Our Vision, Pledge, Co-production Charter, Participation Survey and more

Torbay has co-produced a vision for SEND within the local area:

• SEND is everybody’s business – embedding the vision and values into the practice of everyone who works with children and families from 0-25
• Identify and respond to needs early – in ways that value lived experience and expertise and offers personalised care and support.
• Deliver in the right place at the right time – always asking ‘so what difference are we making in the life of children or young people’?

Our ambition is to create a prosperous and healthy Torbay. By focusing on this ambition, we are working towards ensuring that our communities thrive. Protecting children and giving them the best start in life is one of the key areas where we will target our actions as we strive to meet our ambition. As a whole system, we are committed to improving outcomes for children and families.

Our pledge is at the heart of providing high-quality services across our local area. This document has been created to describe the values and behaviours that our children, young people and families wish to experience in the delivery of SEND services and support across our local area. Regardless of role, employer or organisation, our pledge asks for everyone within the local area to work in the way that is important to our children, young people and families, turning this into the lived experience that we all deserve.

It has been designed to provide an easy reference and description of the values and behaviours required across our system.

Please see our Pledge

• Pledge 1 – Be honest
• Pledge 2 – Show you we care
• Pledge 3 – Be thoughtful
• Pledge 4 – Be fair
• Pledge 5 – Be kind
• Pledge 6 – Be friendly

The Torbay local area is working to adopt Restorative Practice, a strength-based approach that recognises that building a positive relationship with children, young people and families who need support is important.

We understand that life can sometimes be hard and what happens to us can affect how we think, feel, and behave. We know that how we work with families to talk about this and the ways in which we support families are important.

We recognise that listening to children, young people and families and working ‘with’ rather than doing things ‘for’ or ‘to’ people is the best way we can help support. This way of working is called restorative practice. It means our practitioners will focus on building positive relationships through respectful communication, collaboration and shared decision-making to help create positive change.

The benefits of working restoratively include:

Respectful conversations help to truly understand everyone’s life events

Encourages families to become more self-sufficient

Shared decision making and co-planning leads to better outcomes for children and families

Teamwork promotes successful multi agency working

Open and honest conversations help to build relationships and manage expectations

Reducing, preventing, and addressing harmful behaviour to keep everyone safe

Addresses conflict and seeks to repair harm when things go wrong

Trauma informed practice allow safe conversations to take place

Inclusive practice promotes working together with children, young people, and families, so they feel respected, listened to, and heard

Voices of children are key, so we hear their wishes and feelings and where possible act upon them

Encourages the building, maintaining, and repairing of all relationships

We asked children, young people, families and carers to provide feedback on how our current systems and responses make you feel. We heard that how we communicate and conduct our business impacts children, young people and families in the following ways:

Feeling dismissed and judged

“battle to be heard and get support”

“everything is a fight”

“I fear that I will not be believed or listened to”

Lack of trust

“I contacted professionals and didn’t get a response, I was left waiting and when information arrived it contained lots of inaccuracies, this made me feel there was a lack of respect and care”

False promises

“The promises that are made fade away”

“The actions don’t seem to be carried out as promised”

“Professionals are not always transparent about the plans in place for their children”

Not understanding us/me

The knowledge, skills and understanding of the workforce for SEND means that parents/carers and young people reported that they did not feel understood and their unique experiences were not built upon and supported.

In response to this, we asked children and young people to co-produce the behaviours and values that they would want everybody who comes into contact with them and their families to adopt and demonstrate.

Groups of children and young people in schools, voluntary and community groups and SEND focus groups identified six key values and behaviours that are important to be able to build trust and overcome the difficulties that currently exist within our system. This pledge explains these values and asks that every practitioner adopts these across our local area.

Torbay’s Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy sets out a vision ‘to create a healthy, happy Torbay
where individuals and communities can thrive’.

