Amanda Bousaki - Your MK DCO
Hello to all children, young people, parents and professionals in the city of Milton Keynes
I would like to introduce myself to you as Amanda Bousaki, the Designated Clinical Officer for special educational needs and disability – the DCO for short
I have worked in Milton Keynes for 24 years now. I am a Speech and Language Therapist by profession and I worked in the Child Development Centre for 12 years as the Team Lead and then as a senior manager for speech and language therapy. I have had the pleasure of watching so many babies and young children grow up into young adults, usually introduced by their parents as they are quite obviously unrecognisable in the adult years and often far taller than I am!
My passion and drive to train as a Speech and Language Therapist came from voluntary work in my teenage years – working with children with learning disabilities at a local special school and supporting adults with learning disabilities to lead more independent lives. We used to pop to the shops and buy food to cook the dinner and eat together. The children and young people I spent time with helped me understand the power of successful communication and interaction and the mutual enjoyment it brings to life when both partners get it right! That’s the reason for me deciding to do my degree in speech and language therapy. Well that’s me in a nutshell and you probably want to know what a DCO does?
What is a Designated Clinical Officer (DCO) for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)?
I’m funded by our health commissioning team (Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board BLMK ICB) to support joined up working within health services and Milton Keynes Local Authority (education and social care teams) which relates to children and young people with SEND from 0 – 25 years. This post was created from the Children and Families Act (2014) when education, health and care plans were first introduced.
The DCO role is varied and includes (but not limited to) the following:
- listening to the views of children and young people and families - Ensuring the voice and lived experiences of Children, Young people and their family are captured and at the centre of planning and service delivery.
- encouraging coproduction as a way to improving health services to offer the right support / provision to ensure children and young people with SEND can achieve the best they possibly can and reach their potential to live happy and healthy lives.
- Understanding the health system and help professionals, children, young people and their parents to navigate it and signpost them to support.
- Coordination- Improve communication and working partnerships between Health, Education and Social Care professionals and the MK Parent Carer forum, PACA, to ensure coordinated and integrated services. The health system can be complicated to navigate and has a range of specialist staff and providers, working in different settings to provide services (community services, GP Surgeries and Hospital services) or to commission services. The Local Authority equally has lots of different services and departments that work with CYP with SEND. The DCO role helps bring all these services together in a more coordinated way.
- Supporting Health Service providers: Includes working with health service providers to support their understanding of the SEND reforms and supporting with the information required within the EHC Needs assessments.
- Attending Education, Health and Care Panels (EHCP) to support an understanding of health needs and which services would be best placed to provide advice for an EHC plan to meet the CYP’s needs.
- Liaising between the local authority and the local NHS (Clinical Commissioning) so that a child who has health and medical needs can get those needs met in their education setting.
- Liaising with the Local Authority: Promoting joint up working between all the health services in MK and local authority services and supporting the SEN Team at the Local Authority with queries on information. Participation in multiagency meetings and ways in which health and local authority develop processes to ensure timeliness and quality of advice.
- Quality assure the quality of the EHCP and advices that informed it.
- Working alongside the commissioners, senior leaders, PACA and parents, children and young people, to identify and raise any gaps in service/ commissioning gaps.
- Ensuring we can evidence a good local offer of health services and clear health journeys for CYP age 0-25 with SEND.
- Attending Parents’ Forums/support groups and events and being honest, open and transparent about services and provisions; and collating feedback from families to gather useful intelligence.
You can contact me via e-mail
