The SEND Inclusion Forum was established in 2018 to bring SEND decision making together in one forum and was developed to support a collaborative, problem solving and transparent approach. The forum has now been developed to enable further collaboration across the school’s system. 

The SEND Inclusion Forum has evolved since its inception in 2018. To ensure it supports a collaborative, problem solving and transparent approach for decision making, the forum process includes a number of representatives from across the SEND team, Health, Social Care, special schools as well as mainstream colleagues.  

The forum is seen as an opportunity for networking as well as continuing professional development.  

Once a decision has been made through the agreed multi-agency forum, the focus of schools and other professionals involved is to work together to find collaborative ways forward and to understand and meet all children and young people’s need- at whatever level of the graduated response. 

A range of decisions are made via the Inclusion forum such as personal budget requests, funding and decisions to issue, these decisions sit with the Local Authority and Health representatives that form the panel. These form part of the AOB discussion, with a particular focus heard each week. This can mean that a decision may be deferred to the appropriate forum, typically all decision are made within one month of the request being submitted, subject to all relevant information being provided.  

Forums will be held weekly on a Thursday; assessment requests are discussed at the week 4 or 5 point of the legal 20-week assessment timeline. The decision to assess must be made by 6 weeks after the application is received. By allowing discussions to take place at week 4 or 5 it allows further information to be collated if required to allow a fair decision to be made.   

We will inform you of the date along with the letter that acknowledges your request. If you are unable to attend forum due to a pre-planned event or appointment, then please consider this when you submit your request. If a parental request is received, we will inform schools of the forum date, attendance will allow all a full understanding of a why a parental request was made.   

Pre-schools and early years settings will be discussed on a fortnightly basis to allow them to keep within the 20-week time frame. Please see the dates highlighted in yellow to understand when theses forums will take place. This will allow pre-schools and setting to attend alongside other EYFS colleagues.   

During the holiday period in person forums will not take place but will instead be paper based exercises and decisions will still be made. We will follow the term dates as published on the MKCC website. The forum dates for the holiday periods are shown in red. If your school has differing holiday dates, then please consider this at time of submission.   

As the EHC assessment process is a legal process with a 20-week timeline as laid out in the SEND code of practice there will be occasions where a decision will need to be made without school in attendance for discussion.   

The outcomes from forum will be shared the following week, typically an outcome is shared with parent / carer first before being shared with schools and other relevant professionals. Outcomes are shared by the relevant officer.  

Pupil information to be shared with SEND Inclusion Forum -  this form is designed to show key information only to allow attendees an insight into the pupils that will be discussed.

SEND inclusion Forum Dates 2024-25