ESPCF has published the results of its parent carer survey 2023-24, which finds that most of the families who responded are not receiving the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support and/or provision that their children and young people are entitled to.
The most common message from parent carers was the continuing and exhausting battle they face with processes and services and the need to fight the system for their child or young person’s needs to be met. All of the survey findings align with the feedback ESPCF gathers in a variety of ways in its day-to-day work and which it represents in the meetings and workstreams it is involved in.
Read ESPCF parent carer survey report (PDF)
You can also read the responses to this report from East Sussex County Council and NHS Sussex:
Read NHS Sussex response (PDF)
Thank you to all the parent carers who completed the survey and have provided valuable feedback for this report.
The parent carer survey ran from October 2023 to January 2024, with a total of 235 responses. It was an opportunity for ESPCF to measure families’ experiences of local special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services and support. It sits alongside the snapshot data ESPCF collects in termly temperature check polls, the results of which show that many families do not feel the right support is in place.
The questions in the survey were based around those used in the 2021 survey of parent carers as part of East Sussex’s SEND joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA), which was co-produced with ESPCF. The JSNA identified a number of areas for improvement. It is now three years since that report, and it is important to understand and record the more recent and ongoing experiences of families.