You said, we did

This month we have carried out an audit of the Local Offer to ensure all information is up to date and to identify any gaps in content.

We have included information on Whooping Cough to our Latest news section.

Information on Online Safety has been added to Advice & Support.

The role of the SEND Improvement Officer is now included in About Send.

We have also reviewed content to check for errors and broken links, including in the following sections:

• Financial Support for accessing University or Higher Education

We continue to address all requests for updates, corrections and amendments that are sent to us directly or through the website. We welcome feedback, so that we can further improve the Local Offer.

This month we have added a “what is travel training leaflet” to the travel page.

We continue to add activities to our directory or inclusive groups:

• SEND Groups

We have also reviewed content to check for errors and broken links, including in the following sections:

• Visual Impairment Team
• Education Phycology Service

An online referral form has been added for the Visual Impairment team.

We have arranged for an audit of the Local Offer to take place during August to ensure all information is the most up to date and to ensure we have no gaps in content.

We continue to address all requests for updates, corrections and amendments that are sent to us directly or through the website. We welcome feedback, so that we can further improve the Local Offer.

This month we have added new information about School attendance to the education & childcare section. Education and Childcare – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We continue to add activities to our directory or inclusive groups:

• SEND Groups

We have amended content to improve the look and consistency across the site, including:

• Times for chat n chill group
• information on travel assistance

We have also reviewed content to check for errors and broken links, including in the following sections:

• Graduation response

We continue to address all requests for updates, corrections and amendments that are sent to us directly or through the website. We welcome feedback, so that we can further improve the Local Offer.

This month we have added new advice to our autism resources, including advice around Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).

We have also added information about all the services provided by libraries across Rotherham:

• Advice and Support – Libraries

We have included more training and consultation opportunities in our Latest news section, including:

• Online Q&A session to support with ARFID
• Healthwatch Rotherham consultation for people with autism or a learning disability

We continue to add activities to our directory or inclusive groups:

• SEND Groups

We have amended content to improve the look and consistency across the site, including:

• Adding age ranges for all schools: Schools

We have also reviewed content to check for errors and broken links, including in the following sections:

• Help to understand jargon
• Support in Education

We had specific feedback about wording in the SEN transport eligibility section that a user felt was confusing. We contacted the transport team and agreed to reword the information to make it clearer.

Transport/Getting Around

We continue to address all requests for updates, corrections and amendments that are sent to us directly or through the website. We welcome feedback, so that we can further improve the Local Offer.

User searches

As well as following up on feedback and working with services, we also looked at the search terms that people have used when looking for information on the Local Offer. We found that in May there were 12 searches which did not return any results. They fell into three main categories:

• Spelling errors
  3 searches returned no results because the search term contained a spelling error. The search function is only able to find exact matches for searches, so unfortunately we are unable to address this issue from our end.
• Short acronyms or non-word-based search
  6 searches returned no results because the search term used was a short acronym or non-word based search and there was too little information for the search engine to locate relevant content. For example, a search for VI would results in the search engine looking for the letters “vi” in every context, including words such as provide.
  If possible, please use full words in your searches to improve your chances of getting useful results, so in the example above, another search for “visual impairment” produced 6 relevant results.
• No content
  3 searches produced no results because there was no relevant content on the local offer
  • Stimming – we will add some information to autism resources
• • Family hubs – we are meeting with the family hubs team to plan on adding content soon
  • Drumming – we have added a drumming activity since this term was searched for

This month we have had three news items to report:

• SENSE: Spring newsletter 2024 – including details of all their regular activities for deafblind people in Rotherham and for those living with complex disabilities.
• Extended 111 service to help those in mental health crisis in Rotherham – explaining how people living in Rotherham, Doncaster or North Lincolnshire will now be able to access urgent mental health support directly via NHS 111 at any time of the day or night.
• Consultation on Short Breaks – with links to surveys for both children and young people as well parents and carers to feedback on the short breaks services in Rotherham.

