How we can help

All local authorities must arrange for parents, carers of children with SEN or disabilities or young people with SEN or disabilities to have access to Information, Advice and Support Services (IASS) in their area.

If you live in Leicestershire you can access the Leicestershire, Send Information and Advice Service (SENDIASS). If you live in Leicester City you you will need to access the Leicester City SENDIASS team.

We are required, by law, to offer impartial, confidential information, advice, and support to parents, carers, children, and young people about matters related to Special Educational Needs and disability (SEND).

We are a very small team of four part time members of staff that cover the whole of Leicestershire. Our staff are trained and have accurate and up to date knowledge of: 

• Education, social care, and health law relating to SEND 

• National and local policy and practice in meeting SEND 

• SEND processes including Tribunal.

We tailor our support to the individual needs of the referrer and where possible our aim is to build upon the individual’s skills, knowledge, and confidence to promote independence, empowerment and self-advocacy. We don’t work with service users for a certain amount of time or do things on your behalf and we work very differently to other professionals. You can dip in and out for our support as and when required.

As we are such a small team, you may not have the same person working with you each time you refer back to the service but if we can we will try to keep the same officer working with you until a certain piece of work is finished, however this can't always be guaranteed.

We are also developing training for parents, carers, young people and professionals on SEND processes and we are developing our team of experienced volunteers who support us. The volunteers support parents at school meetings.

We support children and young people (between the ages of 0- 25) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their parents and carers to help with any concerns or questions.

We do this by providing a free, impartial and confidential service through our website and online resources.

You can also contact us through our telephone helpline.

SENDIASS in Leicestershire offer information, advice, and support in the following ways:

1. We provide information and advice to parents and carers to enable them to participate as fully as possible in the support they and their family receive.
2. We have our own website independent of Leicestershire County Council.
3. We have a large range of written information in the form of information sheets which are available online and which we will send out, if requested.

Where possible we provide one to one, face to face support directly to:

• parents of children/young people who have SEND
• young people with SEND, and
• children with SEND where it is felt this could lead to better outcomes for all involved. This would include meetings with school, the local authority, and practitioners.

Our service is free, impartial and confidential and we can help with things such as:

• SEND law, legislation and policies
• SEND support in mainstream schools
• Preparing for school meetings and attending a meeting with you if needed
• Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments and plans
• Mediation and SEND tribunal appeals
• Resolving disagreements and complaints procedures
• Specialist schools, settings and provisions
• Preparing for adulthood
• Preparing for educational transitions
• SEND funding
• School transport

We have a telephone helpline and a 24 hours voicemail is available outside of these hours to leave enquiries.

Please note that our duty line is often busy, as we have only one duty officer available to answer the duty line and emails each day. When the officer is on a call, your call will be diverted to a voicemail service and you will be able to leave a message. Email is the best way to get through to us.

We aim to respond as quickly as we can to emails and voicemails, if possible within five working days, but at busier times this can take longer.

Each SENDIASS service should operate as a stand-alone service and where they are an in-house service i.e. the authority does not pay another organisation to provide it, not be part of the authority’s Special Educational Needs service to help ensure and demonstrate impartiality.

Leicestershire SENDIASS sits in The Children and Family Wellbeing Service (Early Help) as part of Leicestershire’s front door to universal services. The SENDIASS Supervisor has line management from a Team and Partnership Manager in the Children and Family Wellbeing Service. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines the expectation Leicestershire County Council has in relation to the SENDIASS service. If you would like a copy of the SLA, please get in touch.

We will not discuss anything you share with us without your consent, unless there is a safeguarding concern, when we will have to share information/talk to the appropriate services needed at that time. 

We also have an advisory panel that meet twice a year, having this panel is part of our National minimum standards and the panel includes representatives from service user groups and key stakeholders from education, social care and health. The advisory panel’s role is to ensure that SENDIASS is appropriately supported to develop good or best practice in all areas, in excess of the minimum required in the quality standards. Also to review the effectiveness of the information, advice, support and training the service gives to parents/carers, children and young people. 

SENDIASS is accountable and governed by our advisory panel, The Information, Advice and Support Services Network (IASSN) funded by the Council for Disabled Children and Ofsted as we are part of the Joint Area Send Inspection.  

More information can be seen on the  Leicestershire County Council Local Offer