Background
The SEND Local Offer will provide information for children, young people and their parents/carers in a single place, helping them to understand what services they and their families can expect from a range of local agencies. This is being introduced as part of the Children and Families Bill and will become law in 2014.
The aim of the local offer is to improve choice and transparency for families about the services they use. It will also be an important tool for professionals to use, as it will allow them to understand the full range of services and provision in the local area. By setting this information out in one place, this will also help the joint commissioning of services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
The Local Authority must work together with children, young people, parents, carers and other local services to develop their offer and keep it under review.
Progress to date
As one of the 20 national SEND pathfinders, North Yorkshire has been engaging with young people with SEND, their parents and professionals to develop the Local Offer. This has included the development of shared principles, an overall site map and a set of exemplar questions that sets out information that parents and young people would find particularly useful to know. These questions have been circulated to early years settings, schools and post-16 institutions to help inform their local offers.
The initial version of the Local Offer is now available on-line, and can be accessed via the following link:
http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/article/23542/SEND---local-offer