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Practitioners working with children and young people (CYP) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have developed a set of engagement tools to capture the voice of the child or young person.
This is not an exhaustive list of tools and the key factors are looking at the individual needs of CYP, their preferred communication method and working with those that know them best.
These tools are intended to:
- enable the child or young person to have a voice which is listened to and acted upon
- enable the child or young person to give their view on the support they receive
- enable the child or young person to identify what help they would like and who from
- enable the child or young person to identify and share what is important to them
- enable practitioners to build positive relationships and gain a better understanding of the child or young person to best support their needs
- enable the child or young person to give their views on actions for change
- enable the child or young person to review what has worked or not worked for them
- improve outcomes and evidence what differences listening to the child or young person has made.
Early Years Toolkit
Sensory Impairment Toolkit
Communication Toolkit
Views Forms and Templates
Useful Websites
www.ndti.org.uk/resources/preparing-for-adulthood-all-tools-resources
- Information and resources to help children and young people express their choices regarding their preparation for adulthood.
helensandersonassociates.com/person-centered-thinking-tools/
- Person-centred thinking tools are a set of easy-to-use templates that are used to give structure to conversations. Using them is a practical way to capture information that feeds into person-centred planning, as well as to improve understanding, communication and relationships.
speechandlanguage.org.uk/educators-and-professionals/resource-library-for-educators/
- Free resources for educators and professionals, designed to help support children facing challenges with talking and understanding words.
www.wholeschoolsend.org.uk/resources/
- The Whole School SEND consortium regularly publishes resources to support with all aspects of SEND. These include SEND Review Guides and Frameworks, leaflets for parents, practical resources to support your work in educational settings, resources for specific contexts such as COVID, CPDL webinar recordings and more.
- Free resources for professionals working with children and families. Includes resources specifically for CYP with SEND: www.socialworkerstoolbox.com/category/disability-disorders/ and resources to discuss wishes and feelings: www.socialworkerstoolbox.com/category/wishes-feelings-2/
- ‘Me First’ is an education and training resource that helps professionals to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence in communicating with children and young people. Their Resource Hub contains some useful tools for gathering children and young people’s views.
- Training materials for teachers of learners with severe, profound and complex learning difficulties. Contains training modules about AAC strategies: complexneeds.org.uk/modules/Module-3.1-Communication—augmentative-and-assistive-strategies/All/m09p040bcd.html
- Useful information booklet: complexneeds.org.uk/modules/Module-3.1-Communication—augmentative-and-assistive-strategies/All/downloads/m09p040bcd/other_ways_of_speaking.pdf
- Contains information and ideas for creative and inclusive strategies.
natspec.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Natspec-LV-Resource-May-2021.pdf
- Contains information and ideas for creative and inclusive strategies.