Representatives from the local authority and NHS joining us to listen to your experiences, views and ideas are:

Antony Julyan Strategic Manager & Children’s Commissioner, ISEND

Martin Komen, Senior Manager, Children & Young People Mental Health, Sussex NHS Commissioners

Anna Lewis, Principal Educational Psychologist, ISEND

Jessica Stubbings, Senior Manager, Partnerships and Governance, Standards and Learning Effectiveness Service (SLES)

Areas explored in the breakout groups will be:

1. What will make the biggest difference for you and your family?
2. Barriers & challenges: what are they and how can they be overcome?
3. What has worked well for your family that can be built on and developed?
4. What else should be a priority in the next three years in terms of shaping services?

This event is part of our work ensuring the parent carer voice directly feeds into the new SEND strategy due to be published by ESCC later this year. It follows on from the significant conclusions in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) last year, to which over 700 parents and carers in East Sussex contributed via a survey. Key findings included:

• access to services can be difficult
• services in East Sussex are not effectively joined up and are working in silo
• the voices of young people and their families are not being heard effectively and are not informing practice as much as they could be
• provision for pupils with SEND is inconsistent across schools
• there is a view amongst some parent/carers that the EHCP process of assessment and allocation is not working effectively or fairly
• there are significant waiting times for many health services which impacts on severity of need
• high referral thresholds and criteria for health and respite services limit available support