Getting more specialist help and assessment

Specialist advice is often needed if your child has been getting good SEN support in school and:

• they’re not making the progress you would expect (there is little or no progress)
• school staff now need expertise from outside of school to better understand the needs of your child
• they’re working at a level that’s much lower than other children of their age

This is a decision that you will need to be involved in making. Your child’s SENCO should talk to you about why they think more help is needed, and what kind of specialist advice they’re going to ask for. You can say yes or no.

Some parents want to give things more time to work. Others can find it hard to come to terms with the level of need and support that their child has. That’s completely understandable and if you’re finding things difficult, it can help to talk to other parents as well as the teacher or SENCO. Our Ambassador Volunteers can help you connect with other parents in your local area. 

School staff can ask for specialist help at any point, including when a special educational need is first identified.

The kind of specialist advice and support your child gets will depend on their needs. It can come from education, health and care professionals and services. It can be a one-off piece of work or longer-term support.

Specialist advice and help could include:

• a conversation between staff and specialist to get some ideas about support to try
• specialist advice clinic session for teachers and SENCOs
• training for support staff and teachers
• a school visit to observe a child and make suggestions for the type of support that might help
• a full formal assessment and recommendations
• direct support for your child, such as specific therapies or interventions, either in school or outside
• specialist equipment or resources, such as communications technology
  
  

Some support is given directly to your child, such as physiotherapy, strategies to manage emotions and speech therapy. Some support is best given in a small group with other children, and some is best done when your child works alongside a supporting adult.

Other support and advice focuses on training or giving skills or support to the staff that help or teach your child.

You might have heard professionals talk about Early Help or an Early Help Assessment.

Early Help is an approach to making sure families get the support they need at an early stage, before small issues become bigger. It puts families in touch with the right professionals who can give the best support at that time.

It should be led by your needs as a family, and it’s based on using the strengths that you and your support network already have. It also includes getting support from services, local communities and professionals. For most families, Early Help means getting support in school, home and community using the graduated approach.

Early Help isn’t a service or a team of people. It’s an approach to support. Professionals from different services work together with you to come up with a support plan and help you to put it in place.

You can find out more about Early Help in Devon on the Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership website. Young minds also have a guide about early help for parents and carers.

You can ask for Early Help support or report a safeguarding concern using Devon’s online ‘Request for support’ form.

Early Help Assessment

Getting a plan together to help you and your family often means doing an Early Help Assessment.

This is a way of working out what the challenges are and putting a plan in place to support you. One professional will usually lead the Early Help Assessment and process and make sure the right people are involved. That’s often your ‘go to’ person and they will be your main contact.

You’ll work together with school staff and other professionals to plan the things you want to achieve as a family. The plan should say who will be doing what and by when. It will also include the things you’ll be doing.

The plan will be reviewed regularly to see what is working and what might need to change. That’s usually done at a regular Team Around the Family (TAF) meeting. You and the professionals involved are always invited to these meetings. The meetings keep going every few weeks or months until you feel ready to manage on your own. Then the meetings will stop, and the plan will end.

Early Help Hubs

Sometimes things seem to get ‘stuck’. You might have tried different kinds of support for a while and things don’t seem to be getting much better or moving forwards. If that happens, the professional that’s leading on your support can contact your local Early Help Hub and ask for advice.

Devon has four hubs and the staff there can advise or ask the professional to make a ‘request for additional services.’ This includes teams such as the Family Intervention and Youth Intervention teams and children’s centres.

You can find out more about Early Help in Devon on the Devon Children and Family Partnership website.

Right for Children

The information that’s gathered as part of the Early Help Assessment and TAF meetings is added to Right for Children. It’s a web-based system that enables professionals from different teams and services to add and share information to help you get the right support. You’ll need to agree to have information about you and your family added to it. If your child is age 14 or over, they will also need to give their permission.

Usually, it’s the SENCO at your child’s school who will make a referral or ask for specific specialist help. But any professional that works with your child can ask for help. In Devon that’s likely to happen in one of three main ways, depending on the type of support that’s needed.

1. A direct referral to Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD)

This is the central place for referrals for specialist health services. It also takes referrals for social care assessments, which may lead to support from the Disabled Children’s Service. You might sometimes hear it called the SPA, which stands for Single Point of Access.

