If the Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) has been agreed, your planning coordinator will offer to meet you to:
- discuss the process
- capture your views on the child or young person’s needs
- answer any questions you may have.
It is important that we meet with you so that we can work together to process the child or young person's assessment.
If, however, you are worried about attending a meeting you can invite a friend to join you or speak with the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice and Support Service (SENDIAS) about accessing support from them.
With the support of their caseworker, your planning coordinator will ask other relevant professionals to contribute to the EHCNA. This will include health, social care and the Educational Psychology Service. If there is anyone else whom you would like to contribute to the assessment, please let your planning coordinator know.
Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)
An EHC Needs Assessment allows the local authority to consider whether an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) is required to ensure the child or young person’s needs can be met.
To do this, we:
- take into account all the information collated through the assessment
- decide whether this information suggests the child or young person requires an EHCP for the right provision to be made available to them.
It is important that EHCPs are only issued for the pupils with the highest level of need, and that where school support is appropriate, the pupil is supported from these already delegated support resources and mechanisms.
If we decide not to issue an EHCP
We will summarise everything we found and issue an Inclusion Plan to you. The Inclusion Plan does not mean the child or young person does not have needs, just that these needs can be supported without the need for an EHCP. If we make this decision, the accompanying letter will explain why.
There is a right of appeal if you disagree with our decision and feel an EHCP should have been issued. We would encourage you to talk to us to try to resolve these worries without the need for an appeal. You can call your planning coordinator to discuss these worries.
If an EHCP is agreed
The planning coordinator will put together a draft EHCP using all the information gathered through the assessment. You will receive this draft and have an opportunity to comment on it.
If you would like the EHCP in electronic format we can email it to you. Please remember, however, that this will not necessarily be secure, so we will ensure the document is password protected and let you know the password.
We can also provide some reports via email, but this will depend on the format in which they come to us and the security we are able to add.