Lincolnshire's Inclusion Strategy 2025-26

We want high quality local support and services across Lincolnshire that provide effective early intervention for children and young people, ensuring access to resources that promote confidence, respect and inclusion.   Effective support and inclusive provision that offers the best experiences and outcomes so that children and young people can thrive.   

What we have achieved so far:

• the partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools (PINS) project, with LPCF playing a leading role, tested an innovative model for efficient deployment of specialist health workforce and strengthened effective parent/carer and school partnerships in mainstream education settings to support neurodiverse pupils.  The project was delivered in 39 primary mainstream schools in Boston South Holland, with positive feedback from NHS England, schools and families  
• where independent specialist provision is appropriate, we have implemented block commissioning arrangements to maximise value for money from spend within the high needs block.  This has reduced average placement cost by 11% for blocked commissioned placements, with 15% more children and young people being educated in Lincolnshire placements from 2023-24     
• SEND placement management meetings have been embedded, enabling the local authority to look strategically across independent placements and incoming referrals.  They consider referrals alongside demand, and facilitate co-ordination of placement sufficiency in both maintained settings and the independent market.  This is to ensure that the right children and young people are placed in the right settings and access education as close to home as possible
• children’s integrated commissioning team (CICT) with Lincolnshire community health services (LCHS) NHS trust have completed a review of Lincolnshire’s speech and language therapy (SALT) service and made recommendations for a new model of support 
• SALT will continue to prioritise those children and young people with highest need, providing safety netting advice whilst children are waiting for therapy so that the team of support around the child have strategies and programme of work in place
• the extended communication and language impairment provision for students (ECLIPS) team have joined with Lincolnshire’s virtual school to roll out the inclusion project.  This pilot involves working alongside school staff to implement ‘language for behaviour and emotion’ intervention.  ECLIPS are providing training and support to tailor intervention to meet the language needs of children and young people at risk of exclusion that are under the care of the virtual school.  This is expanded to support other pupils in the school and inform whole school approaches to behaviour management linked to the impact language difficulties have on behaviour    
• the L.E.A.D. teaching school hub Lincolnshire is one of 87 nationally DfE designated centres of excellence, commissioned by the DfE they have continued to provide high quality professional development and support in initial teacher training, early career guidance and quality assurance, specialist and leadership qualifications, and pathways to retain and develop expertise    
• the L.E.A.D. teaching school hub Lincolnshire has continued to embed the DfE accredited tiered approach to SEND professional development ‘how best to support provision in mainstream’ across headteachers and senior leaders, middle leaders, teachers and support staff.  80% of schools worked with L.E.A.D professionals development services, rating the quality as 97% good or better  
• the recommissioned early learning and portage service has been embedded and is part of careful monitoring and quality assurance of positive impact, key performance outcomes and value for money for children and their families.  The service is also closely linked to Lincolnshire’s family hub offer, maximising the support offer available to children and their families
• we will continue to develop a sensory processing difficulties (SPD) support model.  Bespoke SPD workshops are now part of the NHS Lincolnshire integrated care board (ICB)’s core offer and further workshops are scheduled to be delivered for families and professionals
• the children and young people’s mental health transformation programme has been completed, with recommendations to transform and improved provision being embedded over the next 5 years starting in 2025-26 
• the rising demand for domiciliary care provision has been met through engagement with specialist domiciliary care providers to match demand with capacity in the marketplace and adjustments to the commission requirements.  There has been a significant increase in delivery with care provided in a timely manner
• SEND caseworkers and social workers contribute to care education and treatment reviews (CETRs) and discharge meetings to prevent readmission.  The dynamic support register (DSR) meetings have become more confident and focused as individuals understand their roles and the role of their service area in preventing admissions where possible.  As a result, the number of children and young people who are in-patients has remained at zero or low throughout the year
• to further support schools with ensuring they implement and maintain robust checks, procedures and oversight of alternative provision arrangements they have in place, we have developed a register for schools to inform the local authority of the providers they are commissioning.  The alternative provision guidance document  provides guiding principles for Lincolnshire schools, to ensure that children and young people benefit from high quality alternative provision, which is safe, secure and appropriate to their individual needs   
• workshops have been completed to develop a new model for neurodevelopmental assessment that will improve support, reduce waiting times and simplify the process for families.  While the development of a new model takes place funding investment has been made to improve the autism assessment capacity in 2024-25   
• the local authority’s occupational therapy team have invested in additional occupational therapy positions and a dedicated team manager position, to support timely assessments taking place.  Robust case triage has continued to take place and waiting times are reduced  
• there has been promotion of how personal budgets can be accessed by families of children and young people with an EHC plan, including presentations that took place at the LPCF week of SEND and information on Lincolnshire’s local offer.  More families are accessing personal budgets for elements of provision within an EHC plan
• we have continued Lincolnshire’s investment of over £100m in specialist provision, increasing special school capacity by over 500 places.  We are awaiting further information from the DfE regarding the announcement that Lincolnshire was successful in their free school bid to build an additional special school to meet children and young people’s social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs          
• the occupational therapy advice line has been embedded as part of the service’s universal offer, and is open to families, education and medical staff.  It will continue to be monitored, reviewed and evaluated to support ongoing developments to maximise available support and its impact

  
What we will do next: 

• we will continue to work collaboratively with the NHS Lincolnshire integrated care board (ICB), the working together team and LPCF to see how lessons learnt from the PINS project can be embedded into existing autism and learning difficulties outreach services.  We will consider the national evaluation of the project, due in autumn 2025, and how this can also be used to shape future delivery  
• where independent specialist provision is appropriate, we will continue to implement block commissioning arrangements to maximise value for money from our spending within the high needs block  
• we will continue to work towards a specialist speech and language therapy (SALT) service delivery model that is sustainable, within available resources and accessible by children and young people and their families  
• we will continue to develop new ways of working, ensuring opportunities are maximised to access universal, targeted and specialist support for speech, language and communication needs, including the embedding of a digital platform to support SALT triage and access to advice
• the ECLIPS team will complete the roll out of the inclusion project, supporting involved school staff with individualised target setting and modelling practice to enable the work to be expanded throughout the schools.  The pilot will collate and analyse data to measure impact and inform next steps    
• the L.E.A.D. teaching school hub Lincolnshire will continue providing a range of high-quality professional development and support in initial teacher training, early career guidance and quality assurance, specialist and leadership qualifications, and pathways to retain and develop expertise to meet children and young people’s needs
• we will implement the recommendations from CYP mental health transformation programme for 2025-26, including continued expansion of mental health support teams, developing and improving provision, pathways and access to mental health support and services    
• we will continue to support schools with ensuring they implement and maintain robust checks, procedures and oversight of any Alternative Provision arrangements they have in place for provision they directly commission.  We will consider how we can further strengthen existing tracking and assurance mechanisms
• where there are gaps in our children and young people autism and neurodevelopmental diagnostic pathways, we will develop appropriate commissioning plans and seek to put in place the necessary arrangements  
• we will continue to develop plans for how the existing autism diagnostic pathway for children and young people can be transformed to implement a new improved co-produced pathway.  While this takes place, funding investment will be made to improve autism assessment capacity in 2025-26
• we will await further information from the DfE regarding Lincolnshire’s successful free school bid to build a new SEMH special school.  While awaiting this, we will continue to invest in robust provision to meet children and young people’s needs  
• short breaks are designed to give disabled children the opportunity to enjoy activities and experiences outside their home environment, while also providing their families with much-needed respite from caregiving responsibilities. We will open the commissioned Maples short-breaks home to further strengthen Lincolnshire’s short breaks offer