Engage Your School with the SEND Youth Forum
Oxfordshire County Council has formed the SEND Youth Forum to gather the views of children and young people (CYP) with SEND, aiming to foster a more inclusive system. The forum collects and acts on the perspectives of CYP with SEND, ensuring broad representation, including those in alternative placements or electively home educated.
Our goals
- Choice and Involvement: Championing young people’s right to choose and be involved in decisions
- Diverse Representation: Ensuring equal opportunities for involvement for individuals with varying needs.
- System Transformation: Driving positive change and enhancing support systems.
- Informed Decision-Making: Ensuring young people's experiences inform decision-making processes.
How Your School/setting Can Help
- Sign up and arrange focus groups with mixed groups of CYP with SEND.
- Share the views of participants with the SEND Youth Forum.
- Support will be provided throughout the process.
The role of schools and settings
- To sign up for and arrange focus groups with mixed groups of children and young people with SEND, (those with an EHCP, on the SEN Register or have emerging SEND needs).
We will provide you with a theme/topic and some prompts for questions, but it is up to your facilitator on how they want to run the focus group e.g. group discussions or 1:1s. This will depend on the need of the CYP. Please feel free to be creative!
- To act as a conduit, sharing the views of participants with the SEND Youth Forum, and sharing the responses in the following months.
Please be reassured we will be supporting you throughout the whole process
Per cycle (every 3 months), we are looking for 5 primary mainstream, 3 secondary 2 special school settings plus 1 Alternative Provision (AP). We’ve made plans to speak to teams who work in Alternative Provision to make sure CYP who are not accessing education are included.
No more than 15 cyp per group (this can be flexible). SEND Youth Forum Animation Video - hear from some of our amazing young people.
The upcoming feedback cycle will take place from 27 January to 14 February. During this period, the focus will be on the topic of Employment.
If your school is interested in helping us, please email us by Friday 24 January SENDYoungPeople@OXfordshire.gov.uk.
We look forward to hearing from you!