We have also updated information from Rotherham services:

• About SEND – SEND Sufficiency
  We have published plans around how we hope to meet local need, including the latest SEND sufficiency timeline.
• Early Help and Social Care – Short Breaks
  We have published the latest Short Breaks Statement.
• Transport/Getting Around – Independent Travel Training
  We have rewritten and amended the section on Independent Travel Training (ITT), including a personal story of how travel training has helped a young person in Rotherham.

We have continued to check that the information and advice on the website is accurate and up to date by reviewing content:

• Money
  We have checked and all the links and benefits information in this section at the start of this new tax year to ensure that all the figures quoted are correct.
• Latest News
  We have removed news items relating to past events or surveys that have expired.
• Preparing for Adulthood
  We have checked all the links in this section

We have successfully resolved all requests for updates, corrections and amendments since September. We continue to welcome feedback, so that we can further improve the Local Offer.

This month we have added more information to the A to Z of autism resources following comments from users.

We have included information on the following

• Eating (E), including advice on diets
• Interoception (I)
• Masking (M)
• Periods (P)
• Toileting(T), including advice on constipation, toilet training and smearing

Autism resources: A to Z

We welcome feedback on any other topics which may be helpful to add to this section.

We have also updated our information on independent travel training:

Transport/Getting Around –Independent Travel Training (ITT)

This section now includes a presentation prepared by a young person who describes his experiences of the travel training programme.

We continue to update information as we receive it from council services, and this month, we added the following:

• Updated SEND sufficiency timeline – About SEND – SEND sufficiency
• A video about supported internships at RMBC – Supported internships: Success stories

We have also been making plans for supporting the Local Offer within the community. We are looking at doing some training with library staff so they can help people access the Local Offer at their local libraries.

As always, we continue to fix broken links, amend out-of-date information and correct errors whenever we are told about them.

We are continuing to add new activities to the directory of activities and calendar:

• SEND Groups – Rotherham SEND Local Offer
• Our Events – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have included new information in the Education and Childcare section, including information on part-time timetables: Education and childcare – Part-time timetables.

We have added information about training and support for families offered by Autism Central in the Advice and Support section: Advice and Support: Autism Resources.

Services have contacted us to update information on a range of topics, including

• Behaviour Expectations for home to school transport
  (Travel – Organised assisted home to school transport)
• Additional guidance about completing forms for transport
• Additional advice on studying abroad in support for education
  (Education and Childcare – Education and training for 16 to 25 year olds)
• Employment and supported internship information
  • Preparing for Adulthood – Employment
  • Education and Childcare – Education and training for 16 to 25 year olds

We continue to correct broken links, update information and correct errors across the website based on feedback we receive directly or through the online feedback forms.

We continue to correct broken links, update information and correct errors across the website based on feedback we receive directly or through the online feedback forms.

We added some news items about consultations.

• Consultation on Autism Pre-Diagnosis Support
• Share your view on Home to School transport policy

We also supplemented our health and wellbeing information by adding orthoptics to our A-Z of Health Services.

We added some additional guidance to our information about Managed moves and Exclusions.

We have started adding new activities to our SEND group directory: SEND Groups

We also added the three local authority nurseries to our schools directory: Schools

We updated information in the education and health sections, including

• Checking and correcting broken links in the health section
• Updating information about the Visual Impairment team
• Updating the provider list for Alternative provision

We continue to correct broken links, update information and correct errors across the website based on feedback we receive directly or through the online feedback forms.

We added the new Visual Impairment (VI) newsletter to the information in the section on educational services.

• VI newsletter: VI Newsletter, Dec 23

We updated information in the education and health sections, including

• a link to contact details for EHCAT team: Locality contact details for EHC Teams
• Regional hospitals: Regional Hospitals
• Education home page: Education home page

We have been working hard on improving the directories on the website by looking to increase the number of activities on directory. We are also working hard on a new directory for schools and colleges.

We continue to correct broken links, update information and correct errors across the website based on feedback we receive directly or through the online feedback forms.

