I’m writing to let you know about a new training offer for parents/carers of children and young people with SEND in the local area.

Engagement with parents and carers has told us they want access to a training offer that helps build their knowledge, confidence and skills in SEND. We asked parents/carers to provide some suggestions of topics for training, and using their responses a programme of training has been developed to cover the following:

• SEND Law: A series of six sessions that will provide an outline of the SEND Code of Practice, the EHCNA process, Annual Review, Transport and Post-16 education; provided by Claire Jackson of SENETA.
• Sensory Integration: A series of 3 sessions that will help parents understand and identify sensory needs, how to manage them and some further specific training on how it can affect eating/sleeping. This will be provided by Claire Stirland of Sensory Worx.
• Mental Health: A series of 3 sessions covering understanding attachment, depression, self-harm, eating disorders and the fight/flight/freeze response. This will be provided by Marie Johnson. Marie is a clinical specialist/ASD and specialist mental health teacher
• Challenging Behaviour:  A series of 4 sessions demonstrating how to effectively support your child to succeed academically and socially at school and at home looking specifically at neurodiversity, structure and how to build resilience in children/young people. Fin O’Regan of SF30 will be providing this training
• FASD & Trauma: A two session insight into FASD and trauma, what this means for the child/young person and how it can impact them. NICE Guidance for FASD quality standards is due later in the year and the training will be updated to reflect this as well. The training will be provided by Brian Roberts of Field of Enterprise
• Makaton: Level 1 & 2 training for parents/carers in how to use Makaton to support their child/young person to be delivered by Mike Harris of Sign & Symbol
• Autism: Series of monthly workshops to be delivered and 1-1 sessions for parents/carers to put what they learn into practice. This will be delivered by the family development team at North East Autism Society headed up by Kerrie Highcock.
• Autism: Dean Beadle is an autistic speaker will be delivering three sessions, covering autistic identity, social/emotional/sensory needs and anxiety. He gives his personal perspective to help parents and and carers to better understand Autism.

The training aims to increase parents’ and carers’ knowledge and understanding of these topics, enabling them to meet their child/young person’s needs better, and improve their confidence in ensuring that needs are being met by agencies involved with their child. At the moment, we expect training to be offered on-line though this may change if and when face to face gatherings are possible.  Spaces are limited for each course

Booking information for parents – All of the available training can be booked online through our Eventbrite page (link below): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/send-local-offer-south-tyneside-32567325573