Coproduction with Parents and Children

  1. Section 19 of the Children and Families Act 2014 makes clear that local authorities, in carrying out their functions under the Act, must have regard (among other things) to the importance of children and young people, and their parents and carers, participating as fully as possible in decisions about their individual care. Local authorities must also ensure that children, young people, parents and carers are involved in decisions about local provision. They need to ensure that children, young people, parents and carers are provided with the information and support necessary to enable participation in those decisions.
  2. Local authorities will be required to publish comments from children, young people and parents by no later than 31st August 2015 along with details of the action they intend to take in response to the comments. However, local authorities should have in place an approach to ‘test out’ their Local Offer with users and consider how they can engage harder-to-reach-groups of parent carers and young people, well in advance of this date.

To support this process a number of documents have been produced.

Local Documents

Parents Voice IW

Young Inspector Reports

Local Offer feedback

Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

Check it out (CCG)

National Documents

  • 3 December 2014, Isle of Wight Young Inspectors referenced in an Edward Timpson MP speech-supporting SEND students in Further Education that the minster gave to an FE audience
  • 12 November 2015, Isle of Wight Young Inspectors were referenced at an address by Edward Timpson MP to the Council for Disabled Children (CDC)
  • 27 January 2016, a survey of over 40% of English social services authorities by the Cerebra Legal Entitlements Research Project at Cardiff Law School reviewed local authority ‘short breaks’ statements. The Isle of Wight was singled out as an example of best practice

Young Inspector Programme

The Short Breaks ‘Young Inspector’ Programme has been specifically designed to increase the involvement and ‘voice’ of children and young people with disabilities and/or additional needs.

The Young Inspectors are a group of Young People aged 6-19 with disabilities and/or additional needs that inspect services across the island. They have helped shape the EHCP (Education Health CarePlan) plan and the Local Offer, spoken in front of the Department of Education and even been recognised by National Government. Mainly the Young People inspect activities such as discos, horse riding, kayaking and many more. All the activities will be put on specifically for young people with additional needs and they then feed back to us about the sessions.

Find out more about the young inspectors scheme.

Engagement with Young People

The SEND Youth Forum is an opportunity for young people with special educational needs and disabilities to feedback about the services they need and use, so that we can learn from their experiences. This includes good experiences, as well as areas for improvement. You can complete the questionnaire to give your feedback (PDF, 366.01KB, 3 pages).

We and Parents Voice offer children and young people with SEND aged 11-25 an opportunity to have your voices heard by joining a group.

Once you are a member, it will be up to you how much or how little you do. You can help make decisions about the group such as its name, how it runs, when it runs, be part of creating events, or deciding on workshops for things that will help and support members.

Some things are already set:

  • becoming a member will always be free
  • all members have SEND and are 11-25 years
  • it will aim to empower its members to be heard equally on matters that are important to them.

Refer a member

If you know a young person who has SEND, is aged 11-25 years you can refer them.

The first meeting took place on 12 July 2019 (PDF, 405.53 KB, 3 pages).

View the notes (PDF, 65.18 KB, 1 page) for the KIDS session held on Wednesday 21 August 2019 at the Smile Centre.

In this section