Include Me TOO have viewed the SEND reforms proposals and here is our submission in response to the consultation.
Include Me TOO is a national charity with over two decades of experience in supporting disabled children, young people, and their families from our diverse communities at grassroots to access SEND/Disability information, support, and advice.
We provide a range of services including advocacy, training and delivery on intersectionality, meaningful participation, inclusion, specialist support services and resources and challenging inequalities experienced by disabled children, young people and their families from racialised, minoritised and marginalised communities. Protecting the rights of disabled children and young people has been central to our work.
Education Health Care Plans (EHCP) vs proposed Individual Support Plans (ISPs)
The current EHCP framework, while imperfect in implementation, provides a structure for capturing this complexity through detailed multi-agency assessment and coordinated planning. There is concern that the proposed reforms, particularly through the introduction of Individual Support Plans (ISPs) and tiered provision models, risk reducing the depth, specificity, and holistic nature of this process.
Concerns remain regarding the proposed ISP framework and the apparent weakening of statutory protections currently attached to Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). One of the key strengths of the current EHCP system is that the provision specified within the plan is legally enforceable. This legal status creates accountability across services and provides families with meaningful routes to challenge failures where support is inadequate, delayed, or not delivered. Although the ISP framework may potentially offer some administrative simplification or greater consistency in terminology and processes, these potential benefits are significantly outweighed by concerns regarding the reduction of enforceable rights and protections.
Include Me TOO advocacy and work directly with families of disabled children and young people has observed the importance and practical impact of legally enforceable EHCPs. In many cases, statutory protections have enabled families and advocates to successfully challenge inadequate provision and secure appropriate support that was initially refused, delayed, or insufficient.
This has included securing specialist placements, additional therapies, increased educational support, communication interventions, sensory provision, transport arrangements, or more appropriate multi-agency involvement. These interventions have often resulted in measurable improvements in attendance, emotional wellbeing, engagement in learning, behaviour, communication, and overall quality of life for the child or young person.
Without legally enforceable duties, there is a significant risk that accountability across services becomes weakened, leaving families with fewer effective mechanisms to secure provision or challenge decisions that negatively impact outcomes.
The EHCP process currently provides a holistic, multi-agency, child-centred framework that brings together education, health, and social care considerations in a coordinated way. This person centred, individual needs led holistic approach is particularly important for children and young people whose needs do not sit neatly within a single category or service area.
There is concern that the proposed ISP and tiered systems could dilute this integrated approach by reducing the amount of detailed information captured regarding a child’s full profile of needs. Standardised packages and rigid tiers may fail to account for complexity, overlap between conditions, fluctuating presentation, or contextual factors affecting a child’s functioning. Important aspects such as mental health needs, sensory regulation difficulties, trauma, communication barriers, family context, and social care needs risk being minimised or excluded where systems become increasingly threshold-driven and administratively streamlined.
Further concerns relate to the proposed tiered approach to SEND support. While presented as a mechanism to streamline provision and improve consistency, tiered systems can unintentionally create additional barriers to accessing support. In practice, they may increase gatekeeping, restrict flexibility, and delay intervention until difficulties become more severe. There is a significant risk that children and young people may be required to demonstrate escalating levels of need, distress, exclusion, or failure before more specialist intervention becomes available. This contradicts the principle of early intervention, which is widely recognised as essential for improving long-term outcomes and preventing escalation of need.
Needs-led provision should remain responsive, preventative, and flexible, rather than constrained by rigid thresholds or categorisation systems. Children whose needs fall between tiers, or whose presentation is less immediately visible, may be particularly disadvantaged by standardised pathways. This is especially concerning for children with neurodivergent profiles, mental health difficulties, speech and language needs, sensory processing differences, or intersecting vulnerabilities that may not be adequately recognised within rigid frameworks.
There are also wider concerns regarding inclusion, accessibility, and cultural change within education settings.
Without sufficient investment in inclusive practice, workforce training, specialist support, and accessible environments, there is a risk that more children and young people with SEND will experience segregation, placement in isolation or intervention units, part-time timetables, informal exclusions, or formal exclusion from mainstream settings. Structural reform alone will not improve outcomes unless accompanied by a broader cultural commitment to inclusion, accessibility, and recognition of disability rights across the education system.
Person Centred and individualised tailored support
The proposals appear to move towards increasingly standardised “packages” of support rather than provision that is genuinely individualised and person-centred.
Children and young people with SEND present with highly diverse, complex, and often intersecting needs that cannot be effectively addressed through uniform models of provision.
A one-size-fits-all approach risks overlooking individual strengths, barriers, communication styles, sensory needs, family circumstances, cultural contexts, and co-occurring conditions.
Effective SEND support should be grounded in detailed, holistic assessment and tailored specifically to the identified needs of the individual child or young person, rather than requiring children to fit within predetermined levels or categories of support.
Person-centred planning is a fundamental principle of effective SEND practice because it places the child or young person, and those who know them best, at the centre of decision-making.
This approach recognises that needs can fluctuate and evolve over time and therefore requires flexibility, responsiveness, and meaningful collaboration between education, health, social care, and families.
