A consortium between Funded by

Derby SEND Participation Event

13th November 2019

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 This report will document the process of development and delivery of the SEND

Youth Participation Event held in Derby on the 13th 2019, and offer constructive

conclusions and recommendations to further develop work in the area.

This event followed a previous gathering of young disabled people. Both events have

been designed to develop the Local Offer in Derby. KIDS facilitation of both events

was funded by the Department of Education as part of the Making Participation Work

project.

Overview of Event:

KIDS participation team (staff and young people co-delivery team) travelled to Derby

to work with young people from across the county. The event was held at the St

James’ Centre with young people who access Funability, a day centre for young

people with disabilities.

The event focused on the development of the Local Offer, paying particular interest

to the Young people’s Hub section. The aim was to involve young people’s views in

the design, content and layout of this section.

10 young people, plus their support workers, joined in the event.

Recommendations

The following recommendations have been drawn together for the Local Authority.

They are supported by evidence presented later within the report, the appendices

and professional experience gathered through the MPW project.

1. Continue discussions with young disabled people, to understand their ideas

and to encourage their thinking, independent from the adults around them.

2. Use the information gathered to create effective support for young people,

share with the appropriate professionals.

3. Communicate back to young people with evidence on what changes have

been made as a result of the suggestions they had made in the event. This is

important in making sure the young people feel valued and motivated to

continue in sharing their opinions.

4. Run similar events across Derby in order to continue the development of

Youth Voice across Derby. It is recommended that the Local Authority follow

on from the Challenge set (Details at the end of this report.)

Introduction

Derby Local Authority contacted KIDS through the Making Participation Work (MPW)

project, which is funded by the Department for Education to consult on how to

progress SEND participation in the local areas.

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Colleagues from Derby sought a development day session that they would be able to

replicate in other settings. The following themes were agreed:

- What is important to young people?

- Health and Well-being

- Socialising

- Preparing for Adulthood.

The Event Day

The event was held at St James’ Centre in Central Derby on the 13th November

2019. It started at 10:30am and finished at 2:00pm.

The event was attended by 10 young people. They were supported by staff, although

young people were encouraged to be as independent as possible.

All young people were provided with a workbook in advance of the day, to support

their experience at the event. This resource was coproduced by the KIDS

participation team and forwarded to all support staff the week before the event.

The event started with an ice breaker to get people talking to each other and help

them feel at ease sharing with the group. There was a lot of energy in the room as

most people spoke about how excited they were to be there.

We then created a Group Agreement which was designed to ensure that everyone

got the most out of the day, felt relaxed, was able to join in and have fun. (Appendix

1)

A group discussion followed, themed “What is the Local Offer?” The aim was to

explore participants experience and knowledge on this subject. After a quick hands

up, hands down exercise to see how many people had heard of it, had looked at it,

had used it we created a visual about all the different things you might use the Local

Offer to find out about. (Appendix 1)

We then watched a short video which showcased some work the KIDS Participation

Team had completed in other areas to give the group an idea of the sort of things

they could do.

During the event young people completed different activities all designed to get their

views on different parts of the young people’s hub on the Local Offer website and

find out what is important to them

Below you will find further detail about each activity, the summaries and

recommendations. There are photos of each activity included in the appendix.

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Activity 1 – Drop Down Expanders for the Young People’s Hub

This activity was designed to help the Local Authority decide the order in which they

wanted information on the Local Offer website to be presented. On the Young

People’s Hub part of the Local Offer website, there are some drop down expanders

which are designed to make the website easy to navigate. The Local Authority

wanted the young people’s ideas on what order they should be presented.

The young people were given pieces of paper with the drop down expanders written

on each one. Their task was to order the pieces of paper in order of importance to

them. They were asked to put the most important one at the top and the least at the

bottom.

This was done in pairs and there was a lot of discussion and swapping and changing

of the order. This is great as it shows that what is important to one person will be

different to what is important to another.

The young people were encouraged by their support workers to make sure they

were thinking about what is important to them and not thinking about what they knew

their parents, support staff, teachers would tell them is important. This was more

difficult for some young people and became an exercise in practicing the skills

related to participation, such as sharing their opinions and really considering what

they believe is important to them.

Leaving Home and Living Independently came in the top 3 in 5 of the pairs out of a

total of 9 pairs of Young people. As did Travel and Transport and YouTube Videos.

You can see the full order in the photos included in the appendix. (Appendix 2)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Health andWell being

LeavingHome

Education Relationships

Money Travel Youtube Socialising

Order of Importance for Young people in Derby

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Recommendation 1

It is essential to continue discussions with young people around their ideas and

encourage them to think independently from the adults around them. This can be a

difficult to develop and comes with people regularly asking their opinions and seeing

evidence of change from it.

As per the Children and Families Act 2014 (section 30) the local authority must keep

its Local Offer under review and make provision for the consultation of children and

young people with SEND and their parents and carers.

This consultation should include, but is not limited to, the services and information

children and young people require, how this information is to be published and how

they can comment on the Local Offer. The Act also states that the local authority

must seek children and young people’s comments on the content of its Local Offer,

the accessibility of the information, and how it consults with them.

