The name of the young person has been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Below is a genuine case study as to how the work of the new Health SEND Coordinator with the Oldham SEND Partnership is improving the lives of young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Background

Oldham is a highly transient town with regular new arrivals of families from other parts of the UK and overseas. Some of these children have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. It became apparent, via the SEN team and the “Fair Access Team” that children with a range of complex health needs, were moving to the UK where their needs required holistic assessment and additional provision to ensure access to education. 

For some of these children there will be a handover of information although for others there is very little information available.  This causes a barrier to meeting the health and educational needs of these children and puts additional strains on the families.

A small group of children and young people needed to have a health assessment in a timely way so that their needs could be met in the educational setting. 

The role of the Health SEND Coordinator was developed around the same time to ensure high quality health advice was available for the EHCP.

This is evident through David’s story

David, who’s name we’ve changed for identification purposes, previously had an EHCP and attended a special school, but the information was out of date and he was unable to be placed in school in Oldham until the school had some up to date information.

Oldham Council decided that he must be re-assessed to gather information and update his EHCP. There was a lack of health information to facilitate this and David was not known to any of local health services.

The SEND Coordinator visited the family home and completed a Health Assessment.  From this enough information was gathered to enable referrals to be made to Speech and Language therapy, Occupational Therapy and agreement was made that David would be offered an appointment with the Community Paediatrician for an EHC medical.

Impact

Since the health assessment David has had a comprehensive speech and language therapy assessment. Strategies are in place at home, with a plan to do the same once a school has been allocated.

Occupational Therapy have completed their assessment and strategies are in place for a smooth transition from home to school.

The family were offered home tuition or a supported place in a mainstream school while they waited but declined this in preference of waiting for a school place.

All information has now been received by the SEN team and at the time of writing a special school has been consulted and we are awaiting their decision on a placement.

This process required the close collaboration between the family, Local Authority and Health Services in a timely way to ensure that this young man will be able to access a school place as soon as possible.

The role of the Health SEND Co-ordinator has ensured timely health support is available and that this is co-ordinated with the EHCP process.