Local Offer Listening Events 2021

Introduction

Somerset Council has recently reviewed Somerset’s Local Offer. We held two virtual events on Wednesday 14 July 2021 to share what we have found so far. It also provided a fantastic opportunity for parent carers to tell us about their experience of using the website and any suggestions they had to make it better.

Our review

Our recent review of Somerset’s Local Offer aimed to:

understand how people access or share information around SEND
Identify what resources people use and the process they go through
Learn how and if they use Somerset’s Local Offer
Assess the usability of Somerset’s Local Offer

The review involved interviews with professionals who have a role in sharing information with parent carers; Contact Centre Advisor, Parent and Family Support Advisor (PFSA) Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO), and other professionals involved in the Local Offer. Views were gathered from young people with SEND through a workshop with The Unstoppables, and parent carers shared their views through interviews. Local Offer user testing was also run with parent carers and SCC Digital Volunteers completing information finding challenges on the current Local Offer.

Findings of the review

Full findings of the review are in our Local Offer Research Outcomes. The summary of key themes includes:

If you are new to SEND, there is a wealth of information – it is hard to navigate and understand what is important and relevant. Particularly what is important for your child right now.

Both professionals and parents do not know about the Local Offer. They describe a need for a one-stop shop with all the information about local services in one place but aren’t aware of the Local Offer. Or they may have used it before changes had been made and so have a negative perception of it.

Most common enquiries are about an update on an application. It is an emotional journey and parents need to get updates to manage their expectations. There is no guidebook to what needs to be done at what point and this is something that parents expressed to be helpful. There is no transparency over what options there are at different stages, and this causes parents frustration.

Finding information through the current Local Offer site is difficult. It is difficult to navigate often linking to external links. Parents at the start of their diagnosis do not know where to find information. There is a feeling that information isn’t where it is supposed to be and there seem to be too many steps in the information finding process.

Local Offer Review Outcomes

The summary of key terms

PDF, 496KB

What you told us

So, we asked you what would make it easier for you to understand what sources of information are best. And how can we reduce the steps it takes to find the relevant information needed? You told us most parents are going to the Local Offer site when they are at crisis point, and so information with too much detail is hard to absorb. Need to have the important points highlighted – what and where next. Visuals help and there needs to be a list of contacts – an easy way to go directly to a page with phone numbers when in crisis.

Pages need to be grouped into a portfolio of support aligned to each condition, this will make it relevant. Pages can be grouped by ‘problem’ if people don’t have a diagnosis yet, for example struggling with sleep. It could be a series of questions to guide you through the area of life or the need to identify useful resources or places for support. Also, we need to link the local services to the information pages. You wouldn’t expect the Local Offer to show national information as people have already found that via Google.

We asked how can we help raise awareness of the Local Offer. You said we need greater publicity to know it is there. At the point where parents seek support from professionals, they need to be guided to the Local Offer by the professional for example GP referral, schools, SENDIAS, activity days, and social workers. Also, we need to raise awareness of the Local Offer as a tool to publicise local support groups and vice versa – this will encourage support groups to publicise the Local Offer.

Improvements we have made

Gemma talks us through the changes we made following user research, during the Local Offer Live in October 2022. These include:

Seamless link between Somerset’s SEND Local Offer and Somerset Council’s website
Creating a website with improved accessibility and search function
Information aligned across pages
Removed duplication
Improved layout and look and feel

This isn’t the end of the journey though – only the start – we’ll continue to improve features based on your feedback.

Somerset Parent Carer Forum will audit pages every six months making sure that information is kept up to date, relevant and user-friendly. You’ll be able to see when the next review is due at the bottom of the page.

We’d love it if you could use the ‘Is this page useful?’ link at the bottom of each page to tell us anything that needs improving.

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