Representatives of schools and colleges across Shropshire asked for the advice on applying for EHCPs to be clearer and for phrases that were open to interpretation to be tightened up.

The SEN team agreed to overhaul the advice and this has been promptly updated on the website

The home page is family friendly and inviting, are there any plans to update where the links send you to make them inviting too?

The icons have now also been added to the click through pages to hopefully help make this more inviting and also be a clear link back to the topic page. We are also working with DASH arts group to create more images and videos for use on the Local Offer website.

Financial Support option – only contains ENCP personal Budget. I was anticipating seeing information on benefits and social care direct payments like turn2us etc,

This section has been updated with additional information including links to;

• Benefits and help for disabled people https://www.gov.uk/browse/disabilities
• Citizens Advice Shropshire - free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities
• Department for Work and Pensions - government advice on employment, benefits and pensions
• A4U - action, advice and advocacy from a local perspective
• Family Fund - helping disabled children through grant funding
• Disability Living Allowance – find out how to claim for a child under the age of 16
• Carer’s Allowance – find out what you may be entitled to if you care for someone
• Access to work fund
• Turn 2 us

I spent about 15 minutes trying to find the link to register for the All In Programme. I feel that the registration form is quite hidden and not easy to find.

This has been added to other sections of the website, including Things to Do

The family Support button could assume the other sections aren’t support mechanisms for families eg DCT, early help are support for families.

The introductory paragraph has been extended to explain that family support comes in many forms and that some helpful forms of support have been gathered together on this page, but the Family Information Directory is also listed as a comprehensive list. The DCT and Early help are now included in the main links on the page.

A good redesigned site. However the wording could be changed from "free childcare" to funded. The use of the word free is becoming very misleading.

The 'Early years support (age 0-6) page' has been amended to refer to funded childcare to avoid any confusion about what is available.

I think you should title the things to do section differently - you are on a page that is titled 'things to do' and then it says click 'things to do' to see our directory, that is confusing. I would also put that as a clearer button, links in text with subtle colour changes are difficult to see if you are visually impaired.

Wording within this section has been amended to refer to the directory and not just another 'Things to do' link within the page.

Links have been updated to be bold and underlined, not just a different colour to ensure that visually impaired users can navigate easily.  

It would be nice to have pictures of the services within the directory to help young people identify them.

The SEND Local Offer Directory has been migrated onto a platform that has the facility to do this. We moved from a tool provided by FutureGov to using an existing Open Objects platform. This has also improved access to the Family Information Service from within the SEND local offer.

We would like tutorials on how to use the local offer.

We're now exploring how we can create and upload topic specific tutorial videos to the website to help you navigate the service better. We have also provided ‘local offer training’ to many schools, parent carer groups, and providers to help them to help you use the SEND local offer better.

We'd like a phone number to contact the SEND Local Offer team.

A dedicated phone number has now been created which takes you through to our customer care team. The customer care team receive regular training and updates to keep them up to date on how they can best help you.

I didn’t realise the SEN Team was approachable for advice, is it ok to phone them?

Yes of course, we've added the contact details of the SEN team to the Local Offer pages, along with contact details of other useful services.

Can the search bar for the Local Offer be at the top of the webpage?

Great idea. We’ve taken this on board and moved the search bar to the top right-hand side of the home page.

I searched for 16-19 and nothing came up

Searching 16-19 now provides information on transport, next steps following school and further education providers. We're also talking to colleagues in transition teams to improve the information available on preparing for adulthood. 

I looked for holiday clubs for children over 11 and couldn't find anything

This now links to All-in provision and short breaks information. We've also included links from the home page to the events diary and the Family Information Service directory which also lists things to do and places to go during the holidays. 

Health section has good links

Thank you for the feedback. We're working with health colleagues to ensure that information on health services continues to be comprehensive, accurate and up to date. 

I like the Health, Social Care and Education buttons

 That’s great to hear, we are working with parents on changing the home page, so that it's easier to access the information parents want. We have an event planned in March to look at the home page and hope to have any changes made live by April.

I'd like the homepage buttons to be Early Years, Primary. Secondary, Post 16.

We're working with parents on changing the homepage so that it's easier to access the information parents want. We have an event planned in March, with a plan to make the changes live by April. 

What age does it go up to?

We’ve hopefully made this clear from the introductory paragraph on the homepage, which says The SEND local offer is a single place for information, services, and resources for children and young people aged 0-25 with special educational needs and/or disabilities, their families, and the practitioners who support them.

I've looked at other Local Offer sites and like the use of photos of the services; it makes the page relatable

We're working with our Communications team to produce a library of photos and images we can use throughout the site.

Who manages the Shropshire Council Local Offer Facebook page? Can you develop this area?

We now have regular posts on the Local Offer social media pages, covering both Facebook and Twitter. We've increased the number of likes for both pages and have seen a considerable growth in engagement with parents. Partners are also contacting us via social media requesting that their events are promoted via the site.

The video on the homepage is really out of date.

We've removed the video from the homepage and have commissioned the production of a Shropshire Local Offer introductory video.

When giving feedback customers need to copy and paste the email address into their own email system.

We've updated the feedback page so that customers now click on a big green button to be automatically diverted to email the Local Offer.