Local Offer of Services Feedback Report August 2015
Background
The Council is required to produce and publish a ‘Local Offer’ as part of the SEND
Reforms under the Children and Families Act 2014. The Local Offer provides
information about services that are available for children and young people with
special educational needs and disabilities between the ages of 0 – 25 years. The
local authority is required to publish information about services available both locally
and outside of the local area to inform parents, carers, children and young people of
the types of services that are available to access.
The Local Offer will:
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Provide information about education, health and care services
Provide information about leisure activities and support groups
Hold all information in one place
Be clear, comprehensive and accessible
Make service provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations
Be developed and reviewed with service providers and service users
What have we done?
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We have worked actively with families, children and young people, voluntary,
public sector departments and health
We have developed a specific focus group to look at the local offer and how
we support parents, children and young people
We have held a number of focus group workshops to look at current provision
and what is out there
We have worked with schools to look how their local offer links into the
councils local offer of services
Parents have been at the heart of design and production of the information to
ensure we got it right
This is what you said
To have a direct link to the
local offer via the Family
Service Directory, that hosted
large colourful icons through
the offer as a theme
To separate the types of
services into: Universal,
Specialist and targeted
To have useful links in
each area, if the services
cut across all key areas
To have links to regional and
national policy
To have a very visual and
colourful local offer that was
easy to access and find
information
This is what we did
Direct link to the local offer page
developed and large colourful
icons produced
Within the local offer we
separated each of the specific
areas and included introduction
pages
We provided useful generic links
at the bottom of each key event
area and continue to add links
We have provided up to date
documents on the site and
continue to work on creating links
to regional and national policy
With parents we produced a visual
back drop by using colours of the
rainbow and parents/practitioners
have told us it was easy to access
and find
To have key areas similar to
the journey a family would
take from Birth to Adulthood
To have access to a mobile
device for parents, young
people and practitioners to
access directly from an I
Phone, tablet or I Pad
Parents felt it was important that
providers understood the needs
of families wishing to access
services when adding provider
information onto the site
Parents and Practitioners suggested that
the SEND Homepage should be no more
than 4 icons to include relevant
information behind each area that would
inform on policies, procedures, support,
updates and up and coming events
They would like to see
options existing to harvest
data from other websites
We listened to what people said
and created key stages in the life
journey of a child
We have purchased a mobile
device package to enable access
to the local offer using a variety
of devices
We produced a set of guidance
notes for providers to use to ensure
the services they provided were
accessible and able to meet the
needs of children & young people
We produced 4 relevant areas on
the SEND Home page to include
education, health and care
information, together with parent
support
We are still looking into this
Links to include the youth offer
and other services on the local
authorities and health websites
Include more factsheets, such
as: Health Watch, what is the
CCG
Consider creating links to
other local authority offers,
across the north east region
Provider update facility to
ensure information is current
Keyword Search
We have created links to the
youth offer, NHS Choices,
together with links to external
service
Some factsheets have been
developed and work continues to
develop more
Still to be developed
This has been developed and
providers can register to update
their information
Completed
Feedback from Parent, Young People and Providers
“The website information for SEND looks great”
“Straight forward language, like the colour combination and clarity of various sections
available”
“It was easy to navigate and holds a good range of information”
“It would be great to see more providers using the site to share their information
about the services they can provide”
“Bright and easy to follow”
Tell us what you think?
To make sure that the Local Offer is helpful and easy to use, we will continue to work
with service providers, parents, carers and young people to make sure that the Local
Offer is fit for purpose. The Local Offer will continue to develop and change to meet
need.
We would like to hear from as many people as possible to make sure we get it right.
Your comments are important to us, therefore if you have a few minutes to spare,
please complete the local offer survey form as fully as possible and submit.
You can check the local offer of services by going onto the direct link:
http://hartlepool.fsd.org.uk/send
If you would like to discuss the local offer in person or have any queries, you can
contact with the First Contact Support Hub (FCSH) on: 01429 284284 or contact the
Local Offer Lead on: 01429 284876 or email: tracy.liveras@hartlepool.gov.uk