The Devon local area partnership was inspected by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in December 2018 and was required to produce a ‘Written Statement of Action’ to address four areas of significant weakness.
In May 2022, the local area was revisited by Ofsted/CQC who concluded that no progress had been made. Local area partners recognise that system-wide change is needed to address the challenges the local area faces and to improve the experiences of children and young people with SEND, and their families, in Devon.
This change must be driven by the voices of children and young people and their families. This strategy supports our commitment to a change in culture and practice that leads to improved experiences and outcomes for children and young people.
Devon’s Four Cornerstones provide the shared values and behaviours that guide how education, health and care partners work with children, young people and families. Adopted as the foundation of the Devon SEND Strategy, they promote a culture of trust, inclusion, and genuine partnership.
The Four Cornerstones set out clear expectations that services will:
- Welcome and care – create safe, supportive environments where children, young people and families feel heard, valued and treated with empathy.
- Value and include – recognise strengths, identify needs early, and ensure everyone can participate in decisions that affect them.
- Communicate – listen openly, share information clearly and promptly, and use positive, constructive language.
- Work in partnership – collaborate as equal partners to plan, problem-solve and drive improvements across the system.
Purpose of this approach
To share information in a clear and consistent way, so everyone feels included and informed and to provide channels for families to give feedback on services from across the Devon local area partnership.
This helps build trust between families and professionals and encourages people to get involved in improving SEND services.
Core principles
These are aligned with Devon County Council’s values which are:
- Honesty and accountability: Act with honesty and take responsibility for our actions. Communicate openly and share how feedback has influenced decisions.
- Transparency and resilience: Be open, clear, adaptable and ready for change. Ensure that relationships, clarity and respect are maintained even when communication is challenging.
- Collaboration: Share knowledge, work together, value everyone’s input. Work together with openness, curiosity and shared purpose, actively listening to and respecting all voices.
- Fairness and equity: Treat everyone how we would like to be treated. Identify and remove barriers so all children, young people, families and colleagues have equal opportunities to participate and thrive.
- Sustainability: Act for the long term, making responsible choices. Make thoughtful choices – in relationships, communication and practice – that support long-term positive impact for families, partners and the system as a whole.
How it links with local area priorities
The SEND Improvement Strategy: We are working to deliver meaningful change in our culture and practice that leads to improved experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and their families. This change must be driven by their voices.
Devon County Council Strategic Plan: We will improve and strengthen services in Devon, taking a family-led approach to how we shape our services, and work with schools and education providers to ensure access to high quality and inclusive education, which enables all children and young people to progress to their maximum potential.
One Devon Integrated Care Strategy: Emphasises clear, joined‑up and community‑focused communication to improve access, reduce inequalities and support coordinated care across partners and local communities.
Aim and objectives
Increase understanding of the Four Cornerstones across the local area, ensuring that children, young people, families, and practitioners are clear about what they represent and why they are central to improving experiences and outcomes.
| Objective | How we will measure this |
|---|---|
| Equip leaders across the local area partnership to use the Four Cornerstones as a tool for evaluating services, driving co-produced improvements and assessing the impact of their work. | Use of evaluation, action planning and impact measuring toolkit to identify, implement and appraise improvement made following the principles of the Four Cornerstones. Actions and outcomes reported biannually to the Four Cornerstones Oversight Committee. |
| Support practitioners to apply the Four Cornerstones in their everyday practice, using them to guide communication, reflect on effectiveness, and continuously enhance the quality of their interactions with children, young people, and families. | Completion of Four Cornerstones General Awareness training; engagement in bespoke training online and face-to-face. |
| Work collaboratively with families, young people, and professionals to shape service improvements, and provide regular, transparent updates on progress, actions, and outcomes. | Number of parent carer partners recruited and active; involvement of young people in coproduction opportunities; attendance at engagement events; ‘Your Voice in Action’ updates on the Local Offer web pages. |
| Establish and maintain clear, accessible, and ongoing feedback channels, enabling families to share their lived experiences of SEND services and ensuring this insight informs continual improvement in relation to strategic priorities. | Completion rates of Four Cornerstones survey; actions taken in response to survey feedback and reported to Four Cornerstones Oversight Committee. |
Who it is for
The Four Cornerstones are for everyone and therefore the list below is not exclusive. There is an expectation for local area partnership teams and services to have awareness of, and demonstrate, the Four Cornerstones approach.
