Somerset Local Offer publish documents like strategies and policies about how they expect children and young people, and people with additional needs, to be supported and involved in their education, health and care. And they have guidance about how to find out about and use the services available.

Here are some of the documents that you might especially want to read.

The SEND policy for Somerset

The policy contains local authority expectations about supporting children and young people with special educational needs.

Read the the SEND Policy in full

They oversee a range of support to meet the needs of children and young people in education. Educational support is co-ordinated with other services and there are policies and ways of working that shape the services they provide. The way they provide support for children and young people with SEND is based on the SEND Code of Practice 2015

SEND Effective Support Guidance for all who work with children and young people with and their families for graduated early help, targeted and specialist support.

SEND Strategy for Somerset

They want every child and young person to have the greatest possible opportunity to be the best they can be, to be happy, and have choice and control over their life.

They need to transform their services and work together to make sure that the child or young person is at the centre of everything they do. Our 2016 to 2019 strategy is the partnership response to the challenge to all of us.

The full Somerset SEND Strategy – can be found here.

You can also find their SEND Charter here

Their SEND Strategy and ongoing commissioning of local services must be informed by an up to date understanding of the needs of local children and young people with SEND; this data and analysis can be found in their annual SEND Needs Assessment.

Somerset SEND Written Statement of Action

Somerset County Council and NHS Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group are working hard together to improve Somerset’s services for children and young people (aged 0 to 25) with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND). The work being undertaken is outlined within the Written Statement of Action (WSoA). This is a detailed plan to improve the SEND service areas identified in the Ofsted and CQC inspection report, broken into 9 areas.

Local Offer Annual Reports

The annual report provides information on how Somerset’s Local Offer has evolved using feedback from its stakeholders, especially parent carers and children and young people.