Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP)

For some children with complex needs even the wide range of services available in nurseries and schools is not enough to help them achieve their full potential. If your child is still not making progress, even with support from school, you can ask us to assess him or her for an EHCP.

An education, health and care (EHC) plan is for children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is available through special educational needs support.

EHC plans identify educational, health and social needs and set out the additional support to meet those needs.

An EHCP is a legal document which describes your child’s needs. It sets out the education, health and care services needed to meet those needs and the type of educational place that would best suit your child. Your child could have a plan from birth to 25 if he or she stays in education, and the plan will change and develop as your child gets older. The EHCP replaces the statement of SEN or, in college or further education, a learning disabilities assessment (LDA). By the end of March 2018 we will have moved all children and young people across to the EHCP.

Health professionals are under a statutory duty to support the EHCP process and this includes involvement in annual reviews.

What an EHCP will mean for your child

The plan brings together in one place all the information we need to help us support your child. There can be a lot of organisation needed and the plan is a single clear guide to providing services to meet your child’s individual needs.

If your child already has a statement or a learning difficulties assessment, then he or she will may get an EHCP to replace it. We will make the change at an appropriate time, for example when your child reaches Year 5 and is looking for a secondary school place. We will contact you when it is time to move to an EHCP. In the meantime nothing will change for your child.

The EHC Hub

The EHC Hub is an online area for families, professionals and education settings to work together and contribute on Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessments, plans and reviews.

To log in go to EHC Hub. For more information go to About the EHC Hub.

The EHCP process

Any young person, parent or professional working with a child, young person or family can make a referral for an Educational, Heath and Care Plan Statutory Assessment, however it is usually expected that the following will apply:

The child or young person has severe and/or complex long term needs that affect everyday life and functioning
The child or young person requires provision and resources that are not normally available
Intensive help and support is required from outside agencies
There is evidence of a graduated response (Assess, Plan, Do, Review) from the school and other agencies involved in supporting the child or young person
Despite high levels of support, the child or young person is making limited or no progress.

If all other levels of support have been accessed by partners but the child or young person’s education is still being affected, then a referral for a statutory EHCP Assessment can be made by contacting:

Special Educational Needs Assessment and Review Team (SENART), Civic Offices, Knoll Street, Cleethorpes, DN35 8LN,

Email: sen@nelincs.gov.uk

Telephone: 01472 323166.

Opening times: Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5pm and Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm, except bank holidays.

What happens after the request is made?

When your child you or your son or daughter’s educational setting ask us for an assessment for an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) , we will need to decide whether or not your child needs one. A panel of education, health and care professionals makes this decision. This is called the Special Educational Needs Advisory Group (SENAG).

You will be introduced to an EHCP co-ordinator, who will collect all the information the panel needs to make a decision. The co-ordinator will ask for information from you, your child, his or her school or college and from any other professional connected with your child.

The panel makes its decision based on:

How complex your child’s needs are
The level of support your child has already received
Whether or not your child can be given support in his or her current setting, school or nursery.

Once we decide, we must tell you of our decision within six weeks of receiving the request.

What happens next?

This stage of the pathway involves collecting views, information and advice which will help identify what planning and support is needed as part of the Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

A crucial part of the process involves enabling the child or young person and their family to tell their story. The school SENCo or the Local Authority officer identified as your EHCP co-ordinator can help support you and your family to do this, if you wish. This information will form an “All About Me” document. This sets out the child/young person’s strengths and needs; their current levels of support; what is working well and what is not working so well; what is important to them; as well as their hopes and aspirations for the future.

The “All About Me” document is to represent the views of the child or young person and/or parents rather than professionals points of view.

The EHCP co-ordinator will have all the information that was collected for the panel. He or she may meet you and your child to explain about EHC plans and how they are made, and will want to talk to you both to find out about your child’s background, progress and whether other support might be needed. Other support could come from:

Education, health and care professionals
Any other relevant person.

The EHCP co-ordinator will then ask these professionals for any information he or she needs.

