsham, Littlehampton and Adur. We support schools to develop Whole-School approaches to mental health, offer one to one support for pupils and provide advice and signposting. Full schools list here.
Finally, we would like to share with you the online CPD calendar that Thought-Full deliver throughout the year. The sessions are free-to-access for all schools and not restricted to those who are part of the Thought-Full programme. Please book your places here: Upcoming Training and Events | West Sussex Services for Schools
We're delighted to announce that the SENCO Conference 2024 will be held on 3 July. By popular demand, we are returning to Butlins, Bognor Regis!
The theme of this year's conference is Thriving, Not Surviving. Kit Messenger will deliver the keynote speech on Neurodiversity and Inclusion in the Classroom on a Budget.
The morning will also include an interactive session run by children and young people in partnership with WSCC colleagues, on What does thriving mean to our children and young people?
Delegates will choose two workshops from the following (further details to be issued next term):
- Implementing the I-Thrive Framework
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Happy Helpers – workshop on how to put in place Resilience / Mental Health Ambassadors in schools
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Masking: Unmasked – a workshop on neurodivergence and masking, delivered jointly by the West Sussex Parent Carer Forum and the Autism and Social Communication Team.
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Therapeutic thinking
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EBSA Pathway
Tickets will be on sale in the spring term via West Sussex Services for Schools, with an early bird price of £100 available up to the end of March. Thereafter tickets will be priced at £120. This includes all refreshments for the day.
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A toolkit for supporting schools, colleges and academies in West Sussex respond to an unexpected death is now available. The package of guidance has been developed by West Sussex County Council together with school leaders and partners.
The death of a pupil or member of staff can be an incredibly difficult time for a school community and the toolkit is designed to help schools by providing guidance on policy and procedures, share best practice on supporting bereaved pupils and staff, and practical tips including handling communications and responding to media interest.
West Sussex County Council has commissioned FREE training for schools on how to use the toolkit. The training is facilitated by Grassroots and includes short online sessions for head teachers and principals to consider their role in leading a response to an unexpected death. Grassroots will introduce the ‘West Sussex responding to an unexpected death toolkit’ and outline the suicide prevention and postvention toolkit training for West Sussex schools this academic year available to any school staff working in West Sussex schools, colleges and Academies.
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A reminder that from 1 October 2023, a new form and web page were introduced for raising safeguarding concerns and requesting a service for children, via the West Sussex County Council website.
The form is linked into a portal which will automatically populate the Mosaic recording system with the information submitted. Please click here and login to WSSfS for further information and link to the new form.
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The Virtual School has a refreshed and extended training offer for 2023-24 that is once again available at no cost to West Sussex colleagues.
Please have a look at our website for details of events including Staff support groups, Theraplay Informed Workshops, Understanding the Adolescent Brain and many more. Attendance at our courses will enable staff in your setting to better engage all children and young people, not only those who are care experienced!
For this year we have extended the use of our powerful and immersive Virtual reality footage to provide a whole days training incorporating theory and neuroscience alongside useful strategies and approaches in the classroom.
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 Part of our role is to offer a range of training opportunities for varied audiences - SENCos, Headteachers, Governors and Early Career Teachers to name a few.
- SENCos should sign up for our termly SENCo Leadership Forums, during which we share local and national updates, facilitate professional discussion and welcome a range of guest presenters.
- School leaders may also want to book consultations for our weekly SEND and Inclusion Solutions phone service – we can talk about any aspect of SEND and inclusion during these 30-minute phone calls.
- School leaders can commission our SEND & Inclusion Review, which is a process to consider the lived experience of children and young people with additional needs in school. It helps to ensure that all children and young people, in all education settings, achieve the very best start in life’: in direct alignment with the West Sussex vision for our children and young people.
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New for the academic year 2022-2023 - The SENCo Development Programme. A holistic package of professional development to enhance the strategic skills required to lead SEND and inclusive practice effectively.
Further information on all of these services can be found on West Sussex Services for Schools.
