Wiltshire Council are developing the way in which they support children and young people, aged 0-25, who have special needs and/or disabilities (SEND). To explain the changes and to show what provision they expect to be available across education, health and social care, they have created a Local Offer. This brand new site is a key part of the Children and Families Act, which came into force on 1 September 2014. It sets out all of the information in one place and it is important to point out that it is for all children/young people who have SEND, including those who do not have Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans (‘My Plans’ as they are called in Wiltshire).
Every local authority is responsible for writing a Local Offer and making sure it is clear, comprehensive and available for everyone to see.
The Local Offer includes information on:
- Education
- Preparing for adulthood
- Health & Social Care
- SEND service
- Leisure
- Travel
- Support and guidance
It can be accessed via the Local Offer website by [clicking here]. When you enter the site, you will see you have the option of registering. This allows you to create your own profile and to ‘pin’ articles of interest to your profile page, which means you can easily look at them again at a later date. Your personal information will not be shared with any outside organisations or agencies.
If you do not have internet access, the Local Offer is also available at local libraries and some children’s centres. You can also contact us here at the Wiltshire Parent Carer Council on 01225 764647 (Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm) and we will do our best to help you with the information you need.
The Local Offer is not just a directory of existing services. It’s designed to tailor services and support to local needs and wishes. This will be achieved by involving children and young people with SEN, parents and carers, and professionals in its development and review. Many of you may have already been involved in this and it will be an ongoing process; we all have the opportunity to participate, helping the local authorities to improve provision and families’ lives.
Local authorities are also required to get feedback on their Local Offer. From January 2016, the Wiltshire Parent Carer Council (WPCC) is the main point of contact for feedback on Wiltshire Council’s Local Offer which will help ensure future developments are based on wider parent carer feedback, as per the model that has worked successfully for other service development. The WPCC will share comments and feedback received with relevant service commissioners to ensure accurate responses are fed back, actions are reported and to make sure feedback continues to inform service delivery.
There is a legal requirement to publish a representative selection of anonymous feedback contributions on the Local Offer website and responses given, so please be aware that your comments may be publicly viewed.
To provide feedback about the Wiltshire Local Offer (the website or any of the SEND services and support for children and young people) please contact the WPCC on 01225 764647 or email admin@wiltspcc.co.uk
Some feedback we have received from parent carers is that there has been some confusion over the ‘new’ Local Offer and the ‘old’ Short Breaks Local Offer. Back in 2009 there was Short Breaks ‘The Local Offer’; this was a transformation of short breaks services for disabled children, in response to the Aiming High for Disabled Children’s agenda. It gained recognition from central government, who decided that every authority should have a local offer, and so in Wiltshire, we had to change the name of our old Short Breaks Local Offer to the Wiltshire Short Break Scheme. To find out more about Wiltshire’s Short Break Scheme, [click here].
If there are any other questions we can help you with, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Wiltshire Local Offer Update - December 2018
A lot of work has been taking place behind the scenes since the Local Offer website focus group sessions that took place in November 2017. Following these sessions, work began to build a new Local Offer website and we then organised focus group sessions in June/July this year to check with parent carers the progress being made on the new website.
The new Local Offer website is now nearly ready to go live and sometime over the next couple of weeks, if you visit the Local Offer website, you are likely to see a very different layout. In response to what participants told us at sessions in November, information on the front page of the new website is organised by age groups (rather than categories like Education, Social Care and Health), there are also buttons including one that takes visitors to an explanation about what a Local Offer is, and another for an A-Z list of services.
This is what you are likely to see when the new website goes live:
The address for the Local Offer website is: https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/local-offer
Once the new website has been live for a few months, it is WPCC's intention to offer further focus group opportunities for parent carers to feedback on the new website so that any further refinements can be made if necessary.
Wiltshire Local Offer Update - September 2020
The previous domain name for the Local Offer website expired some time ago. We are aware that many websites are still using the old domain name: www.wiltshirelocaloffer.org.uk and this is causing issues for people trying to get to the Local Offer website. As the previous domain name has expired, anyone still clicking the out of date link may be misled into thinking the website has been hacked, which is not correct. Additionally, the old domain name will soon be available to buy on the open market and if it is purchased, anyone still using the old website address for the Local Offer will be taken to the wrong website.
We would therefore like to remind everyone that the correct website address for the Local Offer website is:
www.wiltshire.gov.uk/local-offer.
We would be grateful if all organisations can check their links on their websites to the Local Offer website and update if necessary.
Thank you.
Wiltshire Local Offer Update - 23/09/20
If you have visited the [Local Offer website] recently, you will have noticed that it is suddenly looking very different to the website that was coproduced with parent carers. This is because Wiltshire Council has had to move their website to a more secure platform and have adopted a layout similar to .GOV websites, as many other local authorities have chosen to do. Unfortunately, as the Local Offer website is hosted on the main Council website, this has changed the way the Local Offer website looks. Most of the original content is still there but it looks very different. The WPCC has raised its concerns about the changes to the Local Offer website and we are in the process of working with the Council to address the sudden changes.
We are aware that in moving the Local Offer website to a new platform, some of the links on the website are not working. If when using the Local Offer website you find any links that aren’t working, please let the WPCC know (email: admin@wiltspcc.co.uk) and we will pass the information on so that the necessary corrections can be made to the website.
|
