Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
The co-production team is passionate about making sure everyone receives the support they need to be happy and live their 'best life'. This area of our work allows us to use our experience of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) to shape the way Blackpool Council SEND services work.
We have two advisory groups, one for young people and one for parents and carers. We also have a small group of adult volunteers who bring invaluable experience of what it's like to live with SEND in Blackpool. Some are volunteers, some advisors and some sessional workers; we all undertake the same role. We bring everyone together, with those people responsible for delivering the services at Blackpool Council, and work out what is being done well and what we could do better. This is called co-producing. Our SEND team has a wide range of experience of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities- you can find out more about us on the 'Meet the Team' page.
What is most important is that we all have lived experience of living with, or supporting someone with, SEND.
We work with a wide range of people- parents, carers, young people, adults, Parent Forum, schools, colleges, practitioners, managers and commissioners from SEND services at Blackpool Council, Blackpool Teaching hospitals, Empowerment Forum, Aiming Higher and many others. We want everyone to be able to get involved with making SEND services the best they can be.
Areas of Work
The SEND services at Blackpool Council have recently had an inspection. The inspectors highlighted some areas where they, and parents and young people, would like to see improvements made. These were the Local Offer, Preparation for Adulthood, transition and communication. You can read about how we are working towards these improvements below.
Blackpool SEND Local Offer
The Local offer is a guide to everything that people in Blackpool need if they need have Special Education Needs and/or Disabilities.
We continue to work with Erica Smith from the Local Offer team to make sure that the information found on the website is accessible and up to date. Our advisory groups are helping the team to understand what kind of thing should be on the local offer and how to make sure people can find and understand it.
The Blackpool SEND Local Offer is now regularly updated, uses accessible language and includes relevant information that is needed by people in Blackpool. The number of people visiting the website has increased by over 1000%!
Other local authorities are interested in how it has been co-produced and we are sharing our good practice far and wide. You can see some of the co-produced informative videos from the Blackpool SEND Local Offer below. Some of our advisors have starring roles!
Preparation for Adulthood (PfA)
We have worked with Chris Smith from the PfA team, and and other services, to co-produce a strategy for delivering PfA across Blackpool. You can view the new strategy here.
We have taken the outcome of our advisory group work to a wider strategic co-production group to make sure we have everyone working together. Some of our young people and parents formed part of this group alongside people who deliver and commission services in Blackpool.
People involved included Blackpool Sixth Form, Blackpool and Fylde College, school nursing teams, children and adult social care (learning disability and mental health team), school transition colleagues, Parent Forum, Blackpool Council SEND team, DWP and others.
This piece of work has been funded by the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) Blackpool Place Based Partnership.
Useful Links
Mental Health Services for Young People
Following our work through the Head Start Programme around whole town resilience and young people's mental health, we are working closely with Blackpool's NHS mental health services to identify any possible improvements, gaps and opportunities to make sure that young people can access support.
This is an opportunity to share our co-produced resources and help make services accessible for those with SEND.
The Resilience Framework
The links on the left will take you to the Boing Boing website where you can learn about the Resilience Framework. Children at Marton Primary School designed a young people's version to use in Blackpool.
You framework is a wonderful tool to support young people to build their own resilience and understand how to help themselves.
The Ready Set Resilience Booklet was co-produced with staff and students at St Mary's Catholic High School in Blackpool and has lots of activities to support young people who are struggling with their mental health.
Meet the SEND Team - Blackpool Council Q&A Session
Blackpool Council SEND services held an online ‘Meet the Team’ event across 3 alternative dates and times. This was to provide an opportunity for parents to ask questions. Following the success of the event, they will be continuing to hold these on a regular basis. You can see a list of the questions and answers submitted on the link below and you can find out more on the SEND Local Offer page here.
Communication Charter
Blackpool Families Rock
The advisory groups thought about how they would like to be treated by people working in SEND services.
Our team has created a set of principles working with Children's Social Care (CSC) called Blackpool Families Rock. Our parent sessional workers are still involved in making sure this is used by CSC services. We will be helping to share this way of working with SEND services.
We are working with the SEND Partnership to think about how we can support all people working with those with SEND to understand and use Blackpool Families Rock principles and values.
Principles of Practice
Utilising Social Pedagogy we reflected on how families would like agencies to work with them to improve the outcomes for them and their children – our heart, head and hands.
Our values, outlined in the diagram, are underpinned by HEART: how we behave, HEAD: how we think and HAND: how we work.