What to expect from us
Our staff feel pride in what they do. They join the education, health and care (EHC) casework team because they want to help secure better outcomes for our children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
You should expect a caring and compassionate nature when discussing all aspects of the EHC needs assessment and the EHC plan journey for a child or young person. We understand that this has sometimes been a difficult journey to date and our service is sensitive to this and committed to moving things forward and securing resolution for any issues that may arise.
You can expect that your EHC co-ordinator will keep you up to date with where things are in the process and what should be expected next, even if that is to tell you that we are still awaiting an update for you.
For telephone correspondence you should expect to receive a response within 5 working days, initially via telephone call or if that is not possible via e-mail, where we may also arrange a time to call you or set up a Microsoft Teams meeting if that is preferred.
For e-mail correspondence you will receive an immediate acknowledgement and then should expect to receive an initial response within 5 working days, this may not always be to inform you of a decision or update but to advise where we are in the process of moving your enquiry forward and when we hope to contact you again with an outcome.
What we expect from parent, carers and external stakeholders
We understand that waiting to hear back regarding panel decisions, annual reviews, transport queries and placement decisions etc. can be frustrating. We assure you that these are processed within a timely manner and the team may be subject to delays in receiving responses or decisions that are outside of our immediate control.
Whilst we understand these frustrations, our team are here to help move things forward. We will not tolerate verbal or physical abuse towards our staff and colleagues. Decision making authority does not sit with individual officers - if the decision has not been what was hoped for, please understand that your EHC co-ordinator did not have any influence on this decision and is simply relaying the decision of the local authority.
If you have made contact into the service, please wait the appropriate length of time (5 working days) before following this up. This is to avoid duplication of work and allow your co-ordinator to information gather or escalate or signpost this to the relevant service or manager before responding to you. Please note that multiple calls or e-mails to the service do not speed up response times and we will respond within 5 days of the initial contact.