Education, Health and Care (EHC) Needs Assessments and Plans
Your child’s school or other setting will often be able to meet the needs of children through SEN Support. But sometimes a child or young person needs a more intensive level of specialist help that cannot be met from the resources available to schools and other settings to provide SEN support.
In these circumstances, you or your child’s school or other setting could consider asking your local authority for an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment for your child. This assessment could lead to your child getting an EHC plan.
An EHC plan brings your child’s education, health and social care needs into a single, legal document.
Main Contact: ehcenquiries@lbbd.gov.uk / 020 8227 2400
Request for an EHC Needs Assessment
You can ask your local authority for an EHC needs assessment if you think your child needs one. Anyone at your child’s school (such as your child’s teacher) can also ask for an assessment to be carried out. Others who work with your child can also tell the local authority if they think an assessment is needed (such as your doctor, health visitor or nursery worker).
If you think your child/young person has SEND, we recommend that you talk to the class teacher/tutor and arrange a meeting with the school SENCo to discuss concerns and support, before you ask the local authority to conduct an assessment.
Please contact Barking & Dagenham Carer’s Hub by telephone 020 8593 4422 or by email carers@carerscentre.org.uk for the application and support.
Arrangements for an EHC Needs Assessment
The local council will let you know if your child can have an education, health and care needs assessment within 6 weeks.
Lots of different people will say what they think your child might need support with. These people might include you, your child, someone from the local council, a teacher, a doctor, someone like a speech and language therapist or an educational psychologist. When they have done this, the people doing the assessment will decide if your child needs any more support than a school or college can usually give. If your child does need more support than a school or college can usually give, the local council will give them an education, health and care plan.
The local council will let you know if your child can have an education, health and care plan within 16 weeks.
Transfer Between Phases of Education
Local authorities have a duty to review EHC plans as a minimum every twelve months, and schools must co-operate in these reviews. An EHC plan must be reviewed and amended in sufficient time prior to a child or young person moving between key phases of education, to allow for planning for and, where necessary, commissioning of support and provision at the new institution.
The review and any amendments must be completed by 15 February in the calendar year of the transfer at the latest for transfers into or between schools. The key transfers are:
- early years provider to school
- infant school to junior school
- primary school to middle school
- primary school to secondary school, and
- middle school to secondary school
For young people moving from secondary school to a post-16 institution or apprenticeship, the review and any amendments to the EHC plan – including specifying the post-16 provision and naming the institution – must be completed by the 31 March in the calendar year of the transfer.
Preparing for Adulthood Reviews
All reviews taking place from year 9 at the latest and onwards must include a focus on preparing for adulthood, including employment, independent living and participation in society.
This transition planning must be built into the EHC plan and where relevant should include effective planning for young people moving from children’s to adult care and health services. It is particularly important in these reviews to seek and to record the views, wishes and feelings of the child or young person.
The review meeting organiser should invite representatives of post-16 institutions to these review meetings, particularly where the child or young person has expressed a desire to attend a particular institution. Support, provision and outcomes should be agreed that will ensure the young person is supported to make a smooth transition to whatever they will be doing next – for example, moving on to higher education, employment, independent living or adult care.
In Barking and Dagenham, young people, parents and professional from Health, Education and Social Care have come together to jointly develop a ‘Preparing for Adulthood Pathway (PfA)’. This lays out in a clear and accessible language and format what support, advice and options are available at different stages between the ages of 14 and 25. The ‘PfA’ processes are exactly the same as the 0 to 14 processes, however, the support and options available for a young person changes continually between the ages of 14 and 25.
The PfA lists at what stages services become available such as:
- Careers advice at the ages of 14, 16, 18 and 24
- The Department of Work and Pensions benefits advice from the age of 16
- The availability of Adult Social Care assessment from the age of 18
- The transfer to Adult Health Services at 18
Personal Budgets
You are entitled to request a Personal Budget if your child has an EHC plan or has been assessed as needing a plan.
A Personal Budget is an amount of money your local authority has identified to meet some of the needs in your child’s EHC plan, if you want to be involved in choosing and arranging a part of the provision to meet your child’s needs. You will need to agree this with your local authority. A Personal Budget can only be used for agreed provision in the EHC plan.
A local authority must secure a school’s agreement where any provision, bought by a parent using a direct payment, will be provided on the school’s premises.
Please speak to your EHC Coordinator for more information.
EHCP Coordinators
EHCP coordinators work in partnership with families and relevant professionals with a person-centred approach.
They co-ordinate assessment and planning leading to timely, well-informed decisions.
They support families through the statutory process which include requests for EHC needs assessment, requests to issues EHCP, the drafting and issuing of EHCP, the identification of suitable educational settings, including at key stage transfer points, and the ceasing to maintain EHCP.
Main Contact: ehcenquiries@lbbd.gov.uk / 020 8227 2400