It's 10 years since the Code of Practice was published for the Children and Families Act 2014 Part 3.
So we decided to look at what the Local Offer would look like if we started from what we know today, following the principles of the Local Offer.
The pop pop SEND Local Offer is made of 2 distinct, but connected parts.
The web pages let you create a hierachy of information with most important information at the top, and the least used lower down. The directory gives you a framework to tag and find services, and relate them to the information pages. You can combine the 2 by adding a "mini-directory" on information pages, such as a list of all specialist schools, or a list of all services supporting ADHD.The SEND Local Offer is a collaboration between the council, health, commissioned services, charites, schools, voluntary organisations, the private sector and more. At pop pop studio we believe it should stand apart from the corporate council website.
For security reasons, some councils will welcome a separate website. Directory service owners can edit their own lisitings, which gives them some access permissions. While we make sure they can't do anything else, having a separate website means there is absolutely no chance of them getting into the corporate website
A SEND Local Offer should reflect the people and the place. It shouldn't feel like the council's corporate site.
It should feel welcoming, a place for children and parent carers to feel at home. We'll work with your parent carer forum and young people to get their input and we'll design something they'll be proud of.
We'll even add case studies of real parents and children to show successes in SEND and inclusion.
Once you are up and running with your SEND Local Offer, you'll have complete control over your content. And your service partners will be able to update their own listings on the directory.
We recommend that you take our free course, Readability and the SEND Local Offer, so that you can create content in a format that's ideal for all your users.
Creating hierarchical web pages is essential if your SEND Local Offer is going to be comprehensive, without being overwhelming.
People should be able to click through to find the information they need, and easily find their way around. We give you info pages, guide pages, and step by steps to allow everyone to get to where they need to be.And with case studies you can give real life examples of how services work.
Our directory of services is built differently.
We know that a single organisation may have different services, for different audiences, at different places, at different times.
By separating these elements in the "back end" and then combining them to display on the web pages, people can find exactly what they are looking for.
Our support is much more than technical. We can support you with
creating your site plan
moving your content from your old Local Offer site
marketing and social media
updating your content
annual updates to directory listings
Our Hosting includes 1 day per month of support. Use it for tech, content, marketing, coaching, engagement. However we can help, we'll do our best.
Check out our planning tool to help you build the most comprehensive SEND Local Offer
