Local Offer review report October 2015

Plymouth's SEND Local Offer was developed in partnership with parents, young people and our partner agencies. Co-production is at the heart of the Plymouth SEND Local Offer. In co-producing our Local Offer we've worked with:

Parents/carers and young people
Professionals from our partner agencies
with all of our maintained schools who have produced their local offer by responding to questions from parents and children
with service providers, including those within the voluntary sector
closely with our SEND information and Advice group

Our SEND Core Delivery group is currently exploring ways the Local Offer can be publicised, managed and developed going forward. This group will continue to have oversight of the Local Offer on behalf of the SEND steering group.

One year on from the launch of the Local Offer we have undertaken a full review of the Local Offer directory of services to ensure that it continues to be accessible and relevant for families and professionals.

Feedback on the Local Offer

Feedback has been obtained from as wide a range of stakeholders as possible. These have included

Parents

informally meeting with parents at events, e.g. families Life Centre sessions
formal feedback from parent-led groups on the experience of parents using the Local Offer directory
consultation events and survey monkey held in partnership with the SEND Information, Advice and support service
email survey and questionnaire circulated in partnership with the SEND Information, Advice and support service and Your Child Your Voice ( Parent/Carer forum)

Young people

formal consultation exercise carried out in partnership with one of the special schools
informal discussion with children and young people at events
questionnaire completed by young people following participation in one of the short break activities over the summer holidays.

Partners

Short break service providers have fed back their experiences using the POD and registering to manage their entry on the POD.
Feedback has been received via the "contact us" and "Tell us what you think" functions on the directory.
Feedback formally and informally has been received from partner agencies and organisations e.g. CHSWG, Health, schools

Analysis of data

The Plymouth Local Offer was launched 1 September 2014 as a distinct section within the wider families' information directory. Families told us that they wanted the SEND information to be part of the whole rather than sitting separately to other services.

Since the launch, there have been approximately 170,000 visits to the families' information site up to 1 September 2015. This is an increase on the previous year of 77,000 or approximately 84%.

This means that there have been approximately 1400 visits a month to the directory of people looking for information to help them lead their daily lives.

There are a number of records that are consistently the most viewed across the year with far more "hits" than any other of the records. The page which provides details of Holiday play schemes and activities receives on average 185 visits a month with a clear peak in July

CAMHS local offer page on the directory has received approximately 550 visits a month across the year and the Disability, Information and advice Centre record having approximately 65 visits a month. This demonstrates that families are using the POD to find out about services available to them.

We believe that the Local Offer is being well used in the local area but that more can be done to increase its use. There is no evidence that users have difficulty in finding the information they require. We continue to develop more content and more intuitive links with pages outside the Local Offer.

We have a strategy for further stakeholder engagement and hope that users will continue to provide feedback that will help us shape future developments.

How will the local offer change and develop?

The following key messages are going to be addressed in response to the feedback we have received on the POD.

Develop a filter to refine the search further to become more relevant to the individual child's profile
Develop a champion role in partner agencies e.g. GP surgeries, libraries and children's centres to support families to access the directory
Continue to develop the POD to become more accessible and responsive to the needs of families and professionals
Work on new marketing methods and engagement with stakeholders as the POD is linked in with the development of the wider early help offer

Messages to commissioners

The key messages to go back to commissioners are

There has been a significant increase (84%) in the use of the POD in the 12 months since 1 September 2014. Therefore the POD is clearly relevant to families and needs to be maintained and developed in order to be able to respond to these queries and provide the information that families need.

Commissioning officers need to work with commissioned services to embed the information offered as part of the contractual arrangements

Plymouth Local Offer homepage

This page is part of Plymouth's Local Offer.

This page was last updated on 24 June 2019