Education health and care assessments and plans

An Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) is a legal document for children and young people aged 0 to 25 years with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), who need more support than their school can provide under usual SEND provisions.     

The plan outlines what their educational, health and social care needs are, the support required to meet them, their learning aims and goals for the future. By law the educational setting named in the plan must follow what is written into it.

You might find this video from the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) helpful.

An EHC needs assessment is a chance to look more closely at your child's special educational needs and the support that they need to help them learn. The process usually takes 20 weeks and can be applied for at any time as long as your child is in education or completing an apprenticeship not in higher education (i.e University) and under 25 years of age.

The assessment may lead to an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) being written for your child, but if this is not agreed should still provide useful information about your child's SEND and advice to their school about how to further support them.

The law says that if a child has or may have special educational needs and may require specialist provisions to be made for them, the local authority must do an EHC needs assessment.

This means that you don’t have to prove that they have SEND, only that they might and that they might need additional support to meet this. This will come from evidence at school that they are not making expected progress and find learning more difficult than other pupils their age.

It is a good idea to talk to your child's school first to make sure that they have done all they can to support them. You can also ask them if they agree that an EHC needs assessment would be a good next step. We can help you to prepare for a school SEND support meeting.

If you both agree that an assessment is needed, then you could request this together. If school don’t agree, then you can still ask for one.

In Leicestershire, the Special Educational Needs Assessment and Commissioning Service (SENA) conduct all EHC needs assessments.

You can apply directly yourself to the Leicestershire County Council SENA department by completing our template letter to request an EHCP needs assessment or work in partnership with your child's school, who will complete a local authority request.

Completing this letter is a way for you to tell Leicestershire County Council about your child's SEND. They will then use this information, along with feedback from the school and your child, to make their final decision about whether to go ahead with the assessment or not. It is important they can fully understand the difficulties and the support that you think your child needs.  We have an information page that can help you with what type of information to provide.

There are four steps to the assessment process that are shown below that the local authority has to stay within:

• Leicestershire County Council has six weeks from receiving the request to decide if they think that an assessment is needed. Within this time a decision-making meeting (panel meeting) is held to discuss the request and review the information/evidence that has been submitted.

• If an assessment is not agreed, this is known as 'refusal to assess' and you could appeal against this decision to the SEND tribunal. A letter will be sent to you to inform you of their decision, which gives you the right to appeal. You can request a meeting with an officer from the Leicestershire County Council SENA team to discuss this further by contacting them directly. Their contact details will be on the letter.

• If the assessment is agreed, then Leicestershire County Council has a further six weeks from the date of the decision meeting to gather further evidence and information. This will help them to assess your child's needs, so that they can decide whether they think that an EHC plan (EHCP) is needed.

• If the decision is not to issue an EHCP then again you can appeal this decision, 'refusal to issue a plan' to the SEND tribunal. You can also request a meeting with the SENA officer. At that meeting you can discuss why this decision was made and then from that meeting you can ask the school to look at how they can better support your child from any information that was discussed at the meeting or from any written reasoning provided from your refusal letter.

Within 20 weeks of the request for an EHC needs assessment, the final version of the EHCP must be written. Once final it becomes a legal document that must be upheld.

If you have received a decision letter from Leicestershire County Council saying that they don’t agree to the EHC needs assessment, this would be known as 'refusal to assess' and you could appeal against it to the SEND tribunal.

Other options would be to:

• re-visit your initial request to make sure it contains enough detailed information about your concerns and your child's SEND, to show why an assessment may be needed. It could be that things have changed, or more information has come to light since you made the initial application.

• meet with the school to discuss the request and the support that the school are already providing.

• for more information on appeals and mediation then please look at our webpage.

Children and young people with an EHCP can still receive their education within a mainstream school, as all children have the right to mainstream education. Having a plan doesn’t mean that they have to attend a specialist placement.

Sometimes a child or young person's needs are more complex, and require more specialised and targeted support. This is when a specialist provision or placement could be considered.

While the EHCP is still in draft form, your child will remain at their current setting. They will only change setting if/when the plan is finalised, it names a different school or educational setting and a start date. During the draft stage you can also tell Leicestershire County Council your preference, it may be that you want them to remain at their current school or feel there is a more suitable placement elsewhere.

The schools or settings will then be formally consulted with and asked if they can meet the needs written in the plan and have a place. They have 15 days to respond with a decision about offering a place.

There are many different types of educational settings available in Leicestershire for you to consider. Find out about SEND support in school settings

We also recommend that you visit potential schools and settings to see if you think that they are suitable and have included information to help you to prepare for school meetings and visits.

If you have had a private assessment done, then you can submit this to the local authority as part of the assessment process to be considered.

The code of practice (9.47) says:                   

The local authority must not seek further advice if such advice has already been provided (for any purpose) and the person providing the advice, the local authority and the child’s parent or the young person are all satisfied that it is sufficient for the assessment process.

This means that the assessment should be taken into account. If the local authority chooses to also employ or commission an educational psychologist, they should consult any other psychologists known to be involved with your child, such as those involved with the private assessment.