Management Information Sheet

Local First Inclusion

Many of you will have heard about Local First Inclusion at our recent "Transforming our Norfolk Landscape" meetings for education leaders. Local First Inclusion is our system approach to the DfE Safety Valve Programme, continuing to improve and expand the landscape of SEND provision and achieving a balanced in-year budget for the High Needs Block by 2027/28.

Objectives of Local First Inclusion:

• Tackling current, and reducing future, demand
• Re-shaping the landscape of provision - shifting left away from high cost/Independent non-maintained
• Redirecting pupil flow from high-cost/low quality independent specialist to state-funded special, resource-base and mainstream
• Intervening earlier, more holistically to prevent escalation of need
• Improving confidence in mainstream provision to meet need
• Increasing accountability and incentivising mainstream inclusion
• Increasing local, maintained specialist provision/ alternative provision within the mainstream
• Driving down costs through improved focus on commissioning and contract management

School & Community Teams

New teams to support schools with inclusion and provide early help to children with SEND are due to launch later this year. The council has an ambition to create 15 new School and Community Teams, each with a geographical zone, to increase its capacity to improve support for schools. We want the new teams to offer high quality direct support to education settings and families focused on prevention, early help, and inclusion.

We know support is needed now, and with that in mind we want to move at pace to introduce the new teams. Recruitment has begun this month (February) and we have already done some work to develop an initial operating model. We want to work closely with schools on a 'test and learn' basis to develop the detail of this model further and to ensure it provides the right support for children and schools.

We plan to launch the service in June, with several teams becoming operational then, and anticipate having the majority of the teams up and running by the end of Summer.

Creating School and Community Teams is a key part of the council's new six-year Local First Inclusion programme. The programme has a number of projects which are grouped into five different workstreams, each with a different focus. Creating new specialist education places in new special schools and specialist resource bases (SRBs) remains a key part of this, alongside strengthening inclusion in mainstream schools.

The programme has the overall aim of creating a sustainable and effective system with the right mix of education places to provide the right support for children and young people with SEND at the right time.

How will the teams work?

The teams will work predominantly with families which require early help where a child or young person's inclusion needs fall within levels 3 to 4 of the Identification of Needs Descriptors in Educational Settings (INDES). Read more about INDES here.

They will offer support through three distinct functions, which are:

• Advice and supervision

  Creating a community of practice to ensure collaborative working in every local area to provide the right expert advice and support for both schools and families at the earliest opportunity.

• Intervention

  Teams will deliver direct evidence-based interventions to children, families and education settings to respond to emerging needs identified in a child or family's early help assessment and plan or SEN Support plan. This might be on a one-to-one or group work basis using practice approaches that coach and mentor to achieve sustainable outcomes.

• Community and place

  The teams will contribute to the provision of services where place-based need arises, such as delivering parenting programmes, support groups etc and will bring extra capacity and connection with communities through Norfolk's Family Hub model.

How will teams work with schools?

We want the teams' main relationships to be with education settings, working alongside other partners. The teams will aim to support the preventative responses to individual children, cohorts of children, and whole school approaches to SEND and early help. Part of this support will also include building new connections between education settings and Norfolk's Family Hub model.

Every school will be offered the opportunity to have termly conversations about children, young people and families who would benefit from early intervention.

How will teams work with families?

We all know providing the right response to children and families at the right time is critical to meeting their needs before they escalate to needing more specialist services across social care, education, and health. Without action to adapt how we deliver prevention and early help, demand for services will rise, and opportunities to provide support earlier will be missed.

Teams will predominately focus on emerging SEND needs, including addressing barriers that impact upon a child or young person engaging in education. Support for parenting will be provided where this is identified as a contributory factor to a child or young person's learning, by multi-skilled education and family workers trained to deliver SEND interventions and family support.

How will teams work with other partners?

Teams will work in partnership with other services operating within their school & community zone where the holistic needs of a family require joined-up support.

Through Community of Practice arrangements that facilitate group supervision, teams aim to create and/or support opportunities for services in a local area to collaborate, share skills, and work holistically with the children, young people, and families they support.

Further information

Over the forthcoming months we will be proactively engaging with colleagues to support the development of this new service and keeping you updated of progress.

In the meantime, we have set up a dedicated email inbox for any questions, queries, or ideas you may have. We're really keen to hear from you. Email schoolandcommunity@norfolk.gov.uk to contact us.

General news about SEND in Norfolk is always posted in the free Norfolk SEND Bulletin half termly newsletter. You can sign up for this on the Norfolk SEND Local Offer website.