Progress continues to be made to further improve services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Wolverhampton.  

Key points mentioned:

• ‘the area has continued at pace with sound leadership and governance to lead a consistent programme of actions' in response to a Local Area Review of SEND services in 2021. 
• 'evidence of an enthusiasm across services to develop mechanisms' to show how the area monitors the outcomes for children and young people 
• 'evidence of actions being taken to improve the areas of weakness’ identified by the inspection in 2021'. 
• 'commitment to sustainability' with a number of new posts in place to support children and young people not in education, employment or training, an Inclusion and Attendance Manager and a School Improvement Advisor for Children with a Social Worker. 
• Where there have been delays or barriers these have been escalated in order to achieve a resolution with mitigating plans in place in the meantime. 
• there remain pressures, particularly with waiting lists for children and adolescent mental health services, with scope for a 'joint commissioning activity on co-designing services that both relieve pressure on specialist services and prevent the need to escalate due to long waits'. 
• praise for the city's parent carer forum Voice4Parents, which is 'contributing time and ideas to the development work' and is 'keen to strengthen relationships, widen engagement and to link with harder to reach groups', their support helped develop the city's new Family Hubs, the first of which opened this week.