In our submission to the House of Lords’ inquiry into the Children and Families Act 2014 on the 25th April we recommended a specific review of how SEND provisions in schools were being experienced. We also asked for accessible versions of policy content to be made available to allow young people and parents/carers to engage with consultations.
Although the full report is not yet out, we are thrilled that one of recommendations from this submission has been taken up. On 29th March the Department of Education launched a review of SEND (still open for submissions so we encourage children, young people and parents/carers to write in directly). This specifically asks for the views of young people & parents/carers with content available in lots of formats, for example large font and easy read. They even made a hand-out sheet for professionals working with these groups to tell them about what the policy means.
We weren’t the only one to ask for a review of SEND – it was also a recommendation from a previous Inquiry that the CRSJ was part of: Arriving At Thriving: Learning from disabled students to ensure access for all | Policy Connect But, thanks to our young professionals sharing their stories, we were able to make unique recommendations around removing the age and access barriers around engaging with policy and the Department of Education now enables young people to contribute directly if they want to.
Click here for an Easy Read version of our recommendations.
