You can also read a summary of this meeting.

Meeting administration

Attendees

• Co-Chair, Deputy and SEND Strategic Director Devon County Council – in person
• Co-Chair, Parent Carer Forum Director – in person
• Parent Carer Forum Director – in person
• Two parent carers – in person
• Head of Education, Quality and Inclusion – in person
• SEND Strategy, Policy and Change Lead – in person
• Disabled Children’s Service including Short Breaks – in person
• Head of SEND Operations – in person
• Ambassador Volunteer Coordinator – in person
• Children and Family Health Devon Participation Worker – in person
• Four Cornerstones Partner – in person
• Participation Team Lead – in person
• School Leadership Services – online
• WAVE EDU – online
• Parent Carer Forum Director – online

Apologies

• Interim Associate Clinical Director for Allied Health Professions
• Project Officer
• North Devon CVS Forum

Absent members

• SEND and Transitions Lead, CFHD
• DCC communications business partner for SEND
• Disabled Children’s Service
• School Leadership Services
• Adult Social Care
• Lampard School
• Children and Family Health Devon
• Director of Women and Children’s Improvement, NHS Devon

Key discussion points

Welcome and introduction

• Introductions made
• Explanations of roles of attendees
• ACTION: Follow up with people not attending. They should send a deputy if unable to attend – add note to invite. Maybe review membership if people not attending.

Our Working Together agreement

• Reminder that we are working as equal partners. Valuing everyone’s viewpoint.
• Think about avoiding acronyms. Think about the language and words being used.
• Challenge is important – we are here to challenge ideas, not people, to make the system work better.
• Keep laptops closed where possible. Screen share the documents where possible.
• ACTION: Add working agreement to the bottom of the Agenda going forward.

Disabled Children’s Services

Report and appendices

• The report highlights that Disabled Children’s Services is thinking about family experience, wider access and inclusiveness.
• How the feedback is shaping the service going forward: Short Breaks offer is over and above inclusive community. Family feedback helps understand that experience. It gives us the assurance we are on the right track and are bringing added value.
• Relational approach makes a difference to outcomes for the families and children.
• Poor experiences have been identified and those will be used to develop the service. This feedback is welcomed. Families feel more able to share as they have a relationship with the service.
• Four Cornerstones framework gives us the opportunity to structure the feedback.
• Key strengths from Four Cornerstones – families constantly tell us relationships matter. Staff enable families to feel confident they are being listened to. They are compassionate. Co production work continues to shape our offer. Closer to home activities, fun days, opportunities to build friendships. Enjoy without the rest of the world commenting.
• Feedback is being addressed to improve practice.
• Reduction in specific complaints, complaints about the service reducing, disagreements about the offer can be better identified.
• It has identified gaps and inclusive local based offer, you can see in the strategy where we are pinpointing the gaps. Shaped ongoing short break strategy.
• Four Cornerstones has told us that communication and partnership are a key part of future development. Need to be able to provide a clear response when concerns are raised. Concern about providers not always being confident in providing a service for SEND. Exploring how to build their confidence. This is all being pulled through the Four Cornerstones work. Very appreciative of the way Four Cornerstones is being able to look at things from a different perspective.
• Next Steps Disabled Children’s services still working to look at how to strengthen the feedback from a wider spectrum of services. Embedded Four Cornerstones in short breaks strategy. Annual Short breaks statement will show ‘you said – we did’ so everyone can see progress. Developing fun days – move on another step with Active Devon taken on the delivery of Fun Days. They will work with us through the Short Breaks Project Board.
• Summary: really pleased with how well Four Cornerstones has been received by the teams and providers. We now have a strong base to talk to the providers about how best to support providers with their delivery to the families and children.

Questions and discussion

QUESTION from PCFD: Four Cornerstones service only appears to be related to short breaks?

Answer: We are looking at how we can link current Children Social Care Questionnaire for parents and young people in the rest of the service to Four Cornerstones.

