Celebrating Two Years of Advocating for SEN Support for Families
It’s our second birthday! Bring out the cake!
If you follow us, you’ll know that we love cake AND we love what we do. We’re so lucky as SEN advocates to work with such incredible families and professionals. The very best part is when we get to see the smiles on children’s faces and hear the new hope in their parents’ voices. It’s helping each family access the support they need and deserve.
We’ve recently been nominated for the National Diversity Awards, in the Community Organisation: Disability category. We are so honoured and delighted to be recognised in this way, alongside all the other incredible organisations that are up for the awards.
We’re celebrating our birthday with a little look back at who we are, what we’ve achieved in the past two years, and where we’re going in the future.
And cake - don’t forget the cake!
Who are we?
We’re The SEND Collaborative and we like to work a little differently.
We focus on collaboration - working alongside professionals and organisations to get the best outcomes for our families. We don’t work FOR anyone but our families, but we find that working with rather than pitting ourselves against always gets the best end results.
We’re SEN advocates, providing specialist SEND advice for families. We help parents and children get the support they need and deserve, in education, funding and other provision. This includes advocating for Education Health and Care Plans (EHCP), Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
We are inclusive and work hard to make our services accessible to everyone, regardless of financial circumstances. This is our guiding light and we’re proud to offer everyone a free initial call to discuss their needs, as well as free services for those who need them.
We adore the families we work with. Because we share our knowledge and empower each family to become their own advocate, we’re sure that all our families leave us better equipped than before we met.
Our achievements
In the last two years, we’re proud of:
Helping more than 250 families get the support they need.
Completing 30% of our work pro-bono.
Working alongside a really broad range of professionals and organisations to collaborate to get the best outcomes for our families.
Offering Freebie Friday services to families in need.
Providing over 300 free enquiry calls.
Running free monthly sessions for families who work with Rainbow Horses UK.
Running a tribunal training day for expert witnesses.
Our impact
We don’t like to toot our own trumpets, so we’re letting some of our families’ biggest wins from the past few months speak for themselves!
We’re so thrilled with our recent nomination for the Community Organisation: Disability category at the National Diversity Awards too! (It’s taking a while to sink in, although nothing ever means as much to us as getting a good outcome for our families! The smiles and the renewed hope mean everything!!)
Our team of SEN advocates
None of this could happen without our amazing team of SEN advocates. We are grateful every day to know them and work together.
Our team is experienced, qualified and genuinely cares for every one of our wonderful SEN families. Many of our advocates have worked in the special educational needs field for more than a decade, coming from backgrounds such as SEND advocacy, parent advice roles, Early years specialist, Childcare managers and so much more!
What’s next?
This truly feels like a celebration of the relationships and teamwork we’ve built: with our families, with professionals and with other organisations supporting children with SEND.
And that’s our commitment for the future - we won’t ever stop collaborating. Because we know, from first hand experience, that working together rather than in conflict brings about the very best SEN support outcomes for children and families. And that’s all that’s important.
Thank you to all our families for being so incredible to work with. Thank you to the organisations and professionals we work alongside every single day. Thank you to all our SEN advocates who work their socks off to get families what they need.
And thank you for our nomination for the National Diversity Awards - we are so grateful to have touched so many lives and to have the opportunity to keep on doing that in the future.