Abstract:

Background:
In the UK, children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), require assessments to identify provisions which may necessitate an education, health and care plan (EHCP). To achieve this, parents need help to negotiate a complex legal system, and this can be difficult and expensive to obtain.

Objectives:
This paper describes a tool to enable people with no legal training to navigate a legal “maze” to obtain assessments, provisions and to make appeals. Its aim is to empower people to make informed legal decisions about a wide range of SEND related problems.

Design:
The tool provides an interactive website displaying 57 interlinked pathways which identify routes for getting help with SEND problems. The pathways identify information, laws, regulations, and links to relevant websites that support decisions on a “need to know” basis. Additionally, a “drag and drop” editing interface enables an editor with little technical knowledge to easily update the pathways. Users are shown when these were last updated. Support for this decision tool includes demonstration videos, editing and technical manuals, and analysis of user feedback data.

Outcome measures:
The website has been pilot tested on a small number of parents and SEND professionals to identify and rectify difficulties in using the pathways and website. Initial feedback has been positive and data logs provide evidence to show that the tool has been frequently accessed and used by the general public.

Conclusions:
This unique approach to SEND decision-making for people without legal knowledge will be carefully monitored. Feedback from users will enable issues to be addressed and incorporated into the regularly updated versions. Further analysis will identify how effective, acceptable, and useful parents find this decision support system.

Keywords:

Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), SEN decision pathways, SEND algorithms, accessing support, understanding available support.