We have added information to our Education and our Health and Wellbeing pages, including information and advice on

• Emotional-based school avoidance (EBSA)
  Education and Health Care Plans: Emotional based school avoidance (EBSA)
• Dynamic Support Registers (DSR) and Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews (C(E)TR)
  Health and Wellbeing: Dynamic Support Register (DSR) for Children and Young People

We have updated information on other pages, including

• revised bus and tram fares in the Travel information
  Transport/Getting Around
• updates on Rotherham’s Written Statement of Action
  Policies, procedures and guidance
• Rotherham’s Short breaks statement
  Early Help and Social Care: Short breaks

We have been adding more to our events calendar, including SENDIASS and AIAS workshops and RPCF Zoom meetings:

Our Events – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We attended the Rotherham Charter Gold event at Gulliver’s Valley on 23^rd November. It was great to see the celebration of inclusive practise in Rotherham.

We have put the Local Offer banner on display in the foyer of Riverside House.

We continue to update information and make corrections across the website.

The biggest change to the Local Offer this month is the addition of a new category: Travel.

This new section has information on

• Home to school transport
• Independent travel training
• Travel passes and concessions

In other sections…

We have added links in the Preparing for adulthood pages to information on moving from child to adult health services. We have also added links to adult health services in Rotherham.

Preparing for Adulthood – Health

We have removed out of date information and taken out services that we know have stopped running.

We have been adding workshops to our events calendar:

Our Events – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We are still updating information and making corrections across the website.

We continue to spread the news about the Local Offer in Rotherham.

This month, we attended the Rotherham Show at Clifton Park on Saturday 2^nd and Sunday 3^rd September 2023.

We have added the Schools Accessibility Strategy 2023-2026. This looks at how services support children and young people in schools in Rotherham. 

Accessibility-Strategy-September-2023.pdf (rotherhamsendlocaloffer.org.uk)

We have updated information about Direct Payments.

Early Help and Social Care – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have added information around charities that offer financial support or advice.

Money – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We continue to update the existing content to fix broken links, revise contact details and correct spelling errors.

We continue to spread the news about the Local Offer in Rotherham.

This month, we attended the Rotherham Parent Carers Forum Family Fun Day at Hooton Lodge Farm on 18^th August.

We have added several news items this month, including new inclusive spaces in libraries, suggestions for the summer holidays, the Rotherham Learning Disability Strategy and the Rotherham All Age Autism Strategy Consultation:

Latest News – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have added new information about support for mental health in education and Education other than at school or college (EOTAS or EOTAC) in the Support in Education section:

Support in education – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have updated information about SENDIASS and the Autism Information and Advice Service, including their workshop programme on the Advice and Support section:

Advice and Support – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have had feedback that it was difficult to find information about early years and portage, so we have reorganised the Education and Childcare section so that it is arranged in age order starting with Early years through to Post-16:

Education and Childcare – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We continue to update the existing content to fix broken links, revise contact details and correct spelling errors.

We are continuing to promote the Local Offer around Rotherham. We attended a Rotherham SENCO network event on 3^rd July and another for Early years SENCOs on 13^th July. We also had a stand at the Employment is for Everyone at Rotherham New York Stadium on 13^th July. We met young people and their families as well as talking to employment and education providers in the area.

We have added information about eating disorders and CAMHS referral pathways in Rotherham in the A-Z of Health services section of the Local Offer:

A-Z of Health Services – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have also added the latest edition of the Information Exchange Newsletter and updates the details on joining the Children’s Disability Register.

Join the children’s disability register – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We are currently reviewing the content on the Money section. All the links and benefit rates have been checked and corrected where necessary.

Money – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have set up a working group to look at improving the information on community and inclusion for the Preparing for Adulthood section of the Local Offer.

We have organised regular meetings with the website host to look at overall development of the website in the long term.

We are setting up a working group to develop a bespoke communication and publicity plan for the Local Offer.

We welcome feedback on all aspects of the Local Offer to help us to continue making improvements to the site.

We continue to update the existing content to fix broken links, revise contact details and correct spelling errors.

We have had an official launch event for the Local Offer now. We were pleased to hear that most of the feedback on the look and usability of the new site is positive! We continue to work on improving the content.

