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Last month (May 26),642  parent/carers & young people accessed our service which led to a total of 3,264 calls, emails/contact forms, meetings. 

Essex SEND IASS
Contact us
Contact us

SENDIASS is a self-referral service for families and we require the child/young person or the parent/carer to complete the following form.

If you are a Parent or Carer

If you are a Young Person

If you are a Practitioner or Professional

If you need help with a SEND appeal Tribunal Contact Form

If you are contacting our service on behalf of parents or a young person aged 16 or over, you will need to gain the person's permission to speak with us and share their information. 

Information and Advice

You may want support to gather information, make sense of it, and understand how it applies to your own situation.

We can help by:-

  • providing clear, in‑depth information and resources to help you navigate processes, complete documents, understand policies and local practices, and be aware of your options and legal rights
  • signposting you to support from relevant organisations, agencies, or local authority services

In many situations we may be able to offer advice and information first.  If you need more in depth support we will pas your enquiry to a SENDIASS worker who can offer further help.

SENDIASS Workers

We have area support workers covering each area of Essex (Mid, North East, South & West) offering support for:

  • complex situations that require more in-depth support
  • young people (0-25) accessing our service independently
  • support at meetings, these are sometimes called 'face to face' meetings, subject to our availability
  • supporting parent, child or young person to share their views 
  • anyone who has their own additional support needs which mean they are unable to advocate for their child or themselves

Meeting Support

We often get requests for Essex SENDIASS to attend meetings. Due to the number of parents/carers, children, and young people we support we are not able to accept all the meeting requests we receive. Meeting requests will always be looked into, and a decision will be made based on the below:-

  • Requests for meeting attendance must be received at least 2 weeks prior to the meeting date
  • Meeting attendance from SENDIASS is subject to our availability and may be reduced in busy periods
  • Meetings in person (sometimes called face-to-face meetings) are subject to availability, necessity, and location.
  • SENDIASS may offer to attend a meeting virtually, using Microsoft Teams or Zoom online, if attending a meeting in person is not possible.
  • Support Workers will only attend meetings if they have a valuable contribution to make  
  • If we are unable to attend a meeting, we can provide support before the meeting or signpost you to relevant resources, if given enough time before the meeting date, and offer support after the meeting.
  • We are unable to offer our support if you are already being supported by other independent services.   This is to avoid services 'doubling up' on offering support to parents and ensures services are able to support as many parents as we can. 

We aim to help you to feel confident to say what you want to say and be heard. We do not speak for you. We do not take sides. We can't affect the outcome of any meeting.

Support from SENDIASS will end when one or more of the following is met:

  • The outcomes of your enquiry have been achieved
  • You have reached a stage where you feel you can proceed without support
  • The support you need to achieve further outcomes is outside of the SENDIASS remit or your issue has been progressed as far as SENDIASS is able. In this case you will be signposted to relevant services

If you would like us to liaise on your behalf with third parties (eg school, local authority, education services, health & social care colleagues), we would need your written or verbal permission to do so. 

 

We hope that our support will give you the skills and resources to use if future issues occur. However, you can come back to the service if you do need support again. If you come back to the service after a period of 3 months or more of no contact, or with a new topic of enquiry, you will be directed to our helpline who will be able to help.

 

If your enquiry is urgent and the person you have been speaking with is not working or is on leave, please contact our helpline team or send.iass@essex.gov.uk

Also in this section:

Helpline

Our helpline team provide a wide range of information, advice, and support on all areas of SEND

Tribunal Self-Referral form

For support or guidance with a SEND appeal complete our tribunal contact form here