Together for Short Lives has published a brand new interactive resource to help voluntary sector providers of children’s palliative care – including children’s hospices – to link in with NHS, education and care commissioners and providers in their local community.
We have produced the resource as part of our two-year Department for Education-funded project to engage children’s palliative care in the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms. The new system, brought about by the Children and Families Act 2014, plans to join up assessments, plans and services for children and young people with SEND between the ages of 0 – 25.
Our resource aims to help services identify and engage the people and organisations in their local health, care and education sectors who can be influential in bringing about more integrated assessments and services for children and young people with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. They include commissioners, providers and other system leaders.
Our resource includes:
- stakeholders maps – which show how the money flows and who the important decision-makers are
- advice on how to contact individuals and organisations
- template emails and letters
- key messages about children’s palliative care and life-threatening and life-limiting conditions in children
Families often tell us that the lack of co-ordination and collaboration between services is one of the biggest challenges they face. The SEND reforms offer a really important opportunity for us all to work together around the needs of the child and their family. However the system is complex and it can be a struggle to identify who to talk to locally to make this happen. This is a really useful resource which will help us to link with the range of other local health, education and care services also used by the children with life-limiting conditions that we support. It will also help us to identify who the key local decision makers are, including the commissioners that we should be engaging with
Anne Harris, Director of Care at the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity
