BLACKBURN with Darwen Council has devised a new improved strategy for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities.

A report by the authority's education boss Cllr Julie Gunn to Thursday's meeting of its executive board outlines the revised SEND programme for 2024 to 2027.

It says: "The strategy clearly sets out the SEND Partnership’s vision, principles, and priorities for the next three years, with a clear focus on improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND and their families.

"Following the pandemic, the SEND Strategic Partnership Board agreed it was the right time to commence a full SEND Strategy review, given the national and local rise in numbers of children and young people presenting with SEND alongside Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs.

"The board commissioned the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) to support this review exercise.

"Four priority areas for improvement were agreed:

"• preparation for adulthood (especially transition from children to adult services);

"• aligning commissioning priorities to ensure they reflect and meet local needs;

"• ensuring sufficiency of SEND educational specialist places to meet needs; and

"• securing strong multi-agency working to accurately identify and meet children and young people’s needs without delay.

"This strategy has been fully co-produced with children, young people with SEND and their families, alongside professionals across education, health and social care.

"The strategy clearly outlines our commitment to work together to realise our vision that children and young people with SEND in Blackburn with Darwen will live happy, healthy, and fulfilled lives wherever possible within their local community and that it is a place where they will have every opportunity to: achieve their goals for being independent, be and feel safe, be and feel respected and supported, achieve their best health and wellbeing, belong and enjoy being in their community, learn and achieve in everything they can do, and find a job that they want to do.

"The risk to ensuring effective strategic oversight and delivery of SEND activity is mitigated by the production of this three-year co-produced partnership Strategy as it builds on the good progress of the previous SEND Strategy.

"There are strong governance arrangements in place with clear roles and responsibilities.

The next steps are to continue to support the work of the SEND Strategic Partnership Board through the fostering of collaborative working practice and helping them to achieve against their priorities over the next three years; continue to support the SEND Partnership to direct, monitor, challenge and assure the delivery of continued improvement across the SEND agenda; and continue to highlight best practice across services, reducing and addressing potential barriers for children and young people with SEND."