Children and young people are our future and our ambition of achieving this vision must start with
them. Getting a good start in life and childhood, building resilience and getting maximum benefit
from education are important markers for good health and wellbeing throughout life. Offering
support to all children, young people and their families, as well as focusing on those who need
help the most, reduces inequalities and improves health outcomes.

We know we must do better when it comes to delivering services for children and young people
with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and their families – and we are firmly
committed to doing so. Placing children, young people, and their families at the heart of this work
is key to achieving this and the principles of co-design and co-production will underpin everything
we do.

Partners across the local area in Torbay are committed to working in partnership with SEND
Family Voice Torbay as well as children, young people, parents, carers and partner organisations
to radically improve support for children and young people with special educational needs and/or
disabilities within Torbay so they have the very best life chances.

This SEND Strategy sets out our ambitions and the priorities upon which we will focus to achieve
them. As we measure our progress against our priorities, we will continually ask ourselves, as
well as our children and young people, and their parents and carers, “what difference have we
made?”

We are committed to:

• Working determinedly for a child friendly Torbay where children and young people with SEND
• and their families experience a well-planned continuum of provision from birth to 25 and
• beyond.
• Aiming high so that all children and young people with special educational needs and
• disabilities can reach their full potential, receive the right support, at the right time, with choice
• and control so that they can lead fulfilling lives.
• Aligning our resources to drive sustained improvement.

We are determined to work together to ensure an improvement in the quality of outcomes for those children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

Read or download Torbay SEND Strategy – 2023

Want to keep up to date with the latest news and events for SEND families as well as find out how we’re progressing with planned improvements.

We produce SEND newsletter before the end of every school half-term and term.

Sign up to receive our Torbay SEND Newsletters

See previous issues of our SEND newsletters

We will tell you the truth, we will listen and work with you to plan and explain what is possible and why things may need to change or happen.

We will listen carefully and ensure that we build a plan of support around your aspirations, hopes and goals.

We will treat you as the expert, build our professional knowledge of your needs and what is available to help you. 

We will treat you and your family with respect.

We will listen carefully and ask you how you want to receive your support. 

We will take time to find out lots about you, we will celebrate with you when things go well and help you when things are difficult.

You said:

“We want to be told the truth, we want to know why things have happened and what is going to happen”

“We need to know what is happening in school and why these things are changing”

Our pledge to you

We will tell you the truth, we will listen and work with you to plan and explain what is possible and why things may need to change or happen.

How we will do this

• We will take time to build a relationship and talk with you in a place where you feel safe and your views can be heard.
• We will be honest about what we can and cannot do for you and your family. Even when you might not agree with us, we will help you understand the reasons why and you can ask questions.
• We will explain and give clear information about changes that may need to happen.
• Where possible we will share what needs to alter in advance and talk through how we can best make these changes together.
• We will take time to hear your views, plan things together and consider with you if these things are working.
• If you disagree with what is proposed, we will explain how you challenge what is happening and who to speak to about your concerns.
• We will make available all information to you and your family so that you can challenge decisions if needed.

You said:

“We want to feel like the people around us are supportive”

Our pledge to you

We will listen carefully and ensure that we build a plan of support around your aspirations, hopes and goals.

How we will do this

• We will not underestimate you.
• We will take time to prepare and get to know you and your family as well as possible before trying to help.
• We will listen carefully and ensure that your views are heard and understood.
• We will listen to you to ensure that we understand how you would like to be supported and build your support plans on your aspirations, hopes and goals.
• We will take time to explain what support can be provided.
• We will ensure that we make any reasonable adjustments (small changes) to services you might need, to help you to achieve.
• We will use language that shows we care.
• We will ensure that written and spoken communication is accurate and in the format you prefer.

You said:

“We want people to understand our needs and know how to help”

Our pledge to you

We will treat you as the expert, and build our professional knowledge of your needs and what is available to help you.

