Our Information, Advice and Support Helpline
December 2021 – Our IAS Helpline
SEND And You’s December topic is a spotlight on the Information, Advice and Support Helpline.
We’ll be asking our helpline staff questions about what they do, and explaining how we support children and young people with SEND and their carers and parents.
Find out more about how we support people by clicking here.
What is the Information, Advice and Support (IAS) Helpline?
SENDIAS is a statutory service, which means there must be one in every local authority. They are free, impartial and confidential.
“Local authorities must arrange for children with SEN or disabilities for whom they are responsible, and their parents, and young people with SEN or disabilities for whom they are responsible, to be provided with information and advice about matters relating to their SEN or disabilities, including matters relating to health and social care.”
– SEND Code of Practice 2015, DfE
All members of our SENDIAS team have completed SEND legal training. This means they can give you legally based information about your rights and responsibilities and those of schools, colleges, the Local Authority and education/other professionals.
We asked our Helpline staff – what does a typical day look like for you?
Here are some of the things they get up to day to day!
🖥️ Set up technology
☕ Make a cup of coffee and log on to see who needs to be contacted and receive new calls and emails – triage priorities
📞 Work through as many cases as possible
💬 Sometimes join meetings on-line with families/young people or attend face to face where needed
👩 Talk to colleagues to check what needs doing and share knowledge about particular requests.
📅 Attend and run evening and day surgeries, Parent support groups, meetings at schools with parents and SENCOs,
🧑💼 Advertise our service widely, give info to Local Authorities to let them know the kind of issues coming up, attend meetings with other services so we know about each other’s work and can support families through sign posting
What should someone expect when they contact the IAS Helpline?
Our SENDIAS service covers all aspects of special educational needs (SEND).
From providing you with information to address your earliest concerns, to helping you with complex legal processes like statutory assessments, Education Health and Care Plans (EHCP), mediation, appeals, exclusions and complaints.
We have a dedicated Information, Advice & Support (IAS) Line with a 24-hour answerphone. We also respond to email queries and have a contact form to receive messages from you via our website.
Find out more about how we support people by clicking here.
What type of enquiries do we receive?
We receive a massive range of enquiries in relation to all things SEND.
We range from those initial queries to when parents may have first be told or realise their child has or may have SEND, those that have children receiving SEND support in schools and have queries over the level of support and those that are going through the process of getting an EHCP or appealing a part of this process.
We deal with all different types of level of SEND support and can also deal with some concerns over health and social care input including signposting if needed.
Do you have to complete lots of training to work on the IAS Line?
“I had to undertake all 3 Levels of IPSEA legal training and also have regular safeguarding training to be able to do my role.” – Sam, North Somerset Area Practitioner
“Yes levels 1, 2 and 3 in SEN Adviser’s Legal Training and ongoing further training every year to keep up to date and learn even more.” – Kate, Information, Advice and Support Worker
Our staff also attend regular training on SEND issues and are fully Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checked. This means a check has been done to make sure they can work with vulnerable groups, children and young people.
The standards expected of all SENDIAS services are set out in the IASSN Minimum Standards.
We’ve been asking our helpline staff questions about what they do day to day.
🏢 Where do you normally work?
“Currently one day a week in the office and one day at home – going out to face to face meetings when needed.” – Kate, Information, Advice and Support Worker
“A mixture of at home and from our office based in Bristol. I also work out within North Somerset at events within my North Somerset work.” - Sam, North Somerset Area Practitioner
🤔 Why do you work for SEND and You?
“It combines my interest in special needs provision, people, my previous job as a teacher and learning something new every day in a warm organisation.” – Kate, Information, Advice and Support Worker
From providing you with information to address your earliest concerns, to helping you with complex legal processes like statutory assessments, Education Health and Care Plans (EHCP), mediation, appeals, exclusions and complaints.
We have a dedicated Information, Advice & Support (IAS) Line with a 24-hour answerphone. We also respond to email queries and have a contact form to receive messages from you via our website.
We’ve asked our helpline staff some questions about what they do day to day in their roles within the IAS Helpline.
🤔 What if you don’t know the answer to a question?
“We use the legal training resources we have, talk to colleagues to share experience, use the information collected on our HELPLINE files, national information –e.g. IPSEA- to get up dated information, occasionally use national SENDIASS forum to ask others.” – Kate, Information, Advice and Support Worker
“Sometimes we will need to go away and look into the laws and guidance surrounding your question. If this happens we will let you know what we are doing and when we aim to get back to you with a response. We want to make sure we are giving you the most accurate information.” – Sam, North Somerset Area Practitioner
All of our SENDIAS staff are independently trained to give you accurate, useful, relevant information and advice about special educational needs/disabilities. They’ll use their knowledge and experience to support you in making decisions about educational issues and concerns.
Find out more about how we support people by clicking here.
We’ve asked our helpline staff some questions about what they do day to day in their roles within the IAS Helpline.
🤔 What would you like people to know about your job?
“It is very interesting, the people we help appreciate what we do usually, it is very stressful at times as many stressed people call in who are dealing with difficult situations, we are a very supportive team and love working together, we are good at what we do.” – Kate, Information, Advice and Support Worker
“I would say the most rewarding thing about my job is knowing you are helping and supporting service users to navigate their way through some of the special needs processes. When you have a child yourself with SEND you understand how overwhelming some of these processes can be. It is so important that service users are equipped with the right information so as to empower them through these processes and to understand the law and their rights.” – Sam, North Somerset Area Practitioner
🗨️ Here’s some of the recent feedback on our IAS Helpline from service users…
“I’ve had emails and phone calls plus a face to face meeting and I’m still having ongoing support. I really can’t thank SEND and You enough already as finally after 3 years of struggling to get help and support at school for my daughter the ball has started rolling and hopefully we will get somewhere very soon with SEN and an EHCP. My support worker is a lovely friendly lady and I felt extremely comfortable sharing personal information with her to receive help.”
“The person I spoke to was very kind and friendly and the information I was given was explained clearly. Thank you very much for all your support.”
“Just exactly what I needed, very grateful. Thanks.”
We have three teams of staff. They specialise in working in the Bristol, North Somerset or South Gloucestershire areas respectively. Each team is led by a ‘Local Area Co-ordinator’, supported by a number of ‘Information Advice and Support Workers’. You may meet our Co-ordinators and other team members at our regular parent support groups, workshops, evening surgeries or parent courses. Our staff respond to your calls to our Information, Advice & Support (IAS) line or your emails.
Find out more about how we support people by clicking here.
