Reflections from Steve Crocker - 26 June 2024

Hello and welcome to my seventh blog as independent chair of the Oxfordshire SEND Strategic Improvement and Assurance Board (SIAB).

The board met once more on 26 June. 

Chair's remarks and forward plan

To start, I welcomed and introduced the new SEND youth forum and one of its members that had joined the meeting today. We’ve been wanting to incorporate young people’s perspectives into the meeting discussions for some time. This introduction set the stage for inclusive dialogue and highlighted the forum's role in representing young people's views. The introduction of the forum was not just a formality but a deliberate action to ensure that the voices of young people are heard and considered in the meeting's discussions, thereby acknowledging the forum's crucial role in representing youth interests.

I also took time to thank the ‘behind the scenes’ staff who had helped us to quickly re-arrange the agenda because of restrictions placed on Department for Education colleagues due to the election.

The forum update was first on the agenda. 

SEND youth forum update

Joanna Hoskin, Senior Youth Worker and Lydia Martin, SEND Senior Project Officer both at Oxfordshire County Council, outlined that the youth forum had met for the first time last week and they were delighted that a member of the forum had joined the board today.

Joanna and the forum representative shared insights from the meeting. 

They expressed a strong desire to initiate changes within the system to provide better support for young people, highlighting the forum's proactive stance on advocating for improvements.

They emphasised the significance of sharing personal stories as a means to shed light on the real-life experiences of young people with SEND, advocating for a platform where these narratives can influence positive changes.

The forum also stressed the necessity for creating more opportunities for young people to connect, collaborate and contribute to making a tangible difference in the SEND community, thereby fostering a sense of empowerment and collective action.

Their presentation underscored the value of listening to and acting on the feedback from young people. I have offered to meet with the youth forum separately so that we keep our dialogue going.

Next on the agenda, we heard from Ian Smart, SEND Transformation Programme Director, who provided an update on progress we are making as a partnership on the transformation programme.

Programme update

Ian detailed the progress made within the programme and highlighted areas where risks persist, indicating a need for sustained efforts to mitigate these risks to keep delivering.

The update underscored the critical need to focus on alternative provision solutions, and that strategic planning and resource allocation are essential to enhance the support structure for children and young people with SEND.

Concerns regarding local authority budget timelines were raised, highlighting the financial challenges and constraints that could impact the programme's ability to implement necessary improvements and maintain its momentum. It was acknowledged that these timelines are generally fixed nationally but that all officers would work to be creative within these fixed points.

Next up, we had Jules Francis-Sinclair, Co-Chair of OxPCF and Liz Knight, member of OxPCF, who gave us an update on recent activity and feedback from parent carers.

Oxfordshire Parent Carers Forum (OxPCF) update

OxPCF acknowledged the enhancements in communication between the SEND services and parent carers, indicating a positive shift towards more transparent and effective dialogue. However, in spite of improvements, there were concerns about the slow pace of change within SEND services, with parent carers expressing the need for more rapid progress to address the pressing issues faced by families. Families on the ground were seeing small changes but most are not feeling the benefits of the programme yet. OxPCF also expressed concern around if the programme had enough resources and budget to deliver. 

Kate Reynolds, Deputy Director of Education, at the county council, and Chris Wright, Assistant Director Partnership Development at NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (BOB ICB), gave an overview of progress on our key performance indicators.

Key performance indicators

Kate and Chris highlighted areas of progress such as increased timeliness in education, health and care plan (EHCPs) being issued in line with statutory deadlines. The data also revealed improvements in the placement of SEND pupils in mainstream schools, reflecting a trend towards inclusive education and the integration of SEND pupils within the general school population.

The discussion underscored the importance of data-driven decision-making and the need for setting ambitious targets beyond national averages. This will help to achieve exceptional outcomes for SEND pupils.

Chris gave an overview of the data related to the neurodevelopmental pathway and the support offer for living with neurodiversity. He highlighted that referrals for neurodevelopmental assessments are increasing faster than first appointments, leading to a growing gap and long waiting times. The neurodevelopmental pathway was originally established as a diagnostic pathway, but now most of the caseload is treatment rather than diagnosis. The support offer for living with neurodiversity aims to provide pre and post diagnostic support for children, young people and families, regardless of whether they have a diagnosis or not. 

The offer also includes online and face to face sessions on various topics related to neurodiversity, as well as online resources and tools. The support offer has some challenges with either low attendance or high numbers of people who do not attend, which need to be understood and addressed. 

Following this, we moved on to discuss progress around EHCP quality improvement framework. Deborah Smit, Oxfordshire County Council’s Head of SEND, and Karen Fern, Designated Clinical Officer SEND 0-25, BOB ICB, provided the update for us.

EHCP quality improvement framework progress

Deborah and Karen introduced the quality improvement framework, outlining its purpose to ensure consistent quality assurance and monitoring practices across SEND services. The framework aims to improve professional reports, parental satisfaction, and decrease tribunal rates, indicating a unified approach to enhancing service quality.

Parental satisfaction is a key focus of the framework, with measures in place to gauge and enhance parents' experiences with SEND services, reflecting a commitment to responsive and family-centred care.

Deborah outlined that an audit outline for what good advice looks like has been drafted and service managers in education are already using it to sample and improve services. A forward plan for annual reviews has also been created, using the Department for Education’s guide to a 20-week process for new assessments and a three-year map for existing EHCPs (6,800 currently). This includes the introduction of an audit tool for assessing the quality of plans.

On top of this, six time-limited working groups have been formed to focus on various improvements, such as letters to parents and schools. The goal is to enhance quality assurance across the system and ensure consistency in communication and decision-making. In addition, an education, health and care guidance tool has been developed to aid settings in making robust decisions. 

The last agenda item was led by Holly Chivers, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Manager at Oxford Health. 

Mental health support teams in schools

Holly provided a comprehensive overview of the mental health support teams (MHST) in Oxfordshire, detailing their structure, services and coverage. The teams focus on mild to moderate mental health difficulties, offering low intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to children and young people aged 5 -18 across four localities. The recent addition of a high CBT therapist per locality aims to enhance the service. 

Holly highlighted that the MHST currently covers approximately 63 per cent of the student population, with plans to expand coverage in the south of the county, focusing on the Vale of White Horse area with each team covering around 16,000 students.

The ambition for MHST is to ensure complete coverage, with ongoing discussions about funding formulas and the sustainability of the service.

Holly discussed the recruitment and retention challenges faced by MHST, attributing them to the cost of living and housing issues in Oxfordshire. Despite these challenges, NHS England's decision to backfill 12 vacancies with ten additional trainee posts was highlighted as a positive development.

Holly addressed concerns regarding the rigid skill mix prescribed by NHS England for MHST roles, the need for more flexibility and the importance of including neurodiversity training for the workforce. The upcoming addition of a senior lead psychologist to the senior leadership team was mentioned as a positive step forward.

So that’s it from me for now, and I hope, as always, this is useful. We next meet as a board on 24 July 2024.

If you are a parent or carer and have any thoughts or comments, please share with OxPCF by emailing info@oxpcf.org.uk. If you are a partner, please do feedback through your organisation. You can find a list of the LAP member representatives on the board on the SEND improvement webpage. Also don’t forget to sign-up to receive the SEND e-newsletter if you’re not already receiving it. 

Until next time. 

Steve Crocker