What is Bucks SENDIAS
What to expect from Bucks SENDIAS
Our service is here to help Buckinghamshire children and young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 years and their parents or carers. We offer information, advice and support on all matters related to SEND. We are a small team of advisers supported by business support officers. Some of our team are volunteers.
We operate all year round, including in school holidays. Our service is:
- free of charge
- confidential
- impartial, neutral, we don’t take sides
- at arm’s length from Buckinghamshire Council and health services
All our advisers are trained in SEND law, but are not legally qualified. You may get help from any of the team, we keep records so that whoever you are dealing with will know what you have already told us, so you won’t have to keep repeating it.
We use a triage system to decide in what order we will respond to queries and how much help we will give and what type of help we will give.
Read our leaflet for more information.
How we respond to you
You should expect an email response within 10 working days of submitting your contact form. This email will contain information to help answer your query. This may include weblinks and written information, short films and webinars. Make use of the information. If you find this difficult, you could ask a friend to help you.
If you have provided your email address and do not receive an email response within 10 days of contacting us, check your spam or junk folder.
You should expect a call from an adviser if our email response says you will be getting one. You may have to wait several weeks for a call from an adviser or you may get a call in a few days, it depends on the query you have. We will do our best to get to you as quickly as we can. Whilst you wait for a call, make use of the information we send you. The adviser will refer to the information in their call.
A trainee Volunteer SENDIAS Adviser may join the call to listen in for training purposes.
Support with meetings and tribunals
Our advice may include helping you to prepare for a meeting. In exceptional circumstances we may be able to attend a meeting with you, this will usually be remotely.
We can help you to start a Tribunal appeal and can provide advice once you have received your response from the local authority. In exceptional circumstances we will act as your representative, provide case management support and/or attend hearings.
Once we have provided all the help we can, we will withdraw so that we can work with other service users.
Once we have dealt with your first query, you will need to send in a new online form if you have a further query. Your query may be dealt with by another adviser.
How we look after your information
The Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulate the way we use your personal information.
You have the right for your personal information to be treated securely, confidentially and with sensitivity and respect. We would only share information without your consent in very exceptional circumstances when there is reason to believe there is a risk of harm to a child, a young person or a third party.
Refer to our Privacy Notice for further information.
We won’t let other people or services know that you have contacted us unless you want us to. The only exception is if there is a child protection enquiry about you or your child.
With your permission, we may sometimes contact other people or services on your behalf. This might be if it is difficult for you to do so yourself.
This includes relevant professionals in education, health and social care, for example, a social worker, health visitor, family support worker or SENCo. We will discuss with you who it might be useful to contact and will only do so if you agree.
If you are already receiving personalised SEND advice from paid consultants or lawyers, our help will be limited to signposting to avoid duplication and confusion.
How you can help us
Self-serve as much as you can, if you are able to, these websites may be useful.
- If you are new to SEND, this is a good place to start: Get started with SEND
- IPSEA - offers free and independent legally based information, advice and support to help get the right education for children and young people with all kinds of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
- Contact - helps families feel valued, supported, confident and informed
- Child Law Advice - providing specialist advice and information on child, family and education law to parents, carers and young people in England
- Bucks Local Offer for SEND sets out the support available in Buckinghamshire for children and young people aged 0 to 25 with SEND
- try our webchat service available on Mondays 1 to 3pm and Fridays 10am to 12 midday during school term time. You can open a chat at these times from the Contact us page
Let us know if you will need extra help to be able to use our service. Perhaps English is an additional language for you. Perhaps you have a disability. We will do our best to help.
We need your help to improve our service. You can use our webform to give feedback. We also send out surveys to you if you have consented to receive these.
If you are dissatisfied with our service and want to discuss your concern, contact us.
If you wish to make a formal complaint, see the Complain about our services page