On Thursday 6th February 2025, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) ran a national online event for SEND Leads, DCO/DMOs and Commissioners from across the country. The aim of the event was to update the sector, share knowledge and best practice and learn from each other. The main plenary session consisted of:
- Welcome, introductions, and objectives for the day by Amanda Allard, Strategic Director, CDC.
- A presentation by Dame Christine Lenehan, Strategic Advisor for SEND, Department for Education (DfE), on looking ahead to national developments in SEND.
- Updates about Area SEND Inspections and the upcoming Review, delivered by Adam Sproston, Senior His Majesty’s Inspector, SEND and AP, Ofsted; and Jess Taylor-Beirne, Children’s Services Operations Manager, Care Quality Commission (CQC).
A recording of the plenary session can be found here.
Attendees at the event were also given the opportunity to attend 2x workshops on a variety of topics. Please find the workshop recordings below:
- The Healthy Parent Carers Programme: Improving parent carers’ health and wellbeing (Fleur Boyle, Programme Coordinator; Bel McDonald, Programme Developer and Lead Trainer, University of Exeter Medical School; and Cara Stratford, Esteem Team, Exmouth).
- The Alternative Provision Landscape and Olive Academies (Adam Tedesco, Deputy Chief Executive at Olive Academies).
- Developing and embedding an offer of Assistive Technology in Children’s Services at Kirklees Council (Suleman Aswat, Commissioning Officer for Assistive Technology at Kirklees Council).
- ‘Pull Up a Chair’: Learning from co-produced research with children and caregivers to prevent exclusion from school (Dr Sarah Martin-Denham, Associate Professor of Care and Education at the University of Sunderland).
- Making Sense of Sensory Processing: Inside our early years training programme (Davina Belcher and Adi Soni, Education Programme Manager and Project Co-ordinator, Education Team, Council for Disabled Children (CDC)).
- Developing as opposed to delivering services for families of children with SEND - empowering parents and realising efficiencies (Ann Van Dyke MBE, Freelance Consultant; and Sandy Lawrence BEM, Director of the Cornwall Accessible Activities Programme (CAAP)).
- Communication strategies with parents and carers for local areas (Kath Bromfield, National Representative from the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF)).
Slides from the plenary session and the workshops are attached below.
- Plenary session.
- The Healthy Parent Carers Programme: Improving parent carers’ health and wellbeing.
- The Alternative Provision Landscape and Olive Academies.
- Developing and embedding an offer of Assistive Technology in Children’s Services at Kirklees Council.
- ‘Pull Up a Chair’: Learning from co-produced research with children and caregivers to prevent exclusion from school.
- Making Sense of Sensory Processing: Inside our early years training programme.
- Developing as opposed to delivering services for families of children with SEND - empowering parents and realising efficiencies.
- Communication strategies with parents and carers for local areas.
- Learnings from Area SEND Inspections and the upcoming Review.