How are Education, Health and Care Plans requested/initiated?

Most Children and Young people (CYP) will have their Special Educational Need and Disability met within
mainstream school, early years setting or college via Quality First Teaching and other existing resources.
If a CYPs needs are not being met via a Graduated Approach then they may need to be considered for an
Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

Schools, settings and professionals can request an EHC Needs Assessment by submitting a referral via the
online Capita SEND Portal.
If you wish to submit a referral you will need to action the appropriate section of the portal:
– Parents and Carers via the Citizen Portal
– Professionals via the Professional Portal

The aim of introducing the Portal is to make it easier for parents and to increase accountability to so they can track where their assessment is in the process.

If parents/carers are worried about your child or young person and would like to apply for an EHC
assessment, initial advice is for them to speak to the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) at
their child’s school or setting. SENCOs will be able to talk to parents about what the assessment involves,
and offer support and guidance around decision making.

From 14th September 2021 we are encouraging the use of the SEND Portal for all EHCA referrals, this will
improve communication and allows parents to track the progress of an application. We also recognise that
we cannot have a process that would disadvantage parents who do not have access to technology or have
additional needs and have agreed to support where we can and we will continue to accept referral manually
from parents, via the referral form or writing a letter. A standard letter can be found on the Ipsea
webpage. Use of the SEND Portal will always be highly recommended.

Where a parent/carer has limited access to technology or has additional needs, we would promote/advise
that families work with their SENCo and other support networks, to submit a referral via the SEND Portal,
working in partnership and ensuring that CoProduction is embedded throughout, in line with Bradford’s
CoProduction values.

Read this on the Local Offer website here