Placid A local offer built with you, not shown to you

What co-production looks like here

• Regular sessions, from the start. The forum, young people and practitioners in the room, or online, deciding what the sections are, what they are called and what goes first. Calderdale's forum worked this way and the sessions never stopped.
• Your words on the site. Each section opens with a line from the SEND strategy the forum helped write, so what families read matches what the partnership promised.
• Plain English you can check, not take on trust. Every page is written against the Readability Guidelines and checked with Dawn, our free plain English checker. Put the address of any page of your current local offer into it and it will show you what a tired parent hits first.
• A feedback button on every page. No login, no name needed. What comes in goes to the local offer team, and the You said, we did page shows what happened next, year by year.
• A site families can use. Plain sections, guides that read in order, step by steps, events, and a directory you can filter by age, area, need and cost.
• On its own address. With its own name, not buried in the council site.

How we worked together in Calderdale

Family Voice Calderdale, the SEND Youth Representatives and the council's local offer team built Calderdale's local offer together, in sessions that carried on after launch. This is what that looked like.

• The site map came first. Before anyone built a page, the forum and young people decided what the sections were, what they were called, and what a family looks for first. The eight sections on the site are theirs.
• The words came from the strategy the forum helped write. Each section opens with a line from the SEND strategy, so what a family reads matches what the partnership promised.
• Every draft went back to the room. Pages were written, read aloud, argued over and rewritten in the sessions, not sent for sign-off afterwards.
• The feedback loop went in on day one. A feedback button on every page, and a You said, we did page that the forum can point to, year by year.
• It did not stop at launch. The weekly meeting still runs, and the specialist inclusion team now adds content because they find it useful.

[Photos from the sessions, and a line from Family Voice Calderdale, to go here.]

Why this matters this year

Ofsted and CQC are reviewing local offers in 2026. Their questions are about whether families were involved in planning and reviewing it, whether young people know what is in it, and whether parents are confident in what is there. A site made in the open, with the forum's record on it, answers all three.

What you can ask the council for

A local offer on its own address, made with the forum and young people, with a published record of feedback and what changed. That is a fair ask, and it is what Placid is. The one page brief for directors is written for the person who signs it off. Send it with this page.

What it costs the council

Our prices are public on G-Cloud 15, and most councils can buy without a tender. How a council buys Placid explains the route in plain English, so the forum can ask the right question of the right person.