Children, families and professionals asked to share their views on Norfolk's SEND services

Thousands of children and young people with SEND, their families, and the professionals who work with them are once again being asked to share their views and experiences to help improve services and support.

A total of 1,203 people participated in Norfolk's first wide-ranging SEND survey last year.

The feedback has been used to help drive improvements over the last 12 months, improve understanding of the issues families and professionals are facing, and find out what families want SEND service providers to prioritise.

Norfolk County Council and NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board (ICB) are jointly responsible for SEND provision in education, social care, and health, and also work with partners to ensure wider support is available.

Cllr Penny Carpenter, cabinet member for Children's Services, said: "Last year's response to our call for families and professionals to work with us was excellent and gave us a huge amount of valuable information.

"We've shared this widely and used it to help us improve a range of services, including increasing opportunities for participation, boosting communication, working more closely with schools on SEN Support and introducing more rigorous testing of the quality of education, health and care plans (EHCPs).

"Now we want to build on that good work, particularly by encouraging more children and young people to engage with us and tell us what they think."

Niamh Keane, manager of Norfolk SEND Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) said: "Just as last year we are pleased to have worked together with different services, organisations and individuals to help develop this survey.

"This is a great opportunity for children, young people, parent, carers and professionals to use their voice to inform and influence improvements in SEND in Norfolk."

The survey aims to capture responses from across different parts of the county and relating to a wide range of different needs.

It has been designed to be as easy as possible and asks questions about support, education, health, EHCPs and social care. There are separate sets of questions for: children and young people aged eight to 25; parents and carers; and professionals. The survey can be completed anonymously and should only take around 15 minutes.

The survey is open from Tuesday 9 May until 5pm on Monday 30 June.

Find out more about what we did as a result of last year's survey information on the Norfolk SEND Local Offer website.

The survey is available at www.norfolk.gov.uk/sendsurvey