Sheffield City Council

Special educational needs discovery

Sheffield City Council recognises that there is an opportunity to improved it’s graduated pathways to SEND support. In 2017 we only achieved our statutory duty with 13.4% of EHC plans assessed within timescales.

Our performance in this area causes stress and anxiety to both the young person and their families and makes it difficult for professionals to make a difference.

The process results in delays to the right support being identified and provided. Consequentially failure demand in this area is high with 7 Ombudsman complaints upheld last year.

We want to:

• Engage with families to give them a voice to influence our development.
• Investigate how the use of digital technology can help us better serve our young people with regards to assessing need and early intervention
• Work with schools, the NHS, families and local agencies to understand how we can collaborate better in assessing needs.
• Recommend a multi-agency digital model for assessing need via a graduated approach

We will produce and make publicly available:

• A full UX research report
• An experience map of the current process
• Future process models for all aspects of the journey
• Comprehensive user stories and a development backlog
• Wireframe prototypes