Many local areas that participated in the DBV programme found that the best way to ensure consistent communication regarding findings and progress of the diagnostic was to first establish a governance structure.
From here, local areas scheduled weekly working group catch-ups and regular meetings with senior stakeholders to ensure any issues could be flagged and progress updated. There are many ways to set these up successfully and approaches varied across different local area teams.
Example 1: The approach taken by one metropolitan borough was to appoint a designated programme lead, who was responsible for all the logistical elements of the diagnostic. This involved activities such as:
The rest of the working group was made up of service colleagues, some of which had more experience in data and finance, whereas others were more involved in policy and strategy.
Example 2: An alternative approach is to share responsibilities equally amongst the local authority team. This worked well for a small borough council, who had a working group of just 4 individuals, each with a different specialist background.
Rather than all feeding into one project manager, they divided up responsibilities according to the different stages in the diagnostic journey. For instance, the data lead pulled together everything needed to gather all the quantitative evidence, whereas the operations lead ensured that surveys were set up correctly and case reviews ran smoothly.
Context: This case study looks at the approach taken from a unitary authority whose Parent Carer Forum (PCF) was in its infancy during the early stages of the DBV diagnostic. This meant that engaging parents and carers in activities such as case reviews and surveys would be a challenge, given that many other local areas involved in the DBV programme achieved this by leveraging their pre-existing relationships with PCFs and equivalent forums.
What they did: Instead, this local authority decided to schedule a series of 1:1 interviews with parent and carer volunteers, as well as a listening forum with members of the SEND Information Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS). Participants were emailed directly via a distribution list, and they scheduled a combination of in-person and virtual meetings with those interested over a two-week period.
What they found: Discussions with SENDIASS colleagues highlighted the primary-secondary transition as a key point of anxiety, and further conversations revealed that there were gaps in communication with parents and carers that led to a lack of awareness of certain services.
These perspectives proved to be extremely helpful when trying to decide where to focus their attention throughout the diagnostic, yet they could have easily been missed if the local authority team hadn’t been proactive in setting up the logistics that enabled them to facilitate these conversations.
What you can do: The approach outlined above can also be used to engage various other stakeholder groups. Before you organise things such as listening forums and interviews, it is worth considering how you could ensure that all stakeholders can have their voice heard. For instance, finding representation from local SEND services might be easier than getting attendees from health or social care services. The more planning you do in advance, the more likely you are to gain a multi-disciplinary view in each of your diagnostic activities.
