SERVICES for children with special educational needs and disabilities in South Gloucestershire must be improved, inspectors say.
A joint team from education regulator Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission inspected the South Gloucestershire Local Area Partnership, made up of the council and the region’s NHS integrated care board, in July.
In their report, published in November, the inspectors said the partnership needs to make improvements and update its strategic plan.
They said children and young people had “inconsistent experiences and outcomes”.
The report said: “Younger children with SEND and their families have typically positive experiences in the early years. Strong and established relationships between early years practitioners, education inclusion officers and health visitors help to ensure that children’s needs are identified and met early.
“However, despite improvements in several areas, including a reduction in suspensions and exclusions, variability in the system is more frequent once children reach school age. Experiences and outcomes are particularly mixed for children and young people receiving SEN support and for those identified as having social, emotional or mental health needs.”
The inspectors said there were “unacceptably long waiting times” for children with neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD.
Less effective joint working meant that in some areas children had unidentified needs, which meant they could not be properly helped.
They said there were some improvements in experiences and outcomes for children, thanks to new organisational strategies, better partnership working and the support of the area’s parent carer forum.
The inspectors made a series of recommendations across five areas, including improving engagement with children and young people with SEND and their families.
Responding on behalf of the partnership, a council spokesperson said: “The report recognises that a lot of the work we do with families and young people is effective and valued.”
The spokesperson said: “Waiting times for key therapies and mental health services have been significantly reduced, and most children with SEND are now educated close to home.
“These improvements, driven by strong partnership working, are accelerating early identification and delivering positive experiences and outcomes, particularly for families new to the system.
“That said, we know we need to do significantly better to improve consistency in the way that support is provided, especially for those who are waiting on the neurodevelopmental pathway and for those young people with Social, Emotional, and Mental Health (SEMH) needs.
“We fully accept the report findings. The areas identified by inspectors for improvement were in our existing plans and we will redouble our efforts to drive the improvement work already under way. We are putting in place additional detail to our plans, and making sure that these are overseen at the highest level, to ensure we have the right support to make rapid progress.
“We are committed to making the experiences of all children consistently better.
“Together, we want to make a positive difference to the experiences and outcomes for all our SEND children and families.”