QUESTION from PCFD: Service needs to think about how to link Four Cornerstones as it brings a lot of extra breadth and depth.

Answer: Our thinking needs to be shifted to Four Cornerstones to a family centred approach as part of Families First – a social care reform programme which requires them to address the way in which right place, right time, right person. Government challenging how to put in supportive work rather than wait for a crisis. Piece of work this year to look at this, working through when requests are made to Social Care looking at what it is asking – called the strength and front door – more time to explore with the family who is right to support next. Moving into a family help model – bringing in multi agencies – where there is a child protection concern it needs to be addressed quickly with a high level of expertise. This is part of the family help team remit.

QUESTION from PCFD: Including children with multi disabilities. How will this be addressed?

Answer: these children tend to have access into our specialist offer. We try and balance we have the right offer for the right need of the children. We are trying to work out how well the child enjoyed the activity and did they have choice and their needs met? Trying to make sure this is the expectation of the providers, and they shape their offer to the child. We want to ensure the planning is personalised (champions for change).

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: Four Cornerstones evaluation tool hasn’t been completed to look at what’s working well and what can be improved. Looking at reviewing in 12 months – why wait so long?

Answer: We have to track our progress on annual agreed basis so that is why it is done on an annual review of the Short Break Statement.

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: How are you looking more at the wider service review beyond Short Breaks?

Answer: we can look at that as part of our Service Development Plan which is held quarterly. Four Cornerstones can be built into this piece of work.

QUESTION from PCFD: Who are you not hearing from? Who do you not have a connection with? What about the people who can’t access the fun days? Also, the families with a high level of need, concern over building more inclusive shorts breaks offer. These opportunities should be available to these children as well.

Answer: profoundly disabled children do come to the fun days.

Response: can you include demographic so those not attending can see who does?

Answer: we are trying to build confidence, showing as much as possible in the newsletter, thinking about how we can show these stories. This is ongoing work. Profound needs – more than just keeping the families/children going – it is very clear that they are not just attended to but have opportunities to enjoy activities. I am hearing that you want to know how am I assured that this is what happens by the provider. So I would say we have agreed a plan and has the offer been provided.

Response: would be useful to include how many families have been spoken to.

QUESTION from parent: on the question of inclusion can you pull something in closer to cities like Plymouth to ensure transport/location doesn’t prevent inclusion?

Answer: very excited Active Devon have taken this on. Active Devon will unlock more local activities including leisure centres.

Response: agree if it is on a transport route good thing.

QUESTION from PCFD: Devon Wallet – families close to a border can’t add providers from a border location. The Devon Wallet is something we hear a lot about. The speed of payments. The amount of time it takes provider to sign on to the system. As far as family experience it is a big part of how they experience support. This appears to be a problem families are facing. We want them to be able to access their closest support even if it is out of Devon area.

Answer: Devon Wallet – we have a review system with the provider for problem solving feedback. We could look at the evaluation of the data but look at it through the lens of the Four Cornerstones. We could include that in this report, but it will need to be clear that this is providers’ feedback not families. We are working with the other authorities to break down the issue of borders with neighbouring authorities.

QUESTION from DCC Co-chair: 1. Around how the continuous work with families is developing progress. This feels incredibly helpful. Something about thinking about co-production. The continuous contact with families to shape is important. 2. Interested in the bit you said about service complaints, because the performance of the service isn’t right is different to the offer not being right. With Four Cornerstones does it capture those two things in a way which is helpful? Performance versus a decision?

Answer: point 2 – Feedback was anonymous we can generalise but can’t put it right. It might be possible that a family may think they have made a complaint, but they haven’t because it isn’t through the statutory complaints process. Found it helpful through the Four Cornerstones feedback and looking at things through the lens of Four Cornerstones would help with the way feedback comes back to us. Point 1 – we have thought about when it is one or the other, there are times when there is co-production and it’s important to be clear with families that we are agreeing to co-produced activity versus the things we have to do.