We have been out promoting the Local Offer around Rotherham. We attended a Rotherham inclusion event for practitioners on 8^th June. We also attended the SEND Awareness Day at Rotherham General Hospital on 20^th June where we shared a stand with the Rotherham Parent Carers Forum. We have also sent promotional material to Rotherham GPs and the hospital. Look out for flyers in waiting rooms around the borough!

We have now added information about early years childcare and resource provisions in Rotherham in the education and childcare section of the local offer:

Education and Childcare – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

The added content labelled Early Years and Childcare includes guidance for parents, carers and practitioners on support available when looking at childcare options for children aged 0 to 5 years with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).

The added content labelled Resource Provisions includes information on what resource provisions are, how your child might access them, and a list of the current resource provisions available in Rotherham.

We continue to update the existing content when we are told about services or contact details which have changed.

Following the launch of the new website we continue to work on teething issues.

We now have a link to a feedback form at the top of every page:

Click on this link to the feedback form to let us know what you like and what you would like to see improved on the Local Offer.

We continue to meet with service leads. We met with a SEND commissioning officer to discuss additional SEN support in Rotherham schools. We are hoping to add information on resource provision to the Local Offer soon.

We are planning a rota for meeting with service leads covering all the information on the Local offer. This will help ensure that the information on the Local continues to be accurate and up to date.

We continue to remove out of date information, correct spelling mistakes and fix broken links.

This month we launched the new website!

We expect that there will be some teething issues and some services or information that didn’t make it over to the new site as well as we hoped. We are working on sorting out any issues that come up as soon as we can.

We have met with the Inclusion Team again. We have updated more of the inclusion information.

We updated information on the Early Help and Social Care pages. We also amended information on Autism resources and training.

We continue to remove out of date information, correct spelling mistakes and fix broken links.

Website launch. We have been taking feedback on a test site and collaborating with users, services and the provider to try to get the new site as ready as we can for a launch soon.

On the current website, we have

• reviewed and updated the information on Alternative Provision.
• met with the Early Years Team. They are working on preparing new pages on early years information.
• met with the Inclusion Team. We have updated contact details and they are also working on preparing new pages on inclusion information.

We visited a Local Offer Live Event in Leeds. We are planning a similar event in Rotherham in the autumn. We got some helpful ideas from our regional colleagues on how to stage an event about SEND services for families of children and young people with SEND. We continue to remove out of date information, correct spelling mistakes and fix broken links.

We have met with the transport team. They are working hard on preparing a new set of pages on transport information.

The exclusions pages have been updated: School Exclusions

Information about Portage, the home visiting service for children aged 0 to 3 years who have additional needs, has been added: Portage

We have been doing targeted work to increase the number of schools who have a correct link to the Local Offer from their school website.

We continue to remove out of date information, correct spelling mistakes and fix broken links.

The Rotherham SEND Local Offer website has now reached number 2 in the league table of UK Local Offers for accessibility. https://index.silktide.com/category/uk-local-offer

Local Offer Coordinators across the Yorkshire & Humber region have worked together to create a video that explains the SEND Local Offer. New to Special Educational Needs (SEND) – Rotherham SEND Local Offer

We have created a page for travel & transport and have begun to develop the content on this page including more accessibility information.

The Adults transitions page has been updated. 

We have rewritten the Things to do page and now have a list of SEND activities.

A brief explanation has been added to the list of policy documents.

We have added information about regional hospital you can find it on the hospital visits & stays page.

We continue to remove out of date information, correct spelling mistakes and fix broken links.

We have started a page for Autism Resources A-Z. 

We are currently in the process of moving the current Local Offer site over to a new platform. The current site will remain live, and we will continue to update this on a regular basis. 

The Local Offer Coordinating Officers are due to attend the Rotherham Parents Carers Forum listening event on the 17th January to answer any questions and discuss the Local Offer in further detail. 

We are now working with a new team from Transitions to review and improve all content.

We met with SENCOs at an event in November. We told SENCOs about the work going on with the Local Offer and invited them to support us by referring families to the website. We also encouraged them to use the website themselves and give us feedback to support our ongoing improvements.

Local colleagues in the NHS have worked hard in creating Support in school pages. The new pages have lots of details about graduated response in school. They are now available online. We have also updated some information on EHCPs.