How we will do this

• We will build our professional knowledge of individuals’ different needs.
• We will treat you as the expert and build upon what you tell us.
• We will use communication methods that are appropriate for you and your family.
• We will ask you to help create the best ways of supporting you.
• We will be knowledgeable of the services and support that are available in our local area to best help you and your family.
• We will seek to find the best information and ways of helping you.
• If we do not know how to help, we will be honest, but commit to working with you to find the best way forward.
• We will ensure that we work with our colleagues across the local area so that you do not have to tell your story again.
• We will ask you how you want to receive your support.

You said:

“We want people to be fair and not always think we are in the wrong”

Our pledge to you

We will treat you and your family with respect.

How we will do this

• We will explain how decisions are made and give you an opportunity to ask questions about decisions that are taken.
• We will put you in control of the support that you wish to receive.
• We will seek to find ways forward together and, if things go wrong, we will apologise and work with you to mend any harm caused.
• We will be consistent in our decision-making.
• We will try to maintain workers, so that you can build a relationship with people.
• We will ensure we respond in the timeframe agreed.
• We will answer your questions, even if the answer may not be what you would wish to hear.

You said:

“We want people to be kind and listen to our views so that we can be supported in the best way”

Our pledge to you

We will listen carefully and ask you how you want to receive your support.

How we will do this

• We will take time to build a relationship and be honest with each other.
• We will use your views to build the best ways to support you.
• We will be consistent in delivering what has been agreed.
• We will demonstrate that we care through our conversations and communication with you and your family.
• We will listen to you to understand what you can do for yourself and what you would like help with.

You said:

“We want the adults that work with us to show interest and be able to offer help”

Our pledge to you

We will take time to find out lots about you, we will celebrate with you when things go well and help you when things are difficult.

How we will do this

• We will take time to know you and your family as well as possible before trying to help.
• We will find out about your likes and dislikes.
• We will take an interest in the things that are important to you and help you to thrive.
• We will build on your strengths and seek opportunities for you to use these.
• We will build your goals with you and help you find ways of achieving these.
• We will be creative in how we can help you. We will think about the things that are important at home, in education and in your social time.
• We will find times for you to tell us what is going well and what could be better.
• We will celebrate with you the things that go well and help you to overcome difficulties.

Care and ownership

Partners will:

• Set out a clear plan and expectations from the start
• Encourage ownership and equal power to influence and have an equal voice for all in shaping ideas and action
• Be accountable and do what is promised

Communicate and listen

Partners will:

• Listen with care
• Respond with sensitivity, being open and transparent
• Share information in ways that includes and is understood by all
• Actively seek feedback and act upon

Value and include

Partners will:

• Recognise and value the differences in every individual and family
• Base our plans and proposals on lived expertise
• Treat everyone with respect and consistently address barriers for inclusion
• Partners may be silent but must still be valued

Trust

Partners will:

• Create and protect safe spaces so children and young people can share their views and ideas
• Ensure everybody has the opportunity to express their views and be heard
• Ensure everyone’s contribution is equally valued

Our Charter for Co-production

Who are the Partners?

We are families, carers, children and young people and people who work with them.

In designing our Charter for Co-production, local people of Torbay were asked what was important to them. Consideration was also given to the Four Cornerstones of Co-production (Genuine Partnership 2019).

In line with the wider Torbay SEND strategy, the charter underpins our commitment to working together so that every child and young person has the very best opportunities now and in the future.

This is only a start of a journey, and everyone has a part to play in influencing, implementing and embedding Co-production.

Building Trust will be a first step and ‘We will do what we say we are going to do’.

Privacy, confidentiality and choice is respected in Co-production.

August 2022

We produced two surveys in 2023 to ask people what they thought of Torbay’s SEND services.

The surveys were available during June and July – there was one for parents and carers and one for children and young people.

There were 77 responses to the young people’s survey, many of them carried out by face-to-face interviews with our participation officers. The rest were done online.

There were 89 respondents to the adults’ survey, all carried out online.                                                                                                

Thank you to everyone who took part in the surveys – your feedback is really important because it helps us to improve the services we offer to families.