CFHD has a referral form which your SENCO, or any other professional, can fill out. They will need to give details about your child and their needs, and information about what support has already been tried and what effect that had. It’s important at this stage that they give as much evidence as they can to support the ‘ask’ for specialist help.

They will need your permission to make the referral and share information about your child and family. You can also refer your child, or your young person can ask directly for help (see below).

The services that can be accessed through CFHD are:

• Specialist School Nurses
• Autism Spectrum Assessment Service
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
• Children in Care Service
• Community Children’s Nursing Service
• Devon’s Family Information Service for Children with Additional Needs (SIGNPOST plus)
• Devon Early Years Complex Needs Service
• Learning Disability Team
• Occupational Therapy
• Palliative Care
• Public Health Nursing
• Rehabilitation Officers for Visually Impaired Children (ROVIC)
• Social Services – Disabled Children’s Service
• Specialist Children’s Assessment Centres (SCAC)
• Speech and Language Therapy

Once a referral has been sent in, it’s looked at by the staff there and put onto their system. Within a day or so it’s sent to which ever service the referral is for, such as speech and language. The staff in that team look at it and then decide:

• whether to accept the referral
• to ask for more information to help them decide or
• whether the referral doesn’t meet their criteria

Within a week or two, you should get a letter telling you what the decision is and what you need to do.

If the referral has been accepted your child will be added to the waiting list and when they’re near the top of that list, you’ll get a letter with an appointment.

If the referral isn’t accepted, you and the professional who made the referral will be told that, along with the reasons why. There are usually other ways of getting support included in that letter.

2. A direct referral to Devon Education Services

Devon Education Services provides specialist support, teaching and advice to schools and professionals in Devon. They work with children and young people from birth to 19 years of age.

There are several teams of specialists:

• Communication and Interaction –supports children and young people with autism and speech, language and communication needs
• Sensory and physical – supports children and young people with visual impairment, deaf and hearing impairment and multi-sensory impairment and those with severe physical difficulties 
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health including behaviour support – supports children and young people with significant social, emotional and mental health difficulties

Most of the staff are qualified, specialist teachers with extra qualifications and/or experience. There are also Deaf Inclusion Workers, Braille Teachers and a Resources Co-ordinator for Large Print and Braille.

Devon Education Services also provide the Educational Psychology service for schools in Devon (see more below).

Professionals make a referral. They will need to give details about your child and their needs as well as the support that has been tried and what effect that had. It’s important at this stage that they give the right evidence to support the ‘ask’ for specialist help. They will need your permission to make the referral and share information about your child and family.

The teams hold regular referral meetings during term time where each referral is discussed. At these meetings there are professionals from all the SEND teams. So, if your child has more than one SEND need, professionals from more than one team will work together to give the right support.

Your child’s SENCO should tell you what support has been agreed and when it’s happening.

3. Support through the Early Help process.

If you’ve had an Early Help Assessment then that’s another way to get extra, more specialised support for your child and family. You can find out more about this in the section above.

Yes, you can find and ask for specialist help too. If your young person is age 16 or over, they can also ask for help directly.

Here are the main ways to get more help and support. Details of all are at the end of this factsheet.

Devon SEND Local Offer

The first place to look is Devon’s SEND Local Offer.

Every local authority in England has a Local Offer. It’s usually a website and it should have clear, comprehensive, accessible and up-to-date information about the available support and services in each county and how to access it.

The Devon Local Offer website has information about a wide range of support and services, including specialist services. It tells you what’s out there to support your child and your family and how to access it or be referred to it.

Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD)

This is the central place for referrals for specialist health services. You might sometimes hear it called the SPA, which stands for Single Point of Access.

CFHD has a referral form which you can fill out to ask for help. You will need to give details about your child and their needs, and information about what support has already been tried and what effect that had. It’s important at this stage that you and the professional give as much evidence as you can to support the ‘ask’ for specialist help.

You can access lots of different health services this way including speech and language therapy, autism assessment and the disabled children’s service. You can find a full list and details about what happens to referrals when they’re sent in, in the Q and A above.

Your GP or health visitor

Your GP is often a good place to ask for help for your child. If they can’t directly refer you, they may know where you can get help or how to access it. If you’re worried about your child, or their behaviour, and think they might need to be assessed, talk to your GP first. They can make a referral if needed.

