What to include in a request for an Educational, Health, Care needs assessment

SENA will use this information along with information from the school or setting to make their decision about whether to assess your child or not.

It is important that they fully understand what you think your child’s needs are and what support they might need. Describe your child to them and give as much detail and examples as possible.        

A brief history might be helpful to begin with or a timeline of when you first started to think that your child had any additional needs and a description of what you noticed. You could think about their milestones of development.

You could answer these questions individually or write your response as one continuous piece of text. Your answers do not need to be long and you do not need to use legal language. Try to make your points clearly, you could think about using bullet points. Keep to the facts and provide evidence where you can and try not to give your opinion on the current school or settings practices, as there is a separate process for making a complaint. Below are the 8 questions or prompts to help you. 

1. What do people like and admire about your child? 

Here you should think about any positive comments that people make about them, or what positive qualities you feel they have?

2. What is important to your child? 

This is what your child would say if you asked them what was important to them. It may include things such as people they like, family pets, topics that they like, games they like, what they might want to do in the future, and places that they like to go.

3. What is important for your child? 

This is where you can tell the local authority about your concerns that have led to you wanting the EHC needs assessment. Think about what you feel is important for them in the following areas, what needs are you seeing? Can you think of any support, equipment, or strategies that they might they need to help manage them?                                                    

Communication and Interaction;

Think about what difficulties they have understanding others or letting you know what they need. Are there regular issues or conflicts at school with their peers (other students) or members of staff? Are they displaying challenging behaviours?                             

Cognition and learning;

Think about what areas they struggle with, what type of learning environment they prefer, and do they respond better to information in a particular format such as written down, verbally or in picture form. Do they need the work explained differently to them? Do they need the work set to be broken down in smaller manageable sized chunks?

Social emotional and Mental Health;

Are they able to make and maintain friendships? Think about how they behave at home, at school and in other settings – does it change depending on where they are and what they are doing? Are they struggling with their mental health and what impact does this have on them in school and at home?  

Physical and or Sensory Needs;

Can they use equipment independently or do they need support? Do they have any motor skill difficulties such as with writing, holding pens, holding scissors, tying shoe laces? Can they dress and undress independently? Are they able to use the toilet independently? Can they eat their lunch independently and use cutlery? Are they sensitive to light, sounds, foods, different environments, crowds? Do they need to fidget or move about?             

Independence and Self Care; 

Are they able to care for themselves? Do they understand concepts such as road safety, using money, time, and stranger danger? Are they able to get themselves dressed, cook, and look after their personal hygiene?

4. What things are working well for your child? 

Think about what has a positive impact on their social, emotional and academic development. Is there any support already in place that they are responding well to and think about why this has been beneficial for them?

5. What things are not working so well for your child? 

Think about why they may not be making progress or are feeling unhappy at school? Has anything been put in place at school to support them? Was something going to be put in place but then wasn’t?

Remember that this request is not to be used to make a complaint about the current school or setting, there is a separate process for this that can be found on our making a complaint page.

6. What other information needs to be known for your child to be happy, healthy and safe? 

Think about things such as road safety, ability to travel safely, social awareness and expectations for behaviour and stranger danger. Can they keep themselves safe or do they rely heavily on adult supervision and support?      

Are they feeling happy? If not, what do they want or need to be different for them? Think about their mood swings and reactions to new situations, do they shout and scream? Do they struggle with transitions?

Are there any health or medical needs? Think about any medications, aids, sessions or appointments that they have with any specialists.                                

7. What are your aspirations for the child’s future? 

What do you want for them in the future? You might think about things such as employment or training, independence, social goals and their overall wellbeing.

8. What outcomes would you like to see the child achieve? 

An EHCP will have outcomes for your child to work towards. What would you like to see in these outcomes? Which areas does your child need support with? Examples could be as making friends, making progress academically, learning to control their emotions or self-care. 

If possible, it is helpful to let your child describe their own views on their aspirations and goals for the future, and their education, health and care needs/provision.  What do they see as a difficult in school/college and what support they feel they need or what support is working well?

This can be done in many ways, your school may have already talked to your child to gather their views or, older children may want to write it down. They may wish to include photos of them enjoying their favourite activities or doing the things that they love the most. Your child may wish to draw a picture, make a collage, make a PowerPoint presentation or to do a short video talking about their views.

Parents of a child with an EHC plan, or a young person with an EHC plan, can request a personal budget either during the drafting of an EHC plan or once the plan has been issued and is under review.

A Personal Budget for SEND is money identified to pay for support specified in an Education, Health and Care plan (EHC plan) for a child or young person with special educational needs. Schools and colleges are usually responsible for arranging the support identified in the plan (such as speech therapy) but some parents may prefer to take on these arrangements themselves. However, if a personal budget is requested for such a provision then this has to be agreed in the first instance with the school or educational setting to ensure that they are happy to allow them on site.

Personal Budgets can be used only to fund the support set out in an EHC plan. You can speak to the SENA department at the local authority to discuss this further.

Leicestershire County Council SENA team 
Call: 0116 305 6600 during office hours
Email: SenaService@leics.gov.uk
Contact the SENA Service