New website offers families easy access to special educational needs advice

Parents and carers of Shropshire children with a special educational need or disability (SEND) can now quickly and easily find information about the services, support and resources available to them – thanks to a new website that they themselves helped to produce.

The new SEND Local Offer website – shropshire.gov.uk/the-send-local-offer – contains information and advice about health, education, social care, preparing for adulthood, early help and much more. It was unveiled by Shropshire Council today (Thursday 26 September 2019) at a Preparing for Adulthood event.

The SEND local offer website

Ed Potter, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for children’s services, said:

“Councils have a statutory requirement to provide this information, and by working with parent and carers to produce this new website we can be confident that the information and advice it offers is just what parents and carers want and need. We held workshops, online questionnaires, and focus groups to gather people’s views on the top level categories and the content they wanted to see – and we thank everyone who took part and helped provide valuable ideas and suggestions. Now we encourage all parents and carers of SEND children to visit the site, and would love to hear any comments.”

As well as parents and carers helping to produce the new website, young people at a Disability Art in Shropshire (DASH) workshop designed the icons used on the homepage.

Shropshire Council is now working with young people to co-produce a Local Offer website specifically for young people.

To see the new website, go to shropshire.gov.uk/the-send-local-offer.