Below you can see some of the main points raised by both adults and young people and what we’ve done in the past year to address those concerns.

Read the full survey report

Also see the easy read version of Torbay Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Annual Survey Report 2023.

We produced two surveys in 2023 to ask people what they thought of Torbay’s SEND services.

The surveys were available during June and July – there was one for parents and carers and one for children and young people.

There were 77 responses to the young people’s survey, many of them carried out by face-to-face interviews with our participation officers. The rest were done online.

There were 89 respondents to the adults’ survey, all carried out online.                                                                                                

Thank you to everyone who took part in the surveys – your feedback is really important because it helps us to improve the services we offer to families.

Read the full survey report

We produced two surveys in 2023 to ask people what they thought of Torbay’s SEND services.

The surveys were available during June and July – there was one for parents and carers and one for children and young people.

There were 77 responses to the young people’s survey, many of them carried out by face-to-face interviews with our participation officers. The rest were done online.

There were 89 respondents to the adults’ survey, all carried out online.                                                                                                

Thank you to everyone who took part in the surveys – your feedback is really important because it helps us to improve the services we offer to families.

Read the easy read version of Torbay Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Annual Survey Report 2023

We are working in partnership with NHS Devon and SEND Family Voice Torbay to improve services for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and their families.

We want you to have the very best opportunities now and in the future.

We have produced an improvement plan – called a ‘written statement of action’ – which we are now putting into action. The plan sets out how we are going to make improvements in areas highlighted in an inspection of SEND services earlier this year. We have made an easy to read version of this plan.

Our vision for SEND services in Torbay

Our vision is ‘to create a healthy, happy Torbay where individuals and communities can thrive’. This is from the Torbay Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

We will work in partnership with SEND Family Voice Torbay as well as children, young people, parents, carers and partners.

We want to improve support for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities within Torbay so they have the very best opportunities now and in the future.

• Our statement of commitment
• Written Statement of Action
• Written Statement of Action – Easy Read
• SEND Support and Provision – Graduated Response

Improvement pillars

Our improvement work was originally built on the four pillars below. We have now incorporated these into our 2023 SEND Strategy. 

• Pillar 1 – Joint commissioning
• Pillar 2 – Inclusion
• Pillar 3 – Becoming an adult
• Pillar 4 – Quality assurance and community engagement

We commit to working together, in partnership with you, to improve the support you receive. We want you to have the very best opportunities now and in the future.

We will make sure you can have your say in what happens to you, in a way that suits you. We will value what you say.

We will use what you tell us to help us make plans and decisions, as well as in our day-to-day work. 

We want to work with as many local people, groups, organisations and experts as possible to make our services the best they can be. We will do our best to not leave anyone out.

We know we might not get it right every time, but we will learn from our mistakes and improve as we go along.

Nancy Meehan
Torbay Council

Penny Smith
NHS Devon

Rebecca Box and Karen Roofe
SEND Family Voice Torbay

In November 2021, a team of inspectors from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) spent five days in Torbay. They talked to children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). They also talked to their parents and carers and education, social care and health partners.

They found significant weaknesses in services.

The Joint area SEND inspection report specified eight areas for improvement.

Read or download the Joint area SEND inspection report

As a result of the Joint area SEND inspection report Torbay Council and NHS Devon had to produce a plan explaining how we will improve services. It is called a ‘Written Statement of Action’.

We worked with SEND Family Voice Torbay, led by local parents, to produce the plan. Local families had their say through Family Voice Torbay, group engagement sessions and a survey. Ofsted approved the plan in April and it has now been published.

The improvement work is being led by Torbay’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Strategic Board. This brings together social care, education, health and local families in Torbay.

The improvement plan explains the steps that we will take to improve services. As part of this, we will work together (or co-produce) an aspirational vision for SEND services. We will have a shared set of values and develop a Local Inclusion Plan.