Internal
Local Authority: Devon County Council
Children’s services:
- Education, Quality and Inclusion
- SEND Operations
- Virtual School
- Disabled Children’s Service
- SEND Commissioning and Contracting
- Access to Education
- SEND Operations
- Family Hubs
- Children’s social care
- Strategic decision makers
Healthcare: Devon Integrated Care Board
- Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD)
- Strategic decision makers
- Commissioners
External
Families
- Parents and carers of children and young people with SEND
- Children and young people with SEND
- Parent carer forum members
Education providers
- Maintained schools
- Academies
- Special schools
- Colleges
- Early years settings
- Alternative provision
- Independent schools
Voluntary and community sector organisations
- Ambassador volunteers
- SEND support groups
- Elective home education groups
Approach: The Four Cornerstones are for everyone
Welcome and care
Our approach will:
- create welcoming, safe and respectful interactions that reduce anxiety for families and practitioners
- use strengths-based, non-judgmental language
- ensure messages are written and delivered with warmth, clarity and empathy
- consider emotional impact – communicating in ways that reassure, explain and guide rather than overwhelm
- make it easier for people to contact a real person when needed, not just digital routes
- recognise the individuality of every family, adjusting tone and support accordingly
Value and include
Our approach will:
- make sure children, young people, families and partners feel heard, involved and respected
- show appreciation for lived experience and practitioner insight equally
- use inclusive language and accessible formats that reduce barriers to participation – providing information in accessible formats, including easy read, large print, digital formats and visual summaries
- actively seek out diverse perspectives, especially those under-represented or less confident to speak
- share decision-making processes clearly to demonstrate genuine inclusion
- respect diversity and promote inclusion by:
- using inclusive, respectful language
- avoiding assumptions and stereotypes
- providing interpreting and translation support where needed
- working with community organisations to reach diverse families
- ensuring communication reflects the diversity of the community
Communicate
We will communicate in ways that:
- are clear, timely, transparent and easy to understand
- reduce jargon and acronyms, and explain processes step-by-step
- use plain English
- ensure information is consistent across services and platforms
- provide updates proactively
- close the loop: “Your Voice In Action” will be a visible norm
Work in partnership
Our communication will strengthen partnership by:
- sharing responsibility for messages, decisions and outcomes
- being honest about constraints, roles and expectations
- demonstrating unity across education, health, care and the voluntary sector
- making space for codesign and joint problem-solving
- ensuring families are equal partners – not observers – in shaping services
- offering a range of engagement methods such as:
- in-person meetings
- online meetings
- hybrid options
- written and digital engagement
- asking participants about communication and access needs in advance
- providing clear agendas and summaries
The Four Cornerstones logo
The Four Cornerstones logo represents our shared commitment to improving the experiences of children and young people with SEND, and their families, across Devon.
It will be used by Devon County Council and our NHS partners in communications, resources and materials that promote or reflect the Four Cornerstones approach.
Permission to use the logo may also be granted to other key partners – including schools, voluntary sector organisations and commissioned services – where they have demonstrated a clear commitment to embedding the Four Cornerstones in their work with families.
This helps ensure the logo remains a trusted symbol of consistent, values‑led practice across the local area.
The logo must be used respectfully and in line with the brand guidance. It should support, not replace, existing organisational branding.
Using the logo consistently reinforces a shared message across Devon: that every interaction with a child, young person or family should reflect Welcome and care, Value and include, Communicate, and Work in partnership.
