The work is based on ongoing research conducted by Dr Laverick and Dr Richard Baron, Lecturer in the School of Children, Young People and Families at Leeds Trinity University, into building the confidence of SEND case officers. The work aims to help reassure parents that their children’s needs will be met. Dr Laverick is a key expert on SEND officers, advising the national Change Programme for Special Needs, implemented as part of the Government’s improvement plan announced in 2023.

The research looks at ‘challenging’ communication within local authorities, delivering workshops and better planning the induction and training of case workers to ensure a smoother process for families, increase confidence in educational settings and more appropriate support for children with special educational needs.

Dr Tracy Laverick said: “I am doing this research to raise awareness of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Assessment and Review Teams (SENDART). They are teams of people that are present within every Local Authority but up to now, have not been heard or represented as a group in the literature or the SEND reviews.”

Dr Laverick was inspired to begin this research project by her background in primary education and psychology. After a few years of teaching, she retrained as an Educational Psychologist, specialising in developing Special Educational Needs (SEN) Provision for the Early Years and Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs. Prior to moving to academia, she worked for the Wakefield Local Authority ensuring the delivery of Educational Psychology Services within the area.

A big inspiration for her research was her drive to get to the root of the challenges behind the concept of ‘fighting the system’ and the conviction that systems are made of people. This allowed her to identify the lack of training and support for SEND case officers in local authorities, which is why she started developing training and resources for them.

Recently, Dr Laverick was invited by the Reaching Excellence and Ambition for all Children (REACh) consortium, which is the delivery partner to the Department for Education (DfE), to present a session on building SEND Case Officer confidence as part of the as part of the Department for Education’s Change Programme for SEND and Alternative Provision. The webinar was aimed at local authorities in Yorkshire and the Humber, with more training across the country to follow.

Dr Tracy Laverick said: “In order to develop parental confidence in the SEND process these teams need greater recognition, time to access quality training and caseloads which allow them to engage meaningfully with families. The webinar allowed the opportunity for local authorities to hear about the experiences of other authorities and raise the profile of these teams within the national Change Programme.”

Georgia Macqueen Black, Programme Lead for SEND Systems Improvement at the Council for Disabled Children and Cluster Lead for REACh, said: “The SEND & AP Change Programme brings together key partners across the SEND system to test, iterate and evaluate policy reforms, to help realise the Department for Education’s ambition for a system that is genuinely focused on early identification and intervention.

“REACh were delighted to invite Dr Tracy Laverick to share her subject matter expertise at our webinar on building SEND case officer confidence. Tracy’s research into the expectations of the role and approaches to strengthening good practice with families and other agencies enabled local areas to reflect and discuss how they might strengthen their own work with SEND Case Officers, as they test reforms to improve EHCP processes for children and young people and their families. Local areas commented on how insightful and interesting they found Tracy’s presentation.”