The Middlesbrough SEND and Inclusion team has created a targeted inclusion and outreach offer for children and young people. The context for the development of this offer has been the interconnected long term local challenges of rising permanent and fixed term exclusions and increasing complexity of need. Central to this offer is both its co-development based on feedback from school leaders and its focus on re-orienting services towards the needs of children and young people. As important as the specific targeted support offer, is the related strategic focus on upskilling practitioners across the system on need identification and trauma informed practice.
The SEND Effective Practice Evidence Framework considers that the “strength of evidence” of this case study is promising as the offer of support has been operational for two years and is embedded as business as usual. Early signs show improvement in some key data points but its efficacy and impact has only been evaluated internally at this stage. The “breadth of impact” of this case study is good – there is evidence of impact in three of the four areas of impact in terms of lived experiences of children and young people with SEND1 and their families; the education, health and wellbeing outcomes for children and young people; and positive feedback from practitioners.
[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.