• Read or download the Torbay Local Area Written Statement of Action (WSoA plan)
• Read or download Written Statement of Action – Easy Read

Every three months the Department for Education and the Care Quality Commission review our progress towards our Written Statement of Action.

Read their reports on our quarterly progress:

• Read or download the WSoA Review Meeting Notes for February 2024
• Read or download the WSoA Review Meeting Notes for September 2023
• Read or download the WSoA Review Meeting Notes for April 2023
• Read or download the WSoA Review Meeting Notes for January 2023
• Read or download the WSoA Review Meeting Notes for September 2022

Read or download Written Statement of Action – Easy Read

Our improvement work was originally built on following four ‘pillars’, taken together to address the eight areas for improvement specified in the Joint area SEND inspection report.

Within each pillar are several Focus Areas broken down into the smaller actions. Each has a lead person, an agreed timescale and a description we will measure success.

We have now incorporated these into our 2023 SEND Strategy.

Pillar 1 – Joint commissioning

The report said the organisations that commission services were not working well together. Commissioning means planning, designing, paying for and monitoring services. For SEND services, this is mostly done by Torbay Council and NHS Devon.

The actions we will take include:

• Using local data and intelligence to create a better ‘Joint Strategic Needs Assessment’ to bring together and detail local needs across social care, education and health.
• Establishing a joint commissioning group, made up of all partners, to develop clear and strategic ways of working closely and effectively together.

Pillar 2 – Inclusion

The report said local organisations didn’t work well enough with each other, nor with local families. It said we did not involve families in decision-making about services or in monitoring how well they were working.

The report said there was too much difference between the levels of service that some people got compared to others in a similar position.

The actions we will take include:

• Creating an ambitious SEND Strategy in partnership with local families
• Designing effective ways of making sure the strategy is working, once it is being delivered
• Improving the culture across all teams – from the people delivering services to senior leaders – by agreeing core values and then training and encouraging everyone to behave in ways that embody those values
• Producing a report setting out how the lived experience of families will inform all work across the system
• Improving communications between families and service providers and commissioners
• Improving the way different parts of the system work together behind the scenes so that parents and families only have to ‘tell their story once’ when engaging with local agencies.
• Transforming the way schools and early years settings assess, plan, carry out and review their provision for each child and young person with SEND to make sure they get the tailored support they need.
• Using exclusion data to highlight which schools need support to reduce the number of students being excluded

Pillar 3 – Becoming an adult

The report said the range of opportunities and choices for children and young people with SEND when they reach 16 was poor and needed improving.

The actions we will take include:

• Embedding traineeships, supporting internships, apprenticeships and school leaver schemes – and setting targets for the number of young people taking them up – to increase the number of young people with SEND in education, training or employment once they have left school or college
• Seeking out Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans that have worked well to share and widen good practice.

Pillar 4 – Quality assurance and community engagement

The report said there was too much variation in the quality of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and that the views of parents were not treated seriously enough.

The actions we will take include:

• Carrying out a full review of the way EHC plans are produced in partnership with Family Voice Torbay.
• Making sure the process for seeking the views of parents, carers and children is fully accessible and is effective in gaining comprehensive information on a ‘tell your story once’ basis.
• Improving quality checks on EHC plans and training teams to produce high quality, consistent and effective plans
• Making sure EHCs contain a clear thread running through them that helps the young person achieve their personal goals, all the way through to adulthood.

Want to keep up to date with the latest news and events for SEND families as well as find out how we’re progressing with planned improvements.

We produce SEND newsletter before the end of every school half-term and term.

Sign up to receive our Torbay SEND Newsletters

See previous issues of our SEND newsletters

• SEND newsletter – Thursday 19 December 2024.
• Participation Survey Results – special edition
• October 2024
• July 2024
• May 2024
• March 2024
• February 2024
• December 2023
• October 2023
• Graduated Response – special edition
• July 2023
• May 2023
• March 2023
• February 2023
• November 2022

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Contact Special Educational Needs

• ehcp@​torbay.gov.uk
• 01803 208274