About the Local Offer
The Local Offer provides children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities, families and professionals information in one place, helping them to understand what services they can expect from a range of local agencies (including their entitlements). The Local Offer covers provision for children and young people from birth to 25 and includes information on education, health and social care services.
Our Local Offer has been developed working with children and young people, parents and carers, schools, health services and voluntary organisations.
We want all children and young people to have a good start in life. Some children and young people have special educational needs and these differing needs mean varying levels of support are required at different times. We aim to provide a range of support so that children and young people with special educational needs can be educated and enjoy social opportunities alongside their peers, in their local community.
Not sure what SEND means? It's an acronym for Special Educational Needs and Disability.
Definition of Special Education Needs or Disabilities (SEND)
Children with special educational needs have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age.
Special educational needs fall under four broad areas:
- communication and interaction
- cognition and learning
- social, emotional and mental health
- sensory and/or physical
Children with special educational needs may need extra help with:
- thinking and understanding
- physical or sensory difficulties
- emotional or social difficulties
- difficulties with speech and language
- how they relate to and behave with other people
Schools and other settings can help most children quickly and easily, but very few children will need extra help for some or all of their time in school. This will be decided after a statutory assessment of the child's educational needs has been made.
Support services for disabled children and young people
Families have said that they would like advice and information about support available to be easy to access and we have developed our teams with this in mind. Within the SEND Service in Plymouth we have teams who provide a range of assessments and services for children with disabilities. We can help with:
- an assessment and plan for your child's needs
- support for you and your family
- occupational therapy assessment services
- short breaks for you or your child
- advice and information on services in your community
We maintain a Register of Disabled Children who live in Plymouth in accordance with duty set out in the Children Act 1989. Although registration is not mandatory, parents are encouraged to include their child's names on the register in order to assist the Local Authority and partner agencies to plan future services and target resources more effectively.
This short film aims to give children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities information about the Local Offer. It also covers how children and young people and their families can get involved in their local area to give their views and opinions on what services should be offered.
How to make a complaint
If you have any comments about adult social care or suggestions about how we can make things better we want to hear from you.
We hope problems can be sorted out quickly and easily by speaking with the person you normally see from adult social care, but if you'd like to speak to someone different, you can complain to our Customer Relations Team.
This page is part of Plymouth's Local Offer and was last updated on 14 January 2021.
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