About Local Offer Local Offer Annual Feedback Report 2019/20 Local Offer Annual Feedback Report 2019/20: Feedback

Local Offer Annual Feedback Report 2019/20: Feedback

Page Updated: 7th September 2020

‘What you said’ and ‘What we did’

Throughout the year feedback on the Local Offer website has been sought. This has been done in person at events; through the feedback button on the website and through social media and in person feedback; at events. Normally there would be a greater amount of in person feedback however with the cancellation of many events as a result of COVID-19 this has not been possible.

If there is anything within this report that you would like to discuss with the Local Offer Officer please get in touch, contact details can be found at the end of this report.

Key themes of feedback are represented in the image below, with more detail on the positive and negative themes below the image.

Image of topics of feedback received

Positives:

Webinars ‘What you said’ – The Local Offer Officer has been assisting the Special Educational Needs Information, Advice and Support (SENDIAS) Service deliver a range of free webinars using a 'Clickmeeting' subscription to help parent carers better understand Special Educational Needs and/or Disability (SEND) processes in West Sussex. You can watch the webinars on the SENDIAS Service website video section.

The Local Offer has also assisted teams within the County Council to help deliver training on topics related to SEND provision as a result of the pandemic, you can read some of their comments below.

‘Keir (Local Offer Officer) helped me understand Click Meetings, set up meetings, attended ‘test’ runs and attended the first of the ‘live’ meetings to help with any issues. He has always been on the end of the phone whenever I have needed help. Without Keir I could not have set up events for the Education Directorate and Early Help. Thank you, Keir for all your help, it has been greatly appreciated.’ - Kate Southgate, Learning and Behaviour Advisory Teacher.

‘Keir not only supported myself and the team to understand and be able to use Click, but also gave invaluable technical support during our webinar events which enabled us to develop and provide services to our stakeholders and pupils during the COVID-19 lockdown. Keir ensured he understood the focus and objectives of our events and guided us to meet our objectives. Keir’s professional approach and continuous support was greatly appreciated.’ – Jane Crawford Advisory Teacher, Autism and Social Communication Team.

Webinars ‘What we did’ – To help people understand what webinars are, we created a Local Offer information page titled 'Webinar Information'. The Local Offer & SENDIAS service will continue to deliver webinars. If you have any suggestions for webinars, please contact: [email protected]

E-newsletter ‘What you said’ – The monthly e-newsletter has been well received and helps to create a snapshot of new services and events in West Sussex.

“I find your newsletters so useful and often pass information onto other staff and parents - often including a link to a service or event in our weekly school bulletin.” – Gillian Barton Woodlands Meed Deputy Head Teacher SEND

Another piece of feedback suggested the newsletter could be stored on the Local Offer site, so it is easier to share by providing a web link.

E-Newsletter ‘What we did’ – It was requested that a web link could be created for the newsletter so that it could be easily shared amongst contacts without the need for individuals to subscribe. This is now possible, and a web link will be included within the newsletter as well as shared via the Local Offer Facebook and Twitter. There is also now an area on the Local Offer site where the newsletters will be stored.

Feedback button and information pages ‘What you said’ – 11 feedback reports were received. 7 of these where positive ratings on information pages with the others being issues with things on certain pages. You can read the feedback reports in a word document.

Co-production ‘What you said’ – The Local Offer assisted in the Short Breaks Engagement Week to help gather feedback on short break provision in the county to help inform the commissioning of future services. The key points were that West Sussex has some great providers and a good range of short break services, and families would like to see even more choice of services. To find out more about Short Breaks go to their Local Offer information page.

Pinboard ‘What you said’ – Is very useful and continues to be a great tool. Watch a video explaining the pinboard.

Social Media 'What you said' - Since October 2019 the Local Offer Officer has made 203 Facebook posts and 96 Tweets. Many of these are snapshots of things that have been uploaded to the Local Offer website such as events, services, or information. By far the most popular types of posts on both Facebook and Twitter are workshops offering training for parents. Is there any type of post you would like to see more of? Let us know.

COVID-19 Information pages 'What you said' - At the start of lock down the Local Offer Officer generated an information page titled 'Coronavirus (COVID-19): National and Local Information and Guidance'. The first piece of feedback was that the banner on the home page that led to the new COVID-19 page was not noticeable enough. West Sussex Parent Carer Forum (WSPCF) reviewed these pages and gave feedback. The key points from the feedback were: the red banner present on the home page and having the last updated date on the page were good, mixed views on the amount of content on the page but this shows a good balance also links to community hubs and WSPCF forum should be on the page.

They also provide some feedback about the events section at the time and said that some events did not clearly show they were online, some events that were no longer happening were present, some events that were occurring were not present on the site however they could easily keep track of things organised by Short Breaks providers thanks to quick links to the Short Breaks wiki. Open full feedback in a word document.

COVID-19 Information pages 'What we did' - The banner was editing to make it more distinguishable. Links to community hub and WSPCF's website were added, events no longer running were removed, online events were changed to help show they were online, emails were sent to providers to ensure they were keeping their Local Offer presence up to date and the Local Offer Officer also added some of the events missing from the events section. Another web page has been created titled 'Returning to School During COVID-19 Pandemic'.

