Early Years Inclusion Funding
In March 2017 a new duty was introduced for local authorities to establish a special educational needs inclusion fund.
Many children who have special educational needs and/or a disability may benefit from additional support; this support will initially be organised by the childcare provider by optimising existing resources and other non-financial support currently available from other external sources.
The SEN inclusion fund will support providers to address the needs of individual funded children, aged 2, 3 and 4 with SEN, who are accessing early years educational entitlement. It is not a requirement to utilise the SEN inclusion fund for 2 year olds; however in Redcar and Cleveland the process will remain the same for all funded children aged 2, 3 and 4 years. The support from the SEN inclusion fund will include advice and guidance from the Early Years SEND Practitioners; this will enable settings to meet the needs of children with special educational needs; in keeping with the principles of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice. The SEN inclusion fund will support those children who have emerging and identified needs; and support will be based on the individual child to help practitioners in settings to improve the child’s early learning and development outcomes.
Who is it for?
The Early Years SEN Inclusion Fund is to support 2, 3 and 4 year olds who get early education funding, and have a lower level or emerging SEN. The funding is for use in the setting and will be given to the provider.
Children with more complex needs will continue to have their free entitlement funded as agreed in their Education, Health and Care Plan. Eligibility for SEN inclusion funding will be determined on a case by case basis by the Early Years SEND Panel.
What can settings use the Early Years Inclusion Fund for?
The funding is to put in low level, early support to improve outcomes for the child and reduce longer term costs.
Examples of how providers can use the Early Years Inclusion Fund include:
- To enhance staffing ratios for part of the week in order to meet the individual child’s needs.
- To enable the early years setting to focus more time on the child with SEND without taking the time away from other children in the setting.
- To enable them to work more closely with parents and support service professionals and attend multi-agency planning and review meetings.
- To increase the skills of the practitioners by working closely with support services to find techniques that improve the child’s rate of progress.
- To encourage the use of Universal and specialist services.
- To support children who require additional adult support in order to access specific individual or group activities safely
- To promote the Plan-Do-Review approach to learning.
- To support settings in being fully inclusive, which may not have been possible previously where additional resources were required for the safety and progress of the child in the setting.
- Specific interventions
How to claim the Early Years Inclusion Fund
To claim the Early Years Inclusion Fund, provider should complete a Family Hub Referral form and a SEND Support Plan and submit by email to the Early Years SEND Practitioner Team. This should be emailed directly to tracy.waldegrave@redcar-cleveland.gov.uk - please see link to form below.
Requests should be submitted no later than two weeks (10 working days) before the panel meets.
Decisions made by panel will be sent to the provider by letter either by email.
Where a request is approved, a review visit will be carried out by an Early Years SEND Practitioner to determine the effectiveness of the panel’s recommendations. Any funding awarded for additional support may be decreased or increased depending on the child’s emerging needs. Following the visit, a copy of the monitoring visit along with a letter confirming the outcome of the visit will be sent detailing any decisions. Any adjustments of funding will be made at the start of the new term.