Response: wonders if this is a good piece of learning to link into other departments.

ANSWER: first meeting with co-production is how do we include parents as part of the co-production.

Discussion: coming back to the surveys. Wanted it to be a snapshot to discover themes. Maybe we should signpost for complaints so if they want to take the response further. Maybe add an option if they want it followed up personally. Don’t want to over promise and under deliver. Must be careful not to add a voice but then appear not to be listening or resolving. Don’t want to be sucked into individual response and not zoom out to see the bigger experience. We need to make sure our services are ambitious for learning what doesn’t work and how to develop – this could create a better approach to identifying issue in a positive way rather than individual. Agreed this is better than firefighting. Deep dives not possible.

Answer: look, understand what happened, why it might have gone wrong, how to shape changes for the future.

Response: PCFD co chair feels confident in what she has heard today.

Education, Quality and Inclusion (EQI)

Report and appendices

• This is the first report. 10 months in to the process. Combination of how we have used Four Cornerstones to develop our relationship together on our ethos and values and early work alongside schools and young people. Starting point as a service back in January looking at what are our values and ways of working together – if we get that right then the culture in the school and families settings will be right.
• All new Inclusion Workers got together to decide on what is important to them and surveyed all colleagues top 10 things discovered. These link very well to the values of Four Cornerstones. That allowed us to set up a Charter or Rules to live by to work. These can also be linked to Four Cornerstones – stand out displaying care to each other, understanding and looking after the needs of everyone, and celebrating achievements – talk about the wins and celebrate each other’s success. Communication is of the highest standard.
• Whole service values are now in place. Now as managers and leaders of the service how our team works emphasises the Four Cornerstone values. This is our starting point. It has been important to set up the Four Cornerstones culture.
• We have now started this with schools and services – looking at case studies and positive moments looking at strengths and areas for improvements. We are early days of surveying from teams feedback from their meetings with families and young people. Up against rigid school practices which we are trying to change. Schools are now getting real about this, it will take time but the dedication to inclusion is always now on the table. Leaders know and understand this needs to change.
• Partnerships – improving the relationships between schools and the service. We need to understand the reputation of Devon Local Authority and the schools is not as positive as we would want it to be. A big part of our job is winning the trust with the schools and we are getting there. Improvements needed – consistency between localities.
• Going into year 2 we now need to ensure consistency to enable development. People who have worked in a particular role for a number of years – training in SEND is an issue and this is a good time now to filter this through. In terms of communication things need to be tightened up so families understand clearly next steps at the end of a meeting.
• Initial actions – A lot of the RAG is red because it needs to continue into year 2.
• Partnership between parent / carer needs to become regular. Asked what 2 or 3 things would make the biggest difference to change rather than a list of things to change which aren’t very good. Then find the right people around the table to make it happen. Training and case studies can continue to improve. You said /we did good way to learn what we need to learn.
• Next steps: arrangements with other service to improve. Continue to build trust with schools. Utilising the Four Cornerstones as a base for this. Example given of how to get a child out of alternative provision and back in to school. This has been a success – clear involvement with services – parent – child. Including bringing in out of county services.

Questions and discussion

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: The example of the year 2 child permanently excluded doesn’t seem a success – what we want to be using Four Cornerstones for is how to prevent getting to this point rather than rescuing it by bringing it back from a crisis point. Why wasn’t support put in earlier? Well done for sorting but it shouldn’t have got to that point.

Answer: it is part of changing the attitude as well. We used it as a success example because it shows we are now willing to collectively challenge schools on their decisions.