‘Complex Needs’
Children and young people with complex needs must continue to have access to provision that is genuinely capable of meeting those needs. For this to be achievable, there must first be sufficient specialist capacity across the system. Without adequate specialist placements and provision, any wider reform in this area will be difficult to deliver effectively in practice.
Decision-making must remain firmly needs-led. Children and young people with complex needs should not be placed according to what happens to be available locally. The starting point must always be a robust assessment of the individual child’s needs and the provision required to enable them to learn, participate, and make meaningful progress.
This requires comprehensive assessment processes informed by multidisciplinary evidence, alongside a clear, accessible, and effective right to challenge decisions where an unsuitable placement is proposed.
There are also concerns regarding the phrase “low incidence, highly complex needs.” Complexity is not always immediately visible or easily categorised. Some children’s needs emerge over time, some may be masked, and others may initially be misinterpreted as behavioural difficulties. Any system based on narrow definitions or fixed categories risks excluding children whose needs are significant but do not fit a predefined profile.
The system must therefore retain sufficient flexibility to respond to the individual child, rather than relying on restrictive definitions of complexity or eligibility.
Post 16
The transition to post-16 and adult provision must be recognised as a critical stage in a young person’s educational journey and not treated simply as an administrative process. Effective transition planning requires early preparation, coordinated multi-agency working, and sustained support that reflects the individual needs and aspirations of the young person.
Under Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice, local authorities and partner agencies are expected to support children and young people with SEND in preparing for adulthood, including higher education or employment, independent living, participation in society, and achieving the best possible health outcomes. However, in practice, many families continue to experience significant gaps in coordination and continuity during transition into post-16 provision and adult services.
For many young people with SEND, this is the stage at which support becomes fragmented.
Education providers, health services, social care, transport, employment support, and adult services may all be involved, yet too often these services fail to work together effectively or engage early enough in the planning process. Despite the statutory expectations set out within the SEND framework, many young people are still left without a clear, coordinated, and outcomes-focused transition plan.
Transition planning should begin from Year 9 onwards, as envisaged within the SEND Code of Practice, and should include meaningful annual reviews, early involvement from adult social care where appropriate, comprehensive preparation for adulthood outcomes, and clear information about the full range of available pathways and support options. Assessments must consider not only current presentation of need, but also anticipated future needs as the young person moves towards adulthood.
Post-16 support should not be viewed solely on securing a placement. The focus must remain on enabling young people to achieve greater independence, access employment opportunities, continue learning / lifelong learning and developing daily living skills, participate within their communities, and develop the skills necessary for adult life. For some young people this may require specialist further education provision, while for others it may involve supported internships, vocational pathways, EOTAS arrangements, or blended packages of support tailored to individual need and circumstance.
Importantly, support should continue to follow the young person throughout transition, rather than diminishing once compulsory school age ends. A successful transition process depends upon continuity, person-centred planning, and provision that remains responsive to the young person’s evolving needs, strengths, and aspirations. Families must also remain fully involved throughout the process, with access to clear information, appropriate advocacy, and effective routes to challenge decisions where proposed provision is unsuitable or insufficient.
Intersectionality
We are concerned the SEND Reforms proposals will disproportionately negatively impact Black, Asian and other racialised and minoritised communities disabled children, young people, and their families whose intersectional lived experiences continue to be overlooked. They continue to experience inequalities resulting to additional barriers and challenges to access the right support, services, advocacy, and information Although their experiences of systematic cultural and racial bias are documented, it is disappointing the persistent discriminations remain unaddressed.
The SEND Reforms proposals have not considered an intersectional approach to reduce the inequalities reported and how to address systematic cultural and racial bias. This cannot be achieved without taking into consideration the lived intersectional experiences of Black, Asian and other racialised and minoritised communities disabled children and young people to ensure equal chances within a SEND system that can work for all disabled children and young people
Parental and family advocacy works
The proposals may also significantly impact parental advocacy and participation rights. Families currently play a vital role in identifying unmet needs, coordinating support, monitoring provision, and advocating for appropriate intervention.
Include Me TOO’s direct work with families has consistently demonstrated the positive impact that informed and persistent parental advocacy can have on securing improved outcomes for children and young people.
In many cases, it has been family-led challenge and engagement that has resulted in provision being amended, reassessed, or properly implemented.
Any reduction in legal enforceability or formal routes of challenge risks disempowering families and weakening collaborative decision-making processes. Parents and carers should continue to be recognised as essential partners within the SEND system, with protected rights to participation, transparency, advocacy, and redress.
Overall, any reform of the SEND system should strengthen rather than dilute the legal rights, protections, and safeguards currently available to children, young people, and families. The priority should remain the delivery of legally enforceable, individualised, holistic, and timely provision that is responsive to need and grounded in principles of human rights, inclusion, equality, accountability, and child rights centred based practice.
I urge the Government and decision-makers to listen to the voices and lived experiences of disabled young people and SEND families, and to reject any proposals that reduce existing legal protections; weaken or dilute EHCP; reduce the powers of the SEND Tribunal and limit access to personalised provision and support. Not to undermine the rights of disabled children and young people to access appropriate education, support, and opportunities
Include Me TOO young person representative statement
