How Funded Partners in Gloucestershire are supporting special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) through a time of change
Across Gloucestershire, more families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are reaching out for help earlier, as uncertainty around proposed reforms affects confidence in the system. With 1.7 million children now identified as SEND nationally — and that number still rising — many are facing long waits and growing anxiety about what support their child will receive.
To understand what this looks like in practice, we spoke with several of our funded partners working with children, families and schools across the county. While reforms promise earlier help and better inclusion, those working alongside families warn that without proper funding and enforceable rights, change risks falling short of the meaningful improvements families are hoping for.
In the meantime, charities and community organisations are stepping in — providing early, preventative and therapeutic support that helps stop children reaching crisis point. Without meaningful change, too many still wait too long for help — or fall out of education altogether.
Advocacy and rights: supporting families to navigate complexity
Demand for reassurance from families is rising. Lucy Fullard, CEO and founder of Parent Carer Alliance, describes a sharp increase in carers seeking clarity. “While legally nothing has yet changed,” she explains, “emotionally, confidence has been shaken.” Families are coming forward earlier, trying to understand what the proposals might mean in practice and whether existing protections still apply. In response, Parent Carer Alliance are providing early legal and strategic guidance and convening expert panels to help families separate what has changed from what has not. Their SEN Hub has become a stabilising resource at a time when trust in the system feels fragile.
That anxiety, according to Marco Cetara, CEO of Parenting Empowered Autistic Kids (PEAK), is being heightened by how the reforms are being discussed. “There’s a lot of fear‑mongering going on right now,” he says, noting that families are responding not only to the proposals themselves, but to how they are being interpreted.
Cetara acknowledges the need for change. Delays, thresholds and long timeframes mean many children wait too long for support. “I can get behind the messages of early support, local access and effective outcomes,” he explains, alongside improvements in SEND training for educators.
But one principle remains essential. “Ensuring that legal rights remain is really important,” he stresses. Without enforceable entitlements, there are concerns that support may be promised but not always delivered in practice.
More broadly, he reflects a concern shared across the sector — that while the reforms set out positive ambitions, it is not yet clear how far they will lead to meaningful change. He suggests the proposed tiered system may be in part influenced by financial pressures on local authorities and concerns about the rising number of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) being issued, raising questions about whether children will be able to access the same level of support and legal protections in future.
For Cetara, preventing future pressure means starting much earlier. “Education for parents and parenting strategies are really crucial in the early years,” he says. “But equally in schools — early identification, engagement, even communication styles. There are basics that can be taught.”
For some of our Funded Partners, this is not an aspiration attached to reform, but work already happening on the ground.
Preventative and therapeutic support: intervening earlier, not firefighting
Cotswold Counselling embed mental health support into school settings across Gloucestershire, offering counselling for children alongside reflective spaces for staff. Their approach treats SEND as part of a wider system around the child — including parents, schools and other professionals.
Jemima Collishaw, Clinical Lead for Children and Family, welcomes the ambition behind the reforms, with a degree of caution.
“I would love to be super positive and say, everything is going to completely change,” she says. “But maybe it’s my age, and maybe it’s my own personal experience of having a child with complex SEND needs, that makes me think this isn’t coming into effect until much later.”
Funding remains the pressure point. “We just hope that this identifies the need for funding to be there without a great big fight,” she says. “Because schools are constantly fighting.”
Her caution is informed by experience. “It was about ten years ago when EHCPs came in… I remember being thrilled — at long last, education, health and care were going to be joined up.” But that hope was quickly tempered by reality.
Still, she sees promise in their work with schools. “You can only be hopeful and optimistic… in this line of work.”
That realism underpins Cotswold Counselling’s contribution: delivering early, relational support the reforms promote — while knowing how fragile system change can be without sustained investment and collaboration.
Therapeutic inclusion and belonging in schools
Toucan for Children provide therapeutic play and creative arts interventions for children aged 3–14 across mainstream schools, targeted services and specialist settings.
For Rachel Lane, Toucan’s Manager and a former primary headteacher, the reforms mark a noticeable shift. “Therapy is referenced repeatedly,” she notes. “It hasn’t been before — so it feels like validation of what we provide.” Until now, schools have often had to justify therapeutic input through EHCPs, rather than accessing it earlier.
She strongly supports the emphasis on early help. “If funding comes with that, it could mean children get access to therapeutic support much earlier — and that’s where the real difference is made.”
Toucan’s work already spans the proposed three‑tier system — from whole‑school, trauma‑informed approaches, through targeted one‑to‑one work, to specialist support in alternative provision. But Rachel is cautious about how inclusion is interpreted.
“I worry about inclusion meaning simply placing children in mainstream environments without thinking about whether they can genuinely access learning,” she says. Some children may become non‑attenders because they “notice their differences” and no longer feel they belong.
Trauma‑informed environments, she believes, benefit all children — but they are not enough on their own. “Whole‑school approaches are important, but they don’t replace targeted or specialist support.”
Early years at the margins of reform
For funded partners working in the early years, the reforms represent both opportunity and risk.
Cath Fowler of Cirencester Opportunity Group (COG) welcomes the emphasis on earlier intervention and greater consistency, but stresses that early years provision must be recognised as a distinct specialist sector.
Unclear definitions around “complexity,” new support plans and revised thresholds carry real risk. The move towards a tiered system, could mean “fewer children qualifying for EHCPs without sufficient alternative provision in place.”
Funding is a particular concern. Smaller specialist settings already rely heavily on fundraising, and increased demand without sustainable investment risks destabilising provision. The lack of clear national definition also leaves early years support vulnerable to continued postcode variation.
At the same time, there is opportunity — to contribute more fully to early intervention, school readiness and prevention — if specialist early years expertise is properly recognised and resourced.
When mainstream systems can’t meet need
Children Lead the Way support children and young people who are unable to access education due to unmet SEND, emotional distress or emotionally based school avoidance.
Founder Stacey Innes describes the cumulative impact of unmet need. “These children aren’t choosing to disengage, they reach a point where they simply can’t cope.” Families are often pushed towards tribunal processes just to secure appropriate provision.
While she welcomes the reforms stated commitment to inclusion and early help, they caution that without meaningful change to environments, capacity and expectations, some children risk being left further behind.
Takeaways
Across Gloucestershire, our funded partners identify common themes:
- Rising demand for advocacy, reassurance and early guidance
- Heightened anxiety among families during the consultation period
- Concerns about accountability and enforceable rights
- A persistent gap between policy ambition and system capacity
- Strong agreement that preventative, therapeutic work reduces crisis, exclusion and long‑term harm
While their roles differ, partners are united in one message: reform will only succeed if it builds on what already works, secures sustainable funding, and ensures that children and families experience real, practical change on the ground.
Have your say
As these proposals move through consultation, funded partners across Gloucestershire are clear that lived experience must shape what happens next.
Barnwood Trust is inviting families, practitioners and organisations to share their views through its short survey on the SEND proposals, alongside responding directly to the Government consultation. For those working within the system — and those navigating it — this is an opportunity to help ensure reform is grounded in reality and shaped by the voices of children, young people and families.
Find out more information about the reforms on our website.