March 2025 Kirklees SEND Newsletter | Kirklees SEND Newsletters

The Big Plan - What are we doing next – 2025

We are pleased to launch ‘The Big Plan – What are we doing next – 2025’.

This provides more detail about what we are doing in Kirklees to help young people with SEND, and their families. The plan focuses on:

Having enough of the right stuff (Sufficiency)
Are we getting it right? (Quality & Compliance)
Need (Demand)

This is all about ensuring everyone gets the right support at the right time. We want to make sure parents, carers, children and young people, along with staff across health, schools and the council, are involved and helping to shape things.

Our SEND Transformation Programme has lots of projects and you can gain a simple summary by looking at The Big Plan - What are we doing next – 2025 (opens link in new window)

Helping little voices shine – extra support for under-5s

Children aged under-5 who need extra support with their speech and communication skills are benefiting from a new project in Kirklees.

Due to the need for more Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) provision, especially for young children, a pilot scheme was launched in January.

Currently happening in one small area – to trial the approach being taken – it is cutting waiting times for families and also giving student therapists valuable experience of working directly with children.

The pilot scheme is running for six months and is led by The Speech Therapy Clinic, Locala, two local nurseries and SALT students from the University of Huddersfield. Together, they are providing support for children in a warm and friendly setting.

Nursery staff have already seen the impact as children are gaining confidence, using more words and joining in activities with excitement.

For families, the service is offering peace of mind, knowing their child is getting the support they need at a crucial stage in their development.

After the trial period has ended, the outcomes will be assessed and the next steps will be decided.

Families Together Gateway is now live

There is a new way for families in Kirklees to get the help and support they need.

The ‘Families Together Gateway’ brings together a wide range of information and support, including services which go all the way from pre-birth, through childhood and adolescence - and up to 25-years-old for those with SEND.

The Gateway can help you to access the right support from the right place at the right time.

For more details, see the news article on the Kirklees Together website (opens link in new window)

Introducing Richard Dresser, Kirklees Local Offer Lead

The Local Offer is your one-stop shop for all things SEND in Kirklees – it brings together lots of information about services, activities, education settings and support.

The Local Offer team also attend lots of community events to provide face-to-face information for families, as well as working with PCAN to run the Local Offer Live which is happening on 23^rd October this year.

We’d like to introduce Richard Dresser, who is the Local Offer Lead for Kirklees Council.

Hello, my name is Richard Dresser and I'm the Local Offer Engagement and Development lead for Kirklees.

So what is the local offer? So the local offer is an information service for families of children with special educational needs and disabilities.

It's a place where you can find information about support, about what schools should be doing, about activities, about support outside of school, about health and anything to do with special educational needs. This is from both in Kirklees and outside of Kirklees.

We have services that are run by the council as well as those run by health and from third sector and community, as well as services outside of Kirklees itself.

Who is it for? It's for families. It's for young people, up to 25 with special educational needs.

My role is about managing the Kirklees local offer. This means managing the website, that means the content, making sure it's all up to date, make sure it's understandable, listening to what you might say about it and what we need to change. As well as making sure that it's got everything that families of children with special educational needs could need to, so they can find out how to get help, support, fun things to do, and more.

My role also involves helping with the Kirklees Local Offer Live, which is run alongside PCAN. We have this every year at John Smith's Stadium in Huddersfield and allows families to come along and meet providers face to face to talk about how to get help.

So how do you access the local offer? You can access the local offer online through our website, through social media, you can call, you can email. You can come and see us at a community events such as at PCAN Coffee and Chat session, a community hub session, Families Together event, or at the local offer live once a year at John Smith's Stadium.

You can help us to improve the local offer by completing the survey, which can be found on the Local Offer Home page.

We would love to hear your views. Thank you.