National and local organisations and services

There are national and local organisations that can give you advice and support. If your child has a diagnosis, or health condition, there’s likely to be a support organisation. Many of these have detailed information for parents and young people and some offer helplines, training and courses.

If you have an adopted or fostered child, Adopt South West are a good place to start. They have a phone service that’s open Mon to Fri 9:00 am to 4.00 pm for support or general advice, or to make an enquiry for an assessment of more specific support. Devon’s virtual school supports children in care, adopted children and those under a special guardianship order in school.

The Council for Disabled Children has an Information list which gives details of organisations who provide free advice and support (such as phone lines, emails, direct support etc) on a range of matters relating to SEN and Disability in England.

There are national organisations that support families with a disabled child, whether they have a diagnosis or not. These include Contact, Scope and Mencap. Contact has information about thousands of conditions including support groups.

If you need support with money matters, claiming benefits or knowing what you might be entitled to, Quids for Kids may be able to help. It’s part of Citizens Advice in Devon and they give specialist advice to families who have a child with SEN.

DiAS also has the Ambassador Volunteer project. Ambassador volunteers connect parents in their communities and more widely into a network across Devon. Some are mums and dads of children with SEND and some are professionals and support staff who work with them. What they all have in common is a desire to help families and an understanding of what life is like with a child with SEN. You can find out whether there’s a volunteer in your area or connect with someone on our website.

An Educational Psychologist (EP) is a specially trained psychologist. They are an expert in child development and education.

They use their expertise to help children and young people with difficulties around:

• thinking, learning and memory
• solving problems
• understanding their behaviour and feelings
• relationships and communication
• study skills

Sometimes a SENCO might suggest it would be helpful for them to get advice from an educational psychologist about your child, or for them to see your child and assess them. If they want to do that, you will need to agree to it.

They can give advice and recommendations to schools and local authorities about how to remove the barriers that are stopping a child reaching their full potential. EPs carry out observations, ask questions and do assessments to identify a child’s needs. They can recommend interventions to help, including learning programmes, behaviour management strategies, relaxation techniques and work with teachers or parents.

EPs plan their support around your child’s needs. An assessment usually starts with some conversations – with you and with school staff. This helps them get to know more about your child – what they’re good at and enjoy and the things they are finding challenging. If you can say a bit about whether your family life is affected by your child’s needs and if so how, that can help too.

An EP will then usually:

• talk to your child
• watch them while they’re playing and in lessons
• look at their school work and the progress they have made
• use activities or tests to explore the way they learn and how they are managing in school
• develop or review a support plan
• suggest if any other assessment could be useful and how to get this done

If you’re having a needs assessment for an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan your child will probably have an EP assessment, if they haven’t had one recently.

Sometimes, even with specialist advice and help, the support for a child doesn’t seem to be enough or it isn’t right. Your child may not make the progress that’s expected and start to fall further behind other children their age. Or their difficulties in school may get worse not better, and their behaviour at school or home can become more challenging.

If things aren’t going well for your child and they’re not making the progress you would expect, your first step is to ask for a meeting to review their nursery, school or college plan. At the meeting you can talk about the support they’re getting, what may need to change and how you’ll know if any new support is working.

If reviewing the plan and making changes to the support doesn’t make a difference, you can ask whether the next step should be a needs assessment for an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan. You can find out more about this in our section about EHC assessments and reviews.

If you’re home educating your child, then getting specialist help can sometimes be more challenging and costly. Here are some of the main options:

• You can use the referral routes for health and other assessments that are set out in the section above called ‘Can I get specialist help for my child?’
• You can contact the elective home education service for Devon for advice.
• You can pay privately for a specialist assessment. You will need to know what you’re asking for and why. The local authority should give the findings from a private assessment the same weight as if it had been done by someone they had asked. The specialists must be properly qualified and registered with an appropriate UK professional body.
• If you have an adopted child, or special guardianship for a child, you can ask for an assessment of your child’s needs to be funded through the Adoption Support Fund. Talk to Adopt South West for more information.

If your child is having an EHC needs assessment, the SEN 0-25 team may arrange for them to have an educational psychology assessment as part of it. They may also arrange an assessment as part of a review of your child’s EHC plan if it’s needed.