During the assessment, you can expect that:

You and your child will be fully involved
We will collect all information efficiently so that we do not have to ask you for it twice
You will get information, advice and support to help you make the right choices for you and your child
If your son or daughter is over 16, he or she will get information, advice and support in his or her own right if he or she has capacity.

Once all the information is ready, the co-ordinator will arrange a meeting of the panel to make a decision about whether your child needs a plan.

When the panel is deciding whether to give your child an EHC plan it will look at the information we collected during the assessment to see whether:

It shows that the special education your child currently gets meets his or her needs
If your child is not making good progress, he or she can get specialist services in mainstream education or whether your child needs to go to a special school.

We will write to you to tell you about our decision. We have to do this within 16 weeks of you asking for an assessment.

If we think your child does not need an assessment, his or her teacher (with other professionals if necessary) can work with you to develop a support plan or improve your child’s current plan. Find out more about support plans on our page on support plans.

If we decide that your child needs an assessment, the EHCP co-ordinator will contact you to explain what happens next and to fix a date for a meeting.

If you are not happy about any decision made about your child’s EHCP assessment or the outcome of this, you can talk to us about why you are unhappy. Details on who to talk to will be included in any information sent to you.

Involvement of social care

When the Needs Assessment is being carried out, the Local Authority must seek social care advice and information.

This information must include your child’s needs and may be required to meet such needs and the outcomes that the provision should bring about for your child.

Many children with additional needs and disabilities often need support with their wider social care needs to access the same opportunities and develop their independence in line with other children of a similar age.

For many children and young people that support is provided by friends, family, and local groups. At times it may be necessary for support to be provided through social care services delivered or commissioned by the Local Authority.

There are three sections on your child’s needs that are matched by the help your child will get to meet those needs:

“Section B: Special educational needs” are met by “Section F: special educational provision”
“Section C: Health care needs” are met by “Section G: health care provision”
“Section D: Social care needs” are met by “Section H: social care provision”

Identifying the social care needs of a child or young person with a disability does not necessarily require an assessment by a social worker.

In most cases needs can be met through Universal Services or Early Help without the need for a formal assessment, provided there is a good understanding of those needs and families have access to clear information about what support is available and how to get it.

The key to supporting the child, young person and their family is having a clear understanding of their social care needs and what they require by way of support. This could be information, advice, or practical support.

Why kinds of questions will we ask you?

• What is important to the child?
• What does the child do outside of school? Do they see friends, attend groups, clubs or activities? What are their hobbies or interests? Where do they go to do these things? Do they face any challenges or barriers accessing these activities?
• In their day to day lives, what is going well for the child and their family?
• What support do they receive from family, friends, community members and other professionals?
• What do the child and family find difficult, challenging or stressful? What is not working well?
• Is the child safe at home and in the community? Do they feel safe?
• Has the family had any previous social care assessments or involvement?
• Does the family know how to access Local Offer and Family Information Services

You will meet the EHCP co-ordinator or a facilitator who will work with you to put together the plan, using the information collected during the assessment.

If we decide that your child needs an education, health and care plan (EHCP), we will work with you and your child to put it together.

The plan must include:

Your child’s views and hopes as well as your views
Your child’s special educational needs and the special educational services to meet those needs
The name or type of early education, school or college needed
Your child’s health needs and the health services to meet those needs
Your child’s care needs and the care services to meet those needs outcomes (or goals).

If you choose to have a personal budget, the plan must include clear information on:

Personal budgets, including direct payments
Support available to help manage personal budgets.

Find out more on personal budgets. NELC SEND Local Offer | What are Personal Budgets? (nelincs.gov.uk)

It must also include:

All the information collected during the assessment
Information about how to appeal.

How we put an EHCP together

The EHCP co-ordinator will pull together all the reports on your child’s education, health and care needs. He or she may meet you and your child or talk to you over the phone about what your child wants to achieve.

The time between you asking us for an assessment and us finishing the plan should be no more than 20 weeks.

The Special Educational Needs Advisory Group (SENAG) panel looks at the information gathered by the co-ordinator in a draft plan. It then agrees or amends the information which will become the plan. We will send you a copy of the plan along with a letter explaining what it means and your right to appeal.