We have continued to update schools and college information

We have also continued to respond to requests from parents and services to maintain the quality of links and content.

We have replaced the online feedback form with the one used by Rotherham Parent Carers Forum. We have added the form to more pages on the website.

We have added a banner to all pages to let you know that we are working on improving the website.

We met with the young person’s group, Guiding Voices, and agreed strategies to improve the Local Offer:

• Links – adding simple explanations about links on the Local Offer and showing whether the links are to other Local Offer pages or to external websites
• Length – trying to cut long pages down by putting details into shorter pages and linking them from an overview page
• Language – aiming to simplify the language for young people and their families and presenting it in easier to follow ways, such as a greater use of bullet points

Local colleagues in the NHS have worked hard in updating the Health and Wellbeing pages. The new pages are now available online.

We have updated schools and college information

• Added missing schools
• Removed schools that have closed
• Corrected links to schools and their SEND information
• Added links to sixth form colleges
• Added links to SEND information for FE colleges
• Added links to specialist colleges

We have continued to respond to requests from parents and services to

• Fix broken links
• Remove services which are no longer available
• Include relevant links to advice and services
• Improve the presentation of content by correcting grammar and spelling errors and so on.

• In co-production with Rotherham Parent Carer Forum, we have created and published the SEND Local Offer Newsletter.
• Local Offer Coordinators attended the regional Local Offer group to create a video explaining what the Local Offer is and what you can expect to find on it.
• At our weekly IT touchdown, colleagues met to discuss and make changes to the Graduated Response information.

• The background colour of the website has been changed.
• The font size has been made bigger with more standout headings.
• The line spacing has increased to make it easier to read.
• The winning Local Offer logo has been added to the main page.
• An activities page has been created with activities added to it regularly.
• We have employed 2 people to the Local Offer Coordinator position. The Local Offer Coordinators will focus on developing and maintaining the Local Offer.

• Interviews have taken place for a Local Offer Coordinator to help develop the local offer on a full-time basis.
• A number of broken links were identified and fixed through the regular IT check in.
• We met with the EHC team to discuss changes to their page.

• Interviews have taken place for a Local Offer Coordinator to help develop the local offer on a full-time basis.
• A number of broken links were identified and fixed through the regular IT check in.
• We met with the EHC team to discuss changes to their page.

Services leads have been asked to attend the weekly IT meetings to focus on their specific areas. July will focus on the graduated response, Early Help and Social Care. If you have any views on these sections, please email: SendLocalOffer@rotherham.gov.uk

• A young person’s representative from Guiding Voices is now present at the Local Offer Sub-group to give views and feedback.
• School links fixed. Feedback from parents found that some school links were missing. This was feedback at the weekly IT meeting and fixed
• Young person’s logo competition winner announced. 7 year old Ella won the Logo competition with an amazing logo

She said the theory behind the design is

• star represents Special,
• ABC Book represents Education and
• 2 people show 1 in a wheelchair with a visible disability whilst the other person may have hidden disabilities.

The standard of drawings was amazing which made it very hard decision in picking a winner. We would like to thank everyone that sent in an entry.

Rotherham parent carer forum drop-ins.

You said:

• the space bar needs to be at the top – we have changed the layout of the page, so the spacebar is now at the top of the page
• the EHCP Hub should have its own button – The Hub now has its own button on the Landing page
• you wanted fewer clicks to get to information – we have been working with the IT department to look at this in our Weekly IT meetings

Weekly IT meetings

To improve the Local Offer, we have been having weekly IT meetings to identify key objectives from previous consultations with parents and carers and implement the changes.

We have:

• attached the WSOA page as a news item on home page enclosing inspection report and WSOA
• changed the Search bar and theme
• made the Guiding Voices young person’s link more accessible
• added a New to SEND page
• added the EHCP hub button on the landing page
• updated numbers and emails for all services – please provide feedback on those that are wrong

Young person’s logo competition

We wanted to involve children and young people in the development of the Local Offer and asked them to design a new logo that embodies the Local Offer.