Evaluation of the SEND Pathfinder Programme:
Early Findings
Graham Thom and Meera Prabhakar
May 2012
1
Outline
 Summary of the findings from the first round visits to the
10 in-depth case study areas, which were undertaken in
February-March 2012
 First monitoring returns, covering all Pathfinders, will be reported
in June
 Families now being recruited, but several months until we get
feedback
 Early emerging findings cover
 The nature of the problems that the Pathfinders are seeking to
address
 Early thinking on the approaches that were to be/being
developed
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The current system(s)
 Pockets of joint working and personalisation existed
across all the case study areas
 … but general agreement that things needed to change
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Disjointed assessments
Lack of co-ordination
Poor attendance at reviews
Supply led planning
Unclear responsibilities
Limited involvement of parents and young people
Limited local provision
 So, the Pathfinders recognise the agenda set by the
Green Paper
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Progress up until Feb/Mar 2012
Organisational and cultural change
What was going well?
What were the issues?
Anticipated challenges
Generally good strategic
engagement
Capacity of health
colleagues, the VCS and
education providers, to
effectively engage was
raised as a concern
Getting operational staff
released from current
duties to deliver the
Pathfinder
Delivery teams identified
and majority in post
Thinking about the local
offer and cultural change Two initial interpretations
/ skills development had of the local offer
begun
1. A high level offer to
families setting out how
agencies will work
together
2. Creation of a provider
based resource
Small scale of the
Pathfinder in majority of
areas leading to limited
market change
(especially given block
contracts)
Information sharing
between agencies and
with families not yet fully
considered
Initial engagement
Coordinated/integrate
d assessment
Resource
allocation
Single planning
Majority of approaches were
expected to include:
• The introduction of key
worker or lead
professional
• An initial engagement or
information gathering
stage
• Coordinated or integrated
assessment, involving the
prioritisation of key
assessment headlines
• Resource allocation to
support the calculation of
indicative budgets
• Single planning, involving
both the family and relevant
professionals
• Subsequent and regular
review of the single plan
Review
Planned
approaches
Referral into the
Pathfinder
Gathering of existing
assessment information
or completion of
assessments
Key worker introduced to the
family, to coordinate the process
and supports the family
throughout
Additional specialist
assessments completed
if required
Coordinated/integrated
assessment produced
Assessment headlines prioritised
and desired family outcomes
developed
Indicative budget
developed/calculated
Indicative budget communicated to
the family if part of a personal
budget
Single planning
Child/family-centred plan
developed, with clear responsibility
of agencies and the family
Agreement of plan and
associated budget
Review and learn
4
Initial engagement
Referral into the
Pathfinder
Gathering of existing
assessment information
or completion of
assessments
Key worker introduced to the
family, to coordinate the process
and supports the family
throughout
5
Issues?
Review
Single planning
Resource
allocation
Coordinated/integrate
d assessment
•
Additional specialist
assessments completed
if required
•
Coordinated/integrated
assessment produced
Assessment headlines prioritised
and desired family outcomes
developed
Indicative budget
developed/calculated
Indicative budget communicated to
the family if part of a personal
budget
•
•
Single planning
Child/family-centred plan
developed, with clear responsibility
of agencies and the family
•
Only a few sites were looking at
bringing together assessment
processes / episodes / forms
Most planned to join up after the
assessments by creating a
‘headline/ summary’ version
The headline assessment
documentation is an addition to
current practice. It may lead to
better planning
Most focus was on defining the
Single Plan
Was unclear how the new
approaches would address some of
the current problems
•
•
Agreement of plan and
associated budget
Review and learn
Poor attendance at review meetings
Agreeing how to resource multidisciplinary packages of support
and accountabilities between the
agencies
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Recruitment of families in the case study areas
 The identification process had started in most of the
case study areas
 Anticipated numbers had fallen in several areas
 There was a spread of age ranges
 Some sites were targeting particular age groups, while others
were looking at 0-25
 Most families were to come through an education route
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Emerging findings 1
Do the Pathfinders…
make the current
support system more
transparent, less
adversarial and less
bureaucratic
Do the Pathfinders…
increase real choice
and control, and
improve outcomes
• The intended introduction of key workers and the use of
summary documents were intended to make the system
more transparent and improve communication
…which in turn should reduce adversarial nature
• However, there was a risk that the introduction of a key
worker and summary assessment may actually increase
bureaucracy as these additions were often in addition to
existing roles or documentation
• The areas were seeking to achieve this objective through
changing the planning process to be more family centred,
and the development of the local offer
• However, although better planning was expected to lead
to improved outcomes over the longer term, the specific
types of outcomes that may be achieved had not been
well defined
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Emerging findings 2
Do the Pathfinders…
introduce greater
independence into the
assessment process by
using the voluntary
sector
• This had not been a major focus for the case study areas
and limited changes were expected to be made to the
assessment processes
• Rather the focus was on the key worker, who may or may
not come from the VCS
• Costs of change were likely to be significant – even for the
small number of families being targeted – and would
include staff time to facilitate cultural change & capacity
building for internal and external staff and organisations
Do the Pathfinders…
demonstrate value for
money
• Addition of the key worker role was likely to add a cost to
the system, through either contracting out the service or
due to displacement of tasks from existing staff to take on
the role…and it may be hard in the short term to show
offsetting impacts and so real savings
• … and as yet it was unclear how the new approaches
could be scaled up and resourced
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Contact
Graham Thom
Meera Prabhakar
Director
Senior Consultant
SQW
SQW
t. 07716 916897
t. 020 7307 7151
e. gthom@sqw.co.uk
e. mprabhakar@sqw.co.uk
w. www.sqw.co.uk
w. www.sqw.co.uk
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Our overarching approach to gathering data
Core approach
In-depth approach
(all Pathfinders)
(sub-set of Pathfinders)
Quarterly monitoring
data
In-depth case study
research
SDQ baseline survey
Qualitative research
with staff,
practitioners and
providers
Work and satisfaction
survey
Quantitative survey of
parents/carers
participating
Qualitative research
with families and
young people
E-survey of providers
Quantitative survey of
comparison group of
parents/carers
Liaison with the support
team
Coverage of depth of Pathfinder work
Coverage of breadth of Pathfinder work
Scoping: map out the shape of the Pathfinder Programme and co-produce the approach