Overview
A request for an Education, Health and Care needs assessment is a lengthy process, with time being taken to schedule, carry out and analyse many different assessments and pieces of evidence. Everyone involved has six weeks to provide their advice, and it must be provided within 12 weeks of the original request for assessment. This is known as Stage 2 of the education health and care plan process.
Using the SEND Portal
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Portal is a secure online system used to safely share sensitive information during the Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment process.
There are two versions of the portal:
- Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Professional Portal – used by practitioners to submit and view information as part of the assessment
- Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Citizen Portal – used by parent carers to submit Appendix A (if not already provided at the request stage)
Both professionals and parent carers can:
- See who has been asked to provide advice for the assessment
- View submitted advice once it’s available
- View draft and final Education, Health and Care plans (if moving onto the next stage)
To view advice submitted by professionals, parent carers must email us and ask to be added as a verified user on their child’s account.
For help using the portal, please refer to the step-by-step guides available in the downloads section.
Gathering advice
When making a decision about whether to issue an Education, Health and Care plan, all advice gathered during the assessment is considered, including:
- information about your child’s special educational needs across the four areas of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
- educational advice from the early years setting, school or college
- medical advice from a healthcare professional (find out about changes made to the medical advice form)
- psychological advice from an educational psychologist
- social care advice
- advice from anyone else that we think is appropriate
We will also want to know what you and your child think about their strengths and aspirations. As well as difficulties and what help you think is needed to support them.
If you have already provided information about your child as part of your request (for example the Appendix A), you do not need to repeat this.
Making a decision
A decision will be made based on all the advice we have gathered from you, your child and other professionals and services during the assessment. A multi-disciplinary panel of professionals will decide whether to issue an Education Health and Care plan.
Sharing the decision
The local authority must decide and communicate the decision to the child’s parent carer, or the young person within 12 weeks of starting the assessment, which should be 16 weeks after receiving the original request.
If the decision is not to issue an Education Health and Care plan the young person or the parent carer will be told about the reasons why. The advice gathered during the assessment process can still be used by your child’s school, college or setting to support your child’s needs. You will be given information on how to appeal this decision if they wish to do so. Find out more on disagreements pages.