During this activity young people were given the opportunity to comment on the

importance of the information on the Local Offer. What they would see as being the

most important and least important. These should be used to inform the Local Offer.

Recommended order as follows:

1. Use of YouTube videos

2. Leaving Home

3. Travel

4. Socialising

5. Relationships

6. Health and Well being

7. Education

8. Money

Activity 2 – Health and Well-Being

The aim of this activity was to understand how young people feel when they attend

different services in Derby. The Local Authority were interested in hearing about how

young people feel at these services and what can be done to make the feel more

comfortable.

This activity was undertaken using flipcharts and asking young people to write and

draw on them. Alternatively, young people could stick some pre-prepared symbols to

the flip chart sheet. (Appendix 3)

The young people were encouraged to think about “How They Feel When…” they

attended different health services.

To start this activity we had a discussion about which health services the young

people used. The young people called out ideas such as Drs, hospital, Opticians,

Dentist, physio therapy and speech and language therapy. These were added to the

Local Offer poster created at the beginning of the day. This was to encourage the

participants to think about the different services they use and a reminder what why

we were doing this activity.

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 We then split up into three groups. Each group used flip chart paper with one of the

following headings:

- Dentist

- Doctors

- Hospital

They were encouraged to think about how they feel at each of these places. Do they

feel nervous? Scared? Confused? Safe? Comfortable? And what makes them feel

like this. They were given different emoji’s which they could use to help them

describe these feelings and were encouraged to stick them on the paper, draw and

write their ideas down. Their support staff also helped by recording some of the

discussions going on. (Appendix 3)

Everyone had a turn at looking at each flip chart as the groups moved around.

Everyone was given a coloured dot to stick on the poster that made them feel the

most anxious. The hospital poster got the most number of dots, a total of 5, followed

by the Doctors at 3 and finally the Dentist at 2 dots.

Once each group worked with a flip chart, we came together as a group to think

about what could be done to make you feel more comfortable in each of these

places. A common suggestion was calming music playing in waiting rooms, and for

snacks, drinks to be available.

Recommendation 2

Use the information gathered within this activity to create effective support for young

people attending these places, and share with the appropriate professionals. This

activity gives a good insight into how young people feel about the health services in

Derby. Information could be shared on the Local Offer in this section about what to

expect in these places and what support is available to young people.

Activity 3 – Socialising.

This activity was designed to find out about what young people in Derby like to do,

where they go, why they go there, what it is that appeals to them. From this

information, the Local Authority plan on ensuring the services in their directory are

labelled as SEND aware. They will also be able to see what services are missing

from Derby that young people would like to see more of.

The KIDS participation team prepared a large roll of paper with different activities

and types of activities that young people might do. This was laid out on a long table

which the participants sat around with their support staff. Each was given coloured

markers and asked to think about the different ideas that were already there, add to

them and discuss the points in more detail. The support staff recorded their answers

and the young people drew or wrote their ideas too. (appendix 4)

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Activity 4 – Preparing for Adulthood

The aim of this activity was to find out from young people what is important to them

in terms of preparing for adulthood. This would then influence the content of the

Local Offer.

The KIDS Participation Team designed a worksheet based on the key elements of

preparing for adulthood.

- Keeping Healthy

- Keeping friends and building relationships

- Being independent

- Doing my part

- What I like to do

This table shows the results of this exercise

Challenge

At the end of the day we set the group of young people and their support staff a

challenge with the aim of encouraging further development of the local offer, as

well as to cement the understanding of the young people involved, encourage

them to use the Local Offer and continue to have their voice heard.

Being Independent

Doing my part

Keeping Friends and Relationships

Keeping Healthy

What I like to do

Where do the busses go How much are the tickets? What times do they go where? How to make a shopping list What foods are healthy Look at different shops like Asda, Aldi, Tesco. Would like to live close to activities Buy my own food.

When can we can do work experience and volunteering? Places we can do it? Helping at St James’ centre. Washing up.

Shopping Work Youth Club

Going to the doctors

Shopping Going places with support worker St James’ Centre Watching YouTube videos Dancing Football Sports clubs Bowling Climbing Listening to pop music

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 The challenge we set was to visit the Funability page on the Derby Local Offer

Website and to evaluate it, as well as design their own page.

Recommendation 3

We recommend that this work is then forwarded on to the Local Offer Lead and

that any changes that are made are shared with the Young People involved.

Conclusions

The young people and support staff had an opportunity to evaluate the day as it

was coming to an end. This was done by calling out the different activities

undertaken and asking people to stand at different points on a line to show how

they felt about it 0-10, with 10 being at one side of the room and 0 being at the

other.

Overall the feedback was very successful and both the young people and support

workers enjoyed the session. They had fun and enjoyed getting involved. It is

recommended that activities are kept short and quick paced in any future

sessions.

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Appendix 1

Group agreement exercise

Local Offer ideas

Appendix 2

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Appendix 2

Drop Down Expanders Exercise in photos.

Appendix 2

Derby participation event – 13/11/19

Appendix 3

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Appendix 3

Health and Well Being exercise in photos

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Appendix 4

Socialisation exercise in photos.

Derby participation event – 13/11/19 Appendix 5

Preparing for Adulthood exercise in photos

Derby participation event – 13/11/19

Derby participation event – 13/11/19