The IASSN Children and Young People’s Steering Group

The IASSN Children and Young People’s Steering Group

The IASSN Children and Young People’s Steering Group is made up of nine disabled young people and young people with special educational needs aged 16-25, and who have previously accessed, or been involved with, their SENDIAS service. The young people are based all around the country including Plymouth, Birmingham, London, Newcastle and York. 

The groups purpose is to work with the IASSN to support SENDIAS services to better meet the needs of children and young people they are working with directly, as well as to ensure that the IASSN keeps the voice of children and young people at the heart of all we do.

Meetings are held bi-monthly, where a co-produced agenda is followed. The aims and work of the group are agreed upon at these meetings and additional sessions and meetings are then held to complete the work.

Highlights

  • The group co-wrote training that they delivered online to SENDIAS service staff. The training was on ‘how local services can include children and young people on their steering groups.’ The training was delivered over two sessions with 116 SENDIAS service staff attending. It was also recorded and has since been watched a further 150 times.
  • The group has written the Foreword for all of our major reports. This includes us looking at the data together and the group feeding back to us their thoughts, challenges and concerns. These reports go to all Local Authorities, Department for Education and beyond and it’s great to have the views and voice of young people at the forefront. This includes our Data Report and our Minimum Standards report.  
  • The group have planned a series of resources they would like to develop to support SENDIAS service staff to understand topics from their perspective. They are working on these currently.

The group recently decided they would like to expand the group to reach more members. To do this we asked them why they feel groups like this are important so we could share this with potential members. This is what they said:

"Being part of a group like this is important. It’s important to get your voice heard and have an impact."

"A good notch [on] your CV."

"You get to meet new people and make new friends."

"Different for every person. I find it [fulfilling] and feel I have developed new skills. It’s a chance to be listened to."

"Groups like this [develop] your confidence to speak up in all areas."

"It feels like you’re making a difference/ having an impact. This group is very collaborative in the way we work."

We also asked for feedback from the training the young people wrote and delivered. These are a few quotes from that training:

"This was an excellent session. There were a lot of excellent take home points from it. The young people who led the session were so knowledgeable and confident in their delivery their passion for their involvement clearly came over. A lesson to us all about preparation and delivery of information. I left feeling empowered to recruit young people to our steering group using the information from this session. So therefore the session was successful. Thank you to all involved."

"The YP's frank and honest sharing of their experiences. I would love these sessions opened up to other professionals so they can truly hear the VOC but also see with the right support how much they can achieve."

"A great event, thank you."

"The YP were excellent. So confident in their approach. It was amazing."