Our March 2021 round up

We hope the return to school or college has gone well for your family.  PaCC has been sharing your concerns in relation to the return with Brighton & Hove City Council, for instance ensuring that reasonable adjustments are made in relation to masks and Covid-19 lateral flow tests – which can cause significant anxiety for some of our children and young people.

We are emphasising the importance of communication between families and schools to support children and young people through yet more change, and that any provision specified in an EHC plan must now be fully in place.

Back in December, we wrote about how PaCC has been busy working with the local authority and Brighton & Hove Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to shape the city’s next five year SEND Strategy. The strategy has been finally launched – read more about Brighton & Hove’s SEND Strategy 2021-2026 here.

On 1 March, we hosted our  very special PaCC Awards 2020, which had been postponed due to the pandemic. The virtual event brought together many different organisations and professionals who, one way or another, provided much needed support and advice to SEND families who live in Brighton & Hove throughout this extraordinary year. Read all about the awards here.

We also continue to work across a wide variety of other issues with the local authority, health services and schools.  New areas of work include:

• Working in co-production with Brighton & Hove City Council to make sure that children receive good quality and safe transport from home to school and back. More updates on this coming soon.
• Running a PaCC Connect to bring together parent carers with professionals to discuss proposed changes to Child in Need Child social care within the Specialist Community Disability Service.
• Working with the council’s Parks department to discuss ways in which the accessibility of playground provision across the city can be improved.
• Progress in shaping a new family support service as part of the neuro-developmental pathway. Read more about the new neurodevelopmental pathway.