Where information will be shared
- Email updates and newsletters.
- Parent carer forum website.
- Social media platforms – Devon County Council and CFHD.
- Meetings and engagement events.
- Surveys and consultations.
- Printed materials and accessible documents.
- Community partner networks.
- Schools and SEND services.
Internal communications
Strong internal communication is essential to making the Four Cornerstones part of everyday practice.
When staff across education, health and care share a clear, consistent understanding of what the Cornerstones mean, it becomes much easier to build the culture of trust, inclusion and partnership we want for Devon.
Internal communications play a crucial role in creating this shared understanding – supporting staff to feel confident, aligned and able to champion the behaviours that families say make the biggest difference to their experience.
By investing in clear, regular and well‑coordinated internal messaging, we lay the foundations for lasting culture change across the local area.
- Use branding and logo signage in shared offices and spaces at Devon County Council.
- Provide consistent regular updates in bi-monthly children’s services call.
- Embed messages in channels staff already use – intranet pages, service newsletters, management briefings, team meetings, locality updates, SharePoint sites.
- Give leaders at all levels (team managers, service leads, SENCos, clinicians, early help teams) simple slide decks, talking points, and short scripts so they can confidently cascade consistent messages.
- Maintain Four Cornerstones pages on Inclusion and Learning SharePoint site where staff can find the Four Cornerstones materials, FAQs, brand guidance, templates and the latest updates.
- Deliver short, high-impact internal training through a general awareness training module and include in induction processes.
- Share real examples of good practice through videos and weekly whole-service email from leadership.
- Support psychological safety by reassuring staff that internal communications related to the Cornerstones are about learning, improvement and culture change – not performance management or blame.
How feedback will be collected
- Through the Four Cornerstones survey – a quick and accessible feedback tool that can be used after every connection with services (parent carers; children and young people; practitioners).
- Through follow-up telephone calls to ask about families’ experience after an interaction with services (parent carers).
- Through children and young people’s participation groups (SEND Network for Change; NHS Experts by Experience)
- At in-person connection events held in a locality every term (as a minimum), ensuring families in every area have an annual opportunity to attend (parent carers; children and young people).
- In-person at community meetings and groups. Representatives of the Parent Carer Forum will attend to hear families’ views (parent carers).
- Through existing networks of support such as the Ambassador Volunteer network (parent carers).
Accessibility guidance
- Accessibility requirements: Pages and documents published online must meet WCAG 2.2 AA (or the latest organisational requirement). Provide accessible alternatives for any non-accessible content.
- Offer accessible formats: Provide easy read, large print and accessible digital formats where needed; ensure downloads are accessible and clearly labelled (file type and size).
- Plain English by default: Use everyday terms, avoid acronyms; where unavoidable, expand on first use and include a glossary on longer pages.
- Support digital inclusion: Always provide a clear route to contact a real person (phone, email or post where applicable) and signpost offline options for key journeys.
Roles and responsibilities
Leadership and governance
- Ensure communication aligns with co-production principles.
- Promote the core principles of this strategy.
Practitioners and facilitators
- Facilitate respectful, inclusive discussions.
- Ensure participant voices are heard and valued.
- Provide feedback and updates.
Partners and stakeholders
- Share information openly.
- Support accessible and inclusive engagement.
- Act on feedback where appropriate.
Evaluation strategy
Effective communication will be demonstrated when:
- participants understand the purpose and outcomes of engagement and feel listened to, respected and valued
- participation increases across diverse communities
- feedback influences decisions and service improvements
- trust and positive relationships are strengthened
These will be measured by:
- survey feedback – numbers of surveys completed monthly and average satisfaction scores
- tracking data on reach of surveys
- quality of reporting to the Four Cornerstones Oversight Committee on actions taken by services (to be published as ‘Your Voice in Action’)
This strategy will be reviewed annually.