Welcome
Dear Partners,
Welcome to the latest edition of Families First News, which is quite a bumper edition this month, so please take time to read and share with your teams.
Firstly, we would like to thank all our Families First Partners who recently took the time to complete our Early Help System Guide survey and we will be sharing the collated feedback in our next edition of this newsletter.
Can we also draw your attention to the article about the new Front Door Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), model and an opportunity to share your experience of making a referral to Children’s Services by joining an interactive session with the Head of Assessment, Caroline Ash. You can also read our article on the new Supporting Families Outcome Framework and understand the key changes to the framework.
SEND News
Inspection
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are visiting your area, as part of an inspection. We will be looking at arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). We would like to hear your views about the support that you provide to children and young people with SEND, find out more and complete the survey here.
£5 Million Investment
Separately, we are pleased to share the recent news regarding an announcement at Full Cabinet in May by the Leader of the Council, Cllr Richard Roberts proposing a commitment to invest £5 million of ongoing funding to improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, which is subject to Cabinet agreement in July 2023. You can read more about the news here Hertfordshire County Council plans to invest additional £5 million in SEND children - HertsLive (hertfordshiremercury.co.uk)
SEND & Early Help
In addition, Hertfordshire County Council has secured £93,391 funding through the DLUHC Supporting Families SEND Pilot. Four other Local Authorities were also successful in securing this funding including: Wakefield, Leeds, Nottingham and Southwark. Southwark were also successful in securing funding for the DLUHC Supporting Families Mental Health pilot.
Hertfordshire County Council Children’s Services and partners will deliver an innovative pilot programme ‘Action for Inclusion’. HCC will provide £24,919 match funding and will use this resource to employ a Service Development Manager to develop a SEND and early help whole family response. This will drive cultural change to embed a new whole-family approach to improve outcomes for the families of children and young people with SEND at risk of exclusion or reduced timetables. We will evaluate improvements and share learning which could widely influence practice.
Finally, look out for our Introduction to the SEND Local Offer webinars taking place in early July.
Other News
Again there's lots of news to share in this month's edition. Read more about the Becoming New Dad pilot being run by the Family Support Service at the Family Centres and don't forget to take a look and our learning and development articles along with local partner news.
Please encourage your teams to sign up to receive their own copy and do let us have your comments and suggestions for what you would like included in future editions by emailing familiesfirst.support@hertfordshire.gov.uk.
Thank you for reading,
Kind regards
The Development Team
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