Events 'What you said - During the end of 2019 and start of 2020 the Local Offer Officer attended a variety of informative events. Some examples of these are below:

Coffee, Cafe, Information and Networking (CCIN) - Hosted by West Sussex Parent Carer Forum (WSPCF) these events help bring together providers from across West Sussex so parent carers can find out first hand what they do. These give the opportunity to explain to people what the Local Offer is and gather feedback. WSPCF do a great job hosting these events and make the Local Offer Officer always feel welcomed and valued. CCIN's will resume when safe to do so.
4 Sight visually impaired family fun day
Woodlands Meed Transition Fair - Woodlands Meed hosted a transition fair for all of there students to attend and their parents to help inform them about services within West Sussex.
Parent information evenings/ Parents evenings - The Local Offer attended several parents evening to help inform them about the Local Offer and services within West Sussex.
Parent Support Groups - The Local Offer Officer attended a Autism Support Crawley session to showcase helpful videos he had made to help understand how best to use the Local Offer website and to gather feedback from parent carers.

If you would like the Local Offer Officer to attend an event you are organising then let us know.

Autism Support Crawley Local Offer How to videos screening

Negatives:

Searching, navigation and time to find things ‘What you said’ – The most common feedback on the website is that searching for what you want can be difficult, this comes from searching not always showing the most relevant results first as well as a lack of age categories to help filter out results.

Navigation on the website whilst is ok for the most part however there are elements of the information section which can be confusing to navigate when looking for information.

The time to find things is often too long.

The above comments are a summary of in person feedback as well as from an Autism Support Crawley evening attended by the Local Offer Officer. View spreadsheet of Autism Support Crawley Feedback

Searching, navigation and time to find things ‘What we did’ – By far the most mentioned feedback on the Local Offer it is one of the hardest problems to solve. Work is being done to ensure that the Local Offer website is an easy and accessible tool for its users.

The first improvements were made in September during our development sprint which included:

A childcare tab was added to the homepage to allow quick access to the Family Information Service.
Services/ Events/ Information tabs are now underlined to show which part of the site you are in.
‘Narrow down your results’ has been added to searching and has helped organise filter options into columns.
A statement on quality assurance and a link to the Local Offer terms and conditions is now on search pages.

The Local Offer Officer has also updated several videos that help users to understand how best to use the Local Offer. These video where then premiered at an Autism Support Crawley evening. Some of those present felt more confident in using the Local Offer website after watching the videos. View spreadsheet of Autism Support Crawley Feedback

There is also currently a big clean out of services on the Local Offer site taking place. Currently there are over 900 services and some of these are no longer active. By removing these in-active services results will be more relevant, concise and take less time to find things.

The Local Offer information section is also being reviewed to make sure the information is accessible and up to date. There is also plans to allow for information pages to be added to the pinboard so that they can be saved to a user’s account and are readily available when needed.

Information and services for young people with SEND ‘What you said’ – The Local Offer has a great selection of services and information however it is lacking in things to do for those between the ages of 16 and 25 as well as information that is relevant to them.

At the Woodlands Meed Transition Fair, the Local Offer Officer got an excellent opportunity to ask many young people if they felt this was the case as well. Many of the young people there were not too familiar with the site. When shown it they though it was very worthwhile idea, and it would be great if it were to have a young person’s section/ presence on the website that was more colourful along with picture and videos.

Information and services for young people with SEND ‘What we did’ – To begin to develop the information available on the Local Offer for young people we have begun co-producing some factsheets with the assistance of the SENIDAS service young person advisers, SEND participation lead and Young Voices. Young Voices is a diverse group of young people with SEND from across West Sussex who are eager to let others know what their needs are and how they would like to be treated.

Over the year several services for young people with SEND have been added to the Local Offer. A full list of these is below and you can click their name to be taken to their service summary card and find out more information:

Do you know a service that isn’t in this list or not already on the Local Offer site? Contact us and let us know.

What still needs to be done

Continue making the website more accessible – Content on the web site will be continued to be reviewed. For full details on how we are planning on meeting accessibility standards you can view our Accessibility standards (waiting to be published).

Re-creating categories to help searching – Along with the addition of age categories for searching we want to co-produce new categories making searching easier and relevant.

September updates – These updates include the ability to pinboard information pages as well as change behind the scenes on the site which allow for easier management and tracking of information pages.

September will also see the initial launch of a sister site called ‘Tools for Schools’. Tools for Schools has been co-produced with Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCo) from across West Sussex. Its aim is to keep schools informed of expectations and help provide guidance on how to meet them. More information on this can be listened to in the podcast below, a transcript of the podcast is currently being produced.

Thank you!

Finally, I would like to say thank you to all those who have helped to continue to improve our Local Offer since I started in October 2019. To the SENDIAS service I am based in for helping review the site, Future Gov for great technical support, all those that have commented or given feedback on the Local Offer, the SEND Participation Lead and Young Voices for helping in producing some young person’s factsheets and finally to all the service providers that help keep people informed through the Local Offer!

If you have any comments on this Annual Report or the Local Offer then get in touch.

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0330 222 5064

Local Offer Annual Feedback Report 2019/18: Accessibility Report