SEND Youth Council Session 31/01/2024. 

We are excited to share that we held our first SEND Youth Council session at the end of January. This session was an opportunity for our young people to get to know each other, discuss the purpose of the SEND Youth Council, look at previous information gathered from young people and plan our next steps.  

The group shared their views and what they would like to change for children and young people with SEND, we looked at where this would sit within our workstreams and how to ensure our children and young people’s voices are heard.  

The young people decided on the images they wanted for their SEND Youth Council page on the Milton Keynes SEND Local Offer. Our next session will be looking at the SEND Youth Council page on the Local Offer and the information available.  

We will also be looking at the support for young people and preparation for adulthood page to develop and review the information currently available.  

The SEND team would like to thank the young people that have joined our SEND Youth Council for their valuable contributions, and we are excited for the positive changes ahead.  

20.03.24

In today’s session we reflected on the meeting with Ofsted and CQC inspectors, the young people were happy to share their experiences of the meeting and felt their involvement was positive. The SEND Team representatives were able to share their appreciation to the young people for sharing their experiences.

Our first project that we will be looking at is the young people’s section of the SEND Local Offer, the SEND Youth Council had time to look at the pages and the headings that fall under the preparation for adulthood section and had some great initial ideas to improve the site. We acknowledge that this is a big project for us and we are going to look at reviewing and updating the information then the promotion of the information to other young people with SEND!

The SEND Youth Council met on 08 May and our focus was the SEND Local Offer and the changes the young people would like to make to the support for young people’s section.

The SEND Youth Council looked at the conditions that they would like to be included in the support for young people section of the Local Offer – the group came up with an extensive list and we will be looking at adding these to the Local Offer soon. 

The Youth Council have started to create some posters to share with other young people highlighting the information available.

Please see below some of the designs from our SEND Youth Council. Please keep an eye on our social media and Local Offer website where we will continue to share the posters! 

Image

During this session of the SEND Youth Council, members were updated on various activities and the posters shared in our parent and professional newsletters. The group spent time deliberating potential new names for the SEND Youth Council, with the final vote scheduled for the next academic year. Additionally, we celebrated the successes of the Council and shared messages from our Assistant Director of Education.

The SEND Youth Council recently attended the first Milton Keynes SEND Youth Summit to share their views, ask questions to a variety of leaders, and learn some new debating skills. The SEND Youth Council also recently met with our SEND Partnership Manager, Mim Kendrick, to inform thinking towards the new SEND Strategy, with the current strategy due to come to an end this academic year. Members also had a very important vote on their name, which they agreed by majority to now be known as ‘My Voice Counts’ which I’m sure we will all agree is a fantastic and very fitting new name.