What Works in SEND: call for evidence

What we are doing

We are undertaking a systematic review of literature for the What Works in SEND programme on behalf of the RISE (Research and Improvement for SEND Excellence) partnership. A systematic review uses explicit methods to identify, select, extract and synthesise research evidence from publications, to answer predefined research questions. Ethical approval is not required as we are collecting evidence from research that has already been undertaken and reported in the public domain.

Our research questions

Our questions aim to discover what leads to improvements in health, social care and education services for children and young people aged 0 – 25 years with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and the conditions in the local area that are facilitators or barriers to improvement.

We are including interventions, and any commissioning practice or service delivery models (including new or different approaches, or configurations of resources and services) that lead to improvement. We will adopt a broad understanding of ‘improvement’ to include satisfaction for children and young people with SEND and / or their parents; surveys reporting increased Quality of Life; improved academic outcomes in special schools; improved access to services; or saved costs in services for children and young people with SEND for a Local Authority amongst others.

We are especially interested in service providers who work together to improve services. For example, through collaboration or partnerships.  By ‘partnership’, we mean any services in health, social care, and education working together with other services.

What we need from you

To support our review, we ask that you please share with us any published literature or reports which you believe would be relevant to our research topic. Please contact Natalie Tyldesley-Marshall at Natalie.Tyldesley-Marshall@warwick.ac.uk .