Recommendation 16

Parents and carers of children and young people with SEND often feel excluded from the processes that affect their children’s education and support. However, meaningful and collaborative parental involvement is essential to the success of the SEND system. When parents and carers are actively engaged in the planning, decision-making, and delivery of support, both satisfaction and outcomes improve significantly. Engagement fosters greater trust, transparency, and confidence in the system, and helps build constructive, collaborative relationships between families, professionals, support and advice services including SENDIASS. Ensuring parents and carers are treated as equal partners in any process must be a fundamental feature of any reformed SEND system. (Conclusion, Paragraph 101)