Ingredients for improving delivery of services for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities drawing on the experiences of the Delivering Better Outcomes Programme

This research focuses on local areas that had received improvement intervention from the Delivering Better Outcomes Together (DBOT) programme.

  • Theme: Processes and pathways
  • Strength: Emerging
  • Breadth of Impact: Emerging
  • Status: Quality Assured

This research focuses on local areas that had received improvement intervention from the Delivering Better Outcomes Together (DBOT) programme. Our purpose was to understand ingredients (antecedents, barriers and facilitators) for service improvement, i.e. that which is implemented and sustains, even scales up, with positive outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND1).

DBOT, a consortium of three organisations; Mott MacDonald, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) and the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) delivered specialist advice, training and support between 2014 and 2022, primarily to support local areas in their implementation of the Children and Families Act, 2014. National, regional and local training and support focused on: improving co-production with agencies and parent carers and children and young people; leadership; Preparation for Adulthood (PfA); development of outcomes frameworks; and improving quality of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP’s).

This research was undertaken by academic researchers from Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick. This report was commissioned by the Research & Improvement for SEND Excellence (RISE) Partnership who are funded by the Department for Education (DfE).

[1] For ease of reading, we use the term ‘SEND’ to refer to disabled children and young people and children and young people with special educational needs.