Changing school

When your child is in Year 5 and Year 9, there will be a review meeting to plan the change of school. If your child changes school, we will send you a new copy of the EHCP.

Will my child always need a plan?

Some children only need an EHCP for a short time. An annual review may suggest that the EHCP ends. If we plan to end a EHCP, we will talk to you about it. If you are not happy with our decision you can appeal against it. We tell you how to do this in the letters we send to you.

How is support for pupils with SEN funded?

Pupils with SEN are funded through three funded elements.

The first £4000 of support comes from the money the school gets per child who attends.
The second portion of SEN spending, around £6,000 per child comes from a pot each school receives which is ringfenced for meeting SEN needs.
Top-up funding is the additional amount delivered via the EHCP. Top-up funding is the amount made available to a mainstream school to deliver the provision in an EHCP, over and above that which the school are expected fund themselves from their general funding

What is SEND banding?

Banding is a way for local authorities to allocate levels of top-up funding for securing special educational provision for children and young people with EHC plans. These are not statutory arrangements and each LA has it’s own mechanism for allocating funding.

SEND Banding and special educational provision

Under s.42 Children and Families Act 2014, the local authority must secure all the special educational provision in the EHC plan. Banding is allocated once the special educational provision has been determined and once the EHC plan is in place.

SEND Banding in North East Lincolnshire

NE Lincs SEND panel follow this process:

Produce EHCP listing the provision the pupil needs
Compare provision in the EHCP against the descriptions in the NE Lincs SEN Banding.
- Visual Impairment (Word, 50 KB)
- Physical Difficulties (Word, KB)
Assess how much additional ‘top-up’ funding is needed to deliver the provision

NB: It should be noted that the 2022 SEND Green paper proposes, ‘A new national framework for councils for banding and tariffs of High Needs, to match the national standards and offer clarity on the level of support expected, and put the system on a financially sustainable footing in the future’.

Banding values 2023

Banding	Cost
4	£1,194
5	£3,060
6	£6,649
7	£8,356
8	£12,240
9	£16,723
10	£22,697

At least once a year there will be a meeting to talk about your child’s progress and his or her EHCP. This is called a review.

At the meeting, we will:

Check that your child is making progress
Set targets for the coming year
Check to see if he or she still needs the same plan or whether it should be changed.

Your child’s school or setting will arrange the meeting.

Who goes to the review meeting?

Your child’s headteacher will invite:

You (you can also bring along a friend or relative)
Your child (who can also bring along a friend)
A teacher who knows your child well
Your ECHP coordinator (if needed)
Any other professional who is involved with your child.

What happens at the review meeting?

We will ask everyone to prepare a report, including you. When you write your report, you need to include:

What progress you think your child has made in the past year
Whether there are any major changes that may or have affected your child’s progress
What you hope your child will achieve in the coming year.

What happens after the review?

The school writes a report and sends it to us. The school will suggest:

Any targets for the next year
Any changes to the statement
Whether the EHCP should continue.

If we think your child’s EHCP needs to change, we will write to you and your child’s school about what we think ought to be included.

EHCP Annual Review
Feedback

Get ready for your annual review

Prepare – Ask someone to help you write down your views before the meeting
Be Comfortable – Tell school/college what will help you feel comfortable in the meeting
Know who is coming – Ask who has been invited to the meeting. If you need someone there, make sure they have been invited

At the Annual Review you should:

Make notes – Ask someone to help make notes in the meeting
Ask what happens next – What are the plans for the future? How will you know you are doing well? Who will help you reach your goals?

SENDIASS can support you to help you prepare and get the most out of the meeting SENDIASS .

Helpful information

Young people’s guide to EHCP reviews; how to share your views- Amy’s Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) resource (councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk)

Contact details

Special Educational Need Assessment and Review Team (SENART)

Email: SEN@nelincs.gov.uk

Telephone: 01472 326292 option 6

Opening times: Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5pm and Friday 8:30 am to 4:30pm, except bank holidays

Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP)