Throughout October and November PACC are hosting a series of events where we are starting conversations about work that is happening in the SEND systems (Local Authority and Integrated Care System) in Shropshire.

The first of these was our Coproduction development day. This was looking at how the system can be held to account over the quality of coproduction. As part of PACCs contribution towards the Written Statement Of Action Accelerated Action Plan delivery we are developing the framework to test if coproduction is happening and if it's making a difference. This discussion led to some great key points about how we can check if individual families have been involved in coproducing their child’s care, support, and education. How we can build in quality assurance to ensure that any service uses coproduction to inform and influence decision making across their service and how we can understand if the system (that’s all those responsible by law to support our families) are using our experiences and our feedback to influence the decisions they make that affect our families lives. This is the start of our development of a framework that we, families in the SEND community, can use to ensure coproduction is meaningful, sustainable, and is delivering outcomes that enrich our families experiences and lives.

We have also started our In Touch course this term, which looks to develop some reflective and resilience skills in those participating and supports a greater understanding of being a parent carer of a child with Autism in Shropshire today. The course explores positive behaviour support methods that are being used by the Intensive Support Team in BeeU (Shropshire’s Mental Health Provider) and planning for the future. So far the feedback has been great, parent carers are feeling better connected to each other, and we are learning more about the challenges in the system we still have yet to navigate to improve families experiences. These sessions are part of our ongoing work with the Learning Disability and Autism Team to better understand what needs to be made available to young people with Learning Disabilities and / or Autism and their families to help improve their life outcomes.

This month we jointly hosted an update to the Neurodevelopmental Pathway with Autism West Midlands. This session provided the latest information about the work being done to improve the options of support, services, and assessments available to children and young people with Neurodiverse needs. As part of the Written Statement of Action work, this workstream has made significant progress in the last year, but still has a very long way to go. The update shared with families the proposals for a new model to support a more inclusive and accessible pathway that should support access to assessments in a more timely and appropriate way.

We will also be continuing our ‘Sense of purpose, and a home of my own’ discussions about the transition from children’s to adults services, the opportunities that should be made available and how we can better support independence in local communities across Shropshire for our young people with SEND. Our discussion continues with a Supported Living Workshop looking at what supported living is, how it is accessed, and why it can be an important opportunity for many young people. We are joined by Shropshire Councils Adult Social Care Team as we explore some of the new ways services are adapting to meet the needs of younger adults in our community.

So, we are starting a lot of conversations with the Shropshire SEND Parent Carer community, and it seems like we have had some of these before. But what’s different now is the fact all these discussions have moved on; we have updates to share and new areas to explore with you.  We are excited to be bringing these opportunities and conversations to our SEND community as it enables us to demonstrate the progress being made and to share with you how your voice and experience is shaping the Shropshire SEND System.

Keep sharing your thoughts and experiences with us to help us continue this journey.