Shropshire SEND Community Games and Local Offer Live Event 2017 on 24 September
News from our partners Shropshire Parent and Carer Council (Shropshire PACC)
The Shropshire SEND Community Games and Local Offer Live Event 2017 ‘Empower, Experience & Inspire’ is on Sunday 24 September 2017 at 10am–2pm at North Shropshire College, Walford Campus, SY4 2HL. (SEND is special educational needs and disabilities)
After the success of last year’s first SEND Community Games and Local Offer Live Event, Shropshire PACC are pleased to announce that they will be hosting the event again this year, in partnership with Shropshire Council, and with the support of Derwen College and North Shropshire College.
This year the day will have three zones, which will provide information about special educational needs and disability provision in Shropshire, offer an opportunity for young people with SEND to try out a range of activities and celebrate the achievements of children and young people with SEND.
In the Empower Zone there will be information stands from services that offer support and advice to families of children and young people with SEND and an opportunity to meet the teams from statutory services that provide essential support to SEND families.
PACC works to develop positive partnerships between parent carers and these services so that better outcomes can be achieved for children and young people with SEND. We are particularly pleased that the event will be used to promote the Shropshire Transition Protocol to parent carers and to introduce the new Senior Transition worker recently appointed by Shropshire Council’s adult social care. PACC has worked closely with Shropshire Council to improve the local experience of transition, when young people are supported to prepare for adulthood and move from children’s to adult services and are pleased to support these positive steps forward in this area.
In the Experience Zone young people and their parents can try out some of the activities on offer in Shropshire for children and young people with SEND. An activities passport will be given to all young people who attend the event and if they try five activities then they will be presented with a SEND Community Games Superstar medal by one of our VIP sporting guests, Dave Edwards from Little Rascals Foundation, Para Olympian Danielle Brown and Darren Edwards from ‘Strength Through Adversity’. There will be a separate under 5s Experience zone for our younger visitors.
The Inspire Zone will showcase the achievements of children and young people with SEND. In the demonstration areas there will be an exhibition football match from the Downs Syndrome Football group run by Shrewsbury Town in the Community and other local SEND activity groups. There will also be a number of inspirational speakers from the SEND world, including Tim Tuff from AuKids (https://www.aukids.co.uk/ ) and Darren Edwards from ‘Strength Through Adversity’ (https://strengththroughadversity.co.uk/ ).
We also hope to provide a display of the achievements of local young people with SEND and to launch the PACC ‘Understanding Our Lives’ awards in this zone. These awards offer a chance for SEND families to say thank you to those who have made a positive difference to their lives. We know that being a parent carer of a child or young person with SEND can be challenging, but we also know that there are times when individuals go that extra step to support our children. It can be the teacher who enables our child to participate in a classroom activity, or the person behind the counter who makes us feel welcomed in our community, and we want to acknowledge what a difference this makes. See http://www.paccshropshire.org.uk/about-us/understanding-ourlives-awards for more information.
The event is free of charge and will be open to any family of a young person with a special educational need and disability. For more information please contact; Sarah Thomas Participation Co-ordinator PACC enquiries@paccshropshire.org.uk 0845 601 2205.
Further information
PACC is a local parent carer forum that has been in existence since 2008. It is a registered charity and is run by Shropshire parent carers. It works with families of children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 and aims to provide opportunities for parent carers to participate in local decision making. See www.paccshropshire.org.uk for more information.
The number of children with SEND related needs in Shropshire is estimated in excess of 5000, based on:-
Number CYP with of Education Health and Care Plans / statements approx. 1645 (Jan. 2016 census)
Number of children on SEN Support 4353 (DfE data)
In addition, 244 young people who have received a funded service from Shropshire adult social care over the last 12 month period (Shropshire Council data)
The Children and Families Act (2014) and the Care Act (2015) place new duties on statutory services to provide improved information for children and young people with SEND and their families. They also placed an increased emphasis on delivering services that work in partnership with children and young people and parent carers and to deliver improved outcomes for this group.
Local areas are currently being inspected on their progress in implementing these changes by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. These inspections are looking for improvements in; • identification of SEND • how well needs are assessed and met • the quality of outcomes achieved for children and young people with SEND. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-area-send-inspectionframework for further information.
Parent carers nationally and locally have identified the following key areas for improvement in the support available to their families; • Easier access to information about what help is available to them • Improved joint working between services • A better understanding by services of the lives of SEND families and the challenges they face.
Shropshire Local Offer
The SEND local offer is a single place for information, services, and resources for children and young people aged 0-25, with special educational needs and/or disabilities, their families, and the practitioners who support them. Every Local Authority in England is required by the Children’s and Families Act (2014) to publish a Local Offer for their area.
Shropshire’s local offer helps families, children, young people with special educational needs or disabilities and the practitioner who support them, to find accurate and appropriate information so that they can make positive decisions about their lives.
The information provided is broken down into sections for parent carers, young people, and practitioners. Each of these sections is broken down into education, health, social care, community and resources categories.
There’s also a news feed and events calendar with information about important local, regional, and national events, and SEND news items.
The service directory has entries for many services across health, education, social care, private and voluntary sector services.
You can visit the Shropshire Local Offer at https://new.shropshire.gov.uk/the-sendlocal-offer/