Citizens Advice in West Sussex are delivering free online webinars about disability benefits to help parents and carers of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
These sessions are in place to support people to apply successfully for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for those under 16 and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for people 16 or over.
The aim of these webinars is to help parents and carers learn more about their eligibility for these benefits and to have the opportunity to learn more about how to fill the applications out themselves, as well as gain awareness for other disability benefits available.
These webinars are in group session format and take place on Zoom. The webinars are hosted on different dates and times to benefit as many as possible.
For more information or to sign up, visit: https://www.advicewestsussex.org.uk/advice/send-information-and-support/
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We hope you are well and have had a positive start to the 2023/2024 academic year!
The West Sussex Parent Carer Forum (WSPCF) is run by parent carers for parent carers of children and young people with SEND (0 - 25 yrs) and their families.
But... What exactly is a Parent Carer Forum?
We are a part of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) which is a membership led organisation of 150 parent carer forums from across England. All forums are then divided into 9 regional areas, which follow the same regional breakdown as the Department of Education (DfE) Local Authority regions.
WSPCF is the official representative for West Sussex
We are part of the Southeast regional group (SE19) along with 18 other Parent Carer Forums. Each forum is different and managed individually (we are an independent charity), with all our feedback gathered in the regional areas and then collated to form the NNPCF's key priorities and objectives and fed directly into the National Government.
As a member of the NNPCF, we are funded through a DfE grant, which outlines how we must work as a Parent Carer Forum.
Our key role is to ensure that parent carers can participate more in the strategic planning and decision-making around services for children and young people with SEND in their area – we call this Coproduction.
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Working in coproduction is proven to create better outcomes for families, so making our families views heard is an essential part of our work.
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We work in partnership with the Local Authority, Education, Health, Social Care, and other organisations, to positively improve the planning and delivery of local services for children and young people with SEND and their families.
- We also provide opportunities to bring parent carers together, to understand the issues they are facing, provide mutual support, share information, and gather their views.
- WSPCF supports parent carers by providing information, signposting, and training that equips them in their lifelong caring role and empowers them to participate in shaping services for their children and young people.
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We cover all disabilities and additional learning needs.
Head over to our WEBSITE, FACEBOOK or INSTAGRAM for more information, including how we started, what we do and our current events.
You can also sign up to the Forum's mailing list. You can do this HERE!
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Talking about life online can be challenging for any young person. Having speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) makes it almost impossible. Parent Zone aims to change this.
Talk:Tech is a new resource designed to make it possible for anyone to describe how they use tech. It includes visual and spoken assets that cover the topics young people have told us they want to discuss – from gaming and social to the dark web.
The resources have been developed through testing and consultation with young people, parents and carers, SLCN specialists and teachers. They include:
- printable flashcards
- digital flashcards with audio
- images for AAC software
- a definition sheet for parents, carers and teachers.
Talk:Tech has been funded by the UK government's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as part of our PZ SEND project – creating and translating accessible media literacy education resources.
We’d love to hear what you think. Get in touch at info@parentzone.org.uk if you have any questions or feedback.
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Open your heart and home for 2 nights a month and help a child with disabilities to experience different activities, make new friends and develop their independence.
West Sussex County Council needs more caring individuals to support full-time foster carers and children’s birth families – giving children a chance to broaden their horizons and have fun. In return, you will receive competitive pay of up to £6,850 a year (for 24 nights), as well as ongoing training and a wealth of specialist support.
Give the friendly Fostering Recruitment team a call on 0330 222 7775 or visit the website for more information.
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 Some of the services listed in this newsletter or on the Local Offer site are provided by private service providers and not by West Sussex County Council. These do not have a recommendation or endorsement from the local authority. If you decide to use a service / provision, you should be aware that you are responsible for doing your own checks to ensure they are suitable and fit for purpose. West Sussex County Council will not be liable for any damages or losses suffered by anyone who relies on the information in this newsletter.
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