Page 18 - SEN116 January-February 2022

Point of view
Point of view: consultant
18
No families left behind
‘A new paradigm in an archaic system’.
Tessa Philbert highlights the need for a change in mindset to enable professionals to fully engage with parents and carers to deliver support together.
Since the Warnock Report (1978) acknowledged the educational rights of children and young people (CYP) with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), the law around SEND provision has evolved
in many ways.
The most recent and pivotal change, in SEND Law, was the implementation of the ‘Children and Families Act’ (C&F, 2014) andsupportingstatutoryguidance‘TheCodeofPractice’(CoP, 2015). A major priority of this landmark change in law was to ensure that local authorities, schools and other educational settings were explicitly responsible and accountable for identifying needs and delivering person-centred provision. Furthermore, multi-agency working would place children with SEND and their families at the heart of all decisions being made about CYPs educational, health and social care provision. Ensuring that a person-centred approach to supporting needs was at the forefront of all conversations, moreover that CYP and their families played a meaningful role in decision making processes and have their ‘wishes, thoughts and feelings’ listened to and held in the highest regard (S19, C&FA, 2014).
“The stage is set for the
voice of the family to be heard and empowered”
Ultimately, the change in law implicitly acknowledges the expert knowledge, wisdom and understanding gained by parents/ carers when raising their children, particularly when supporting individual needs and strengths arising from a CYPs SEND. Within this new paradigm, the stage is set for the voice of the family to be heard and empowered, but in reality the principle falls short of its intentions.
Working with various partners within local authority for many years, I have witnessed some of the challenges in implementing a paradigm that doesn’t just encourage the meaningful involvement of CYP with disabilities and their families, but makes it law. One of the barriers to change is the automatic
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