QUESTION from PCFD: the difficulty is balancing your teams/service and responsibilities and the wider system responsibilities and being clear about the boundaries and overlaps. For me reading through those there were some overall reflections over both of the case studies show how hard your teams and staff work to identify problems and see it from a different angle and how hard they have worked to move it towards a positive outcome for the child. There is something there around the wider issues – in both case studies there was a fundamental issue with support not being put in place for both young people – education wasn’t delivered in the way the child need and specialist communication wasn’t in place at all. I think that was a really difficult one to read – how many other deaf children are in a similar situation? Is this an individual school situation or a wider school situation? and how equipped are the schools to support these children/ enough specialist staff? How to prevent the escalation in future?

ACTION: DCC Strategic Lead for Sensory Needs and Physical Difficulties can come and answer those questions – would be good to get them to come to talk about this.

Answer: trying to get into schools the Devon Attendance Network – 2 hour event for schools to tap into – a Devon update on attendance – best practice – schools contributing their success for mutual learning and training for 30 minutes. Training is being delivered – supporting attendance by children with physical needs. We need best practice and training and these methods are now in place.

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: Four Cornerstones will be looking at how we can link up on this. We have schools wanting to look at how we can work in partnership better with families.

Answer: the relational practice within our schools. St Peters school are a beacon of relational practice. This was the first. Now there are 71 schools saying they want to be beacons as well. They want the ethos and values within the schools. The work with parents is the area which needs strengthening.

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: out of 10 schools signing up only 3 attended. How do we link up Four Cornerstones work with what you are saying.

Comment from School Leadership Services: wanted to shout out for school leads and SENCO working hard in schools around inclusion, but they are aware of other pressures schools have when trying to include these children. The support is very limited, there aren’t enough staff to provide it. Things are moving in the right direction, but we are thin on the ground as to what we can offer, the case studies are hard to hear, but I wanted to highlight how difficult it can be at times. Also, around the relational practice, we are in our schools, but it is hard with some parents who don’t agree. Moving forward with Four Cornerstones in schools and widening out to our communities will be very positive.

Comment DCC Co-chair: Devon school leaders meeting yesterday talked about the roles of others to support schools – wider issues to work in partnership – a lot of work to do on this – all agreed we want to do this in partnership and it is a much better place we are in now with everyone in agreement.

Comment from School Leadership Services: agree the trust building will take time. We are trying and the winning of hearts and minds will take time.

Comment from WAVE: Reinforced what School Leadership Services was saying and the need for the wider community and the support around the young people and understanding that it is for all of us to support the child. It is important that parents and schools work together. This can take a bit of time and can be a bit rocky and can take a time for successful inclusion. Relational approach is tricky but we are trying very hard.

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: partnerships with families – how are you gathering family experiences?

Answer: anecdotal and case studies, regular one to ones collecting examples from IP and ISP but nothing formal yet. Going forward for the data to carry any weight need to work with others about how we capture the different information.

Comment from Four Cornerstones Lead: Now the foundation is established it is now time to bring in the families. You need to build up the relationship and trust before challenge. There is a real opportunity to work together.

Comment from PCFD: Happy to connect with Head of EQI to work out the best way to take this forward in a constructive way.

ACTION: Head of EQI and PCFD to work together. This meeting will be added to the feedback. Any extra questions to be added to the feedback.

