1. Evaluation of the SEND Pathfinder Programme: Early Findings Graham Thom and Meera Prabhakar May 2012

2. Outline Summary of the findings from the first round visits to the 10 in-depth case study areas, which were undertaken in February-March 2012  First monitoring returns, covering all Pathfinders, will be reported in June  Families now being recruited, but several months until we get feedback Early emerging findings cover  The nature of the problems that the Pathfinders are seeking to address  Early thinking on the approaches that were to be/being developed 1

3. The current system(s) Pockets of joint working and personalisation existed across all the case study areas … but general agreement that things needed to change  Disjointed assessments  Lack of co-ordination  Poor attendance at reviews  Supply led planning  Unclear responsibilities  Limited involvement of parents and young people  Limited local provision So, the Pathfinders recognise the agenda set by the Green Paper 2

4. Progress up until Feb/Mar 2012 3 Organisational and cultural change What was going well? Generally good strategic engagement Delivery teams identified and majority in post Thinking about the local offer and cultural change / skills development had begun What were the issues? Capacity of health colleagues, the VCS and education providers, to effectively engage was raised as a concern Two initial interpretations of the local offer 1. A high level offer to families setting out how agencies will work together 2. Creation of a provider based resource Anticipated challenges Getting operational staff released from current duties to deliver the Pathfinder Small scale of the Pathfinder in majority of areas leading to limited market change (especially given block contracts) Information sharing between agencies and with families not yet fully considered

5. Planned approaches Majority of approaches were expected to include: The introduction of key worker or lead professional An initial engagement or information gathering stage Coordinated or integrated assessment, involving the prioritisation of key assessment headlines Resource allocation to support the calculation of indicative budgets Single planning, involving both the family and relevant professionals Subsequent and regular review of the single plan 4 Gathering of existing assessment information or completion of assessments Additional specialist assessments completed if required Coordinated/integrated assessment produced Indicative budget developed/calculated Single planning Agreement of plan and associated budget Review and learn Initial engagement Referral into the Pathfinder Key worker introduced to the family, to coordinate the process and supports the family throughout Assessment headlines prioritised and desired family outcomes developed Coordinated/integrate d assessment Resource allocation Single planning Review Indicative budget communicated to the family if part of a personal budget Child/family-centred plan developed, with clear responsibility of agencies and the family

6. Issues? 5 Gathering of existing assessment information or completion of assessments Additional specialist assessments completed if required Coordinated/integrated assessment produced Indicative budget developed/calculated Single planning Agreement of plan and associated budget Review and learn Initial engagement Referral into the Pathfinder Key worker introduced to the family, to coordinate the process and supports the family throughout Assessment headlines prioritised and desired family outcomes developed Coordinated/integrate d assessment Resource allocation Single planning Review Indicative budget communicated to the family if part of a personal budget Child/family-centred plan developed, with clear responsibility of agencies and the family Only a few sites were looking at bringing together assessment processes / episodes / forms Most planned to join up after the assessments by creating a ‘headline/ summary’ version The headline assessment documentation is an addition to current practice. It may lead to better planning Most focus was on defining the Single Plan Was unclear how the new approaches would address some of the current problems Poor attendance at review meetings Agreeing how to resource multi- disciplinary packages of support and accountabilities between the agencies

7. Recruitment of families in the case study areas The identification process had started in most of the case study areas Anticipated numbers had fallen in several areas There was a spread of age ranges  Some sites were targeting particular age groups, while others were looking at 0-25 Most families were to come through an education route 6

8. Emerging findings 1 The intended introduction of key workers and the use of summary documents were intended to make the system more transparent and improve communication …which in turn should reduce adversarial nature However, there was a risk that the introduction of a key worker and summary assessment may actually increase bureaucracy as these additions were often in addition to existing roles or documentation Do the Pathfinders… make the current support system more transparent, less adversarial and less bureaucratic The areas were seeking to achieve this objective through changing the planning process to be more family centred, and the development of the local offer However, although better planning was expected to lead to improved outcomes over the longer term, the specific types of outcomes that may be achieved had not been well defined Do the Pathfinders… increase real choice and control, and improve outcomes 7

9. Emerging findings 2 This had not been a major focus for the case study areas and limited changes were expected to be made to the assessment processes Rather the focus was on the key worker, who may or may not come from the VCS Do the Pathfinders… introduce greater independence into the assessment process by using the voluntary sector Costs of change were likely to be significant – even for the small number of families being targeted – and would include staff time to facilitate cultural change & capacity building for internal and external staff and organisations Addition of the key worker role was likely to add a cost to the system, through either contracting out the service or due to displacement of tasks from existing staff to take on the role…and it may be hard in the short term to show offsetting impacts and so real savings … and as yet it was unclear how the new approaches could be scaled up and resourced Do the Pathfinders… demonstrate value for money 8

10. 9 Contact Graham Thom Director SQW t. 07716 916897 e. gthom@sqw.co.ukgthom@sqw.co.uk w. www.sqw.co.ukwww.sqw.co.uk Meera Prabhakar Senior Consultant SQW t. 020 7307 7151 e. mprabhakar@sqw.co.ukmprabhakar@sqw.co.uk w. www.sqw.co.ukwww.sqw.co.uk

11. Our overarching approach to gathering data Core approach (all Pathfinders) Quarterly monitoring data SDQ baseline survey Work and satisfaction survey Quantitative survey of parents/carers participating E-survey of providers Liaison with the support team In-depth approach (sub-set of Pathfinders) In-depth case study research Qualitative research with staff, practitioners and providers Qualitative research with families and young people Quantitative survey of comparison group of parents/carers 10 Coverage of breadth of Pathfinder work Coverage of depth of Pathfinder work Scoping: map out the shape of the Pathfinder Programme and co-produce the approach