SEND Operations: response to latest feedback and changes to letters

Report and appendices

• In the pack there is a report from the new QA Lead for SEND Op contacting families for their experience.
• Update on where we are on Front Door approach – aligned to Four Cornerstones – communication relationship standard – start to understand the scale and response time and initiate an initial call to families.
• In terms of the initial call they have been rolling out since June – Offered initial call to over 90% of families, 60% agreed then rest wanted to continue by email. Staff and families have felt this has been positive and has started the relationship well. Call then booked for 10 weeks later for update EHE on the process. Feedback effective, good models.
• The integrating in local learning community via the Front Door. Good understanding if they are statutory or outside of the statutory processes. Some can be done by SEND and we need to work out which work isn’t being addressed well because it isn’t coming in through the right Front Door, looking at who isn’t being communicated with.
• 11,600 email traffic in one month. 93% responded to in 5 working days.
• Work within localities still in its infancy – we have more to do on the impact and if it is doing what it is meant to be doing. Anecdotal feedback is saying it’s not delivering in the way we hope.
• Locality leads to evaluate the impact of the model and what the staff are saying. We want to understand the family experience and the impact we are having. We are in our third month. We had to play it out to understand the volume. The volume helps me understand why it is so difficult to respond. I need to be confident on the quality of the response.
• The majority of emails are from families saying their schools aren’t delivering and asking for help. We need to work out how to bring the families and schools together – it is difficult as it is not statutory.
• We are looking at the nature of the triage work – then look at it in a 6 month review.
• The volume is the thing knocking everyone over which is probably why the quality of the response is not the standard we would want. Leadership are dip sampling to ensure it is sticking to the Four Cornerstones values. If they are not up to standard it is dealt with quickly. Clear and kind in communication using Four Cornerstone values. Six month review and she will bring it back to Four Cornerstones in maybe November.
• Our knowledge of the communication has improved, now we need to work on improving communication.

Questions and discussion

QUESTION from Four Cornerstones Lead: the new process is working for families but highlighted where it might be going wrong and it would be good to understand next steps.

Answer: next stage is to work with families within the reviews and understand their experiences and discuss the pinch point. It is nearly always setting.

QUESTION from PCFD: not surprised lots of families coming to you because schools are not delivering the EHCP – quite a few parents know the law and know that the schools are meant to deliver but the council is responsible. Important to identify a pathway for the families to follow.

Comment: families are reliant on school partnerships but these often break down.

Answer: last year during the service re-design we knew everyone went to SEND. We need to be better for statutory measures. The other work which we need to get better at is working with schools, by asking how can we help you?

QUESTION: how transparent is this to families and how easy is the support able to find?

Answer: the Cornerstones are really important to set up.

Comment: we have capacity issues. We can’t just direct to Inclusion Partners as they don’t have the resource.

Comment: essentially when you say this isn’t for SEND. It is not helpful to say that and then not direct the families where to go. It is about seeing where the gaps are and doing something about it. Families are stuck in the middle. SEND isn’t able to do what they are supposed to do because they are doing all the extras because there is no one else to send them to.

Comment from DCC Cochair: Please keep coming back to the Four Cornerstones meetings with updates so the committee can see progress.

Comment: amazing to see the feedback but it is completely different to the Four Cornerstones survey feedback. It doesn’t link and there is such a disparity. We are talking about such completely different experiences.

Answer: I can’t respond to the people in the survey as the comments made are anonymous.

Comment from DCC Co-chair: it feels sad that the experiences captured by SEND Ops QA Lead aren’t being believed as it is not the full picture of what is being captured. We can’t continue to go round in a loop where everything is terrible for everyone when it isn’t. But I don’t want people to think we are ignoring the bad.

Answer: some things are good for people, some things are bad for people. My wish for the Committee to see is that both things can be true.

Comment from PCFD: How are we making sure that feedback is being received and that people are aware of the Four Cornerstones? Discussed development of feedback and understand positive impacts and feedback. Are we trying to create a learning culture and are we continuing to move towards improvement even if we are good or are we just looking at a tokenistic approach looking for any thing good which we possibly can?

Comment from PCFD: look for patterns in the ones which are good. Is there a clear pathway. What can we learn from the good?

Family feedback

PCFD survey, Four Cornerstones survey, SEND Ops feedback

ACTION: Start with this next time

Any other business

• DCC Co-Chair thanked Four Cornerstones Lead as it is their last Four Cornerstones Committee. Thank you for all your work in this space.
• Four Cornerstones Lead: People have a lot of influence outside of the committee – please use it. We have the framework. Thank you all for your partnership and supporting me.

---

Next meeting: 5 November 2026