My Care Bridge, online Portal is now live.

Irvana Davies • September 14, 2024

'My Care Bridge', an online portal for new referrals for children and young people's autism and ADHD services in mid and South Essex, is now live.

SSIF are excited to announce that the 'My Care Bridge' portal is now live. For the past 18 months together with Parent Carer Forums from Essex and Thurrock and led by the MSE (Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust) we have been involved in the development of the portal and are hopeful that it will streamline the referral process for families.  The portal will advise families on next steps and will also provide options for support available locally, it will also be up-to-date with information shared and what is outstanding.   The portal is a test and learn initially and we hope that in the future it can be expanded further.


Please see below for the communications from MSE regarding the Portal:-


"The portal is easy to use and secure and has been developed in collaboration with healthcare and education professionals, and families. 

 

Educational settings (including nurseries, schools, and colleges), GPs, health visitors, and other health professionals can use the portal to make referrals.

 

Parents and carers will be sent a login when a referral has been made and you will be able to log in to the portal to provide information for your child’s referral, track the referral and access a library of support available locally.

 

The portal is for children and young people who are aged up to 18 years old and registered with a GP in mid and south Essex. This includes Chelmsford, Braintree, Maldon, Castle Point, Rochford, Southend, Basildon, Brentwood and Thurrock.

 

The portal is for new referrals only – current referrals will continue to follow existing administrative pathways.

 

At present, we cannot accept referrals made by parents, carers, family members or young people themselves. If you feel your child/young person requires an Autism or ADHD assessment, we encourage discussion with their education setting or GP about making a referral through My Care Bridge.

 

You will be emailed with access information when your referral is made by a GP, health visitor, or educational setting.

 

The portal been developed by the Mid and South Essex Community Collaborative, a partnership between Essex Partnership University Trust, North East London Foundation Trust and Provide Community. If you are having issues accessing the portal, please contact the service:

 

NELFT (Basildon, Brentwood and Thurrock): childrensautismADHDassessment@nelft.nhs.uk 
Provide Community (Chelmsford, Braintree and Maldon): provide.cccpaediatrics@nhs.net 
EPUT (Castle Point & Rochford and Southend): epunft.Lighthouse.ASD@nhs.net or epunft.Lighthouse.ADHD@nhs.net 

 

Find out more information here"

Improving the way Ofsted inspects education

February 7, 2025
Ofsted want to know what you think about their proposed plans for inspecting schools and other settings where children and adults learn. This includes:  early years state-funded schools non-association independent schools further education and skills ( FE and skills) initial teacher education ( ITE ) In summary, they propose: Report cards – these would give parents and carers more detailed information than the current reports, including a new 5-point grading scale to evaluate more areas of a provider’s work and short summaries of what inspectors found. Education inspection toolkits – this tool shows providers and inspectors the evaluation areas that we’ll focus inspections on and how we’ll assess and grade providers (scroll down to see our toolkits). Inspection methodology – changes to how we carry out inspection. Full inspections and monitoring inspections, state-funded schools – we plan to end ungraded inspections of state-funded schools and change our monitoring programmes so that we can check that timely action is taken to raise standards. Identifying state-funded schools causing concern – a new approach to how we’ll place a school into a category of concern. Read the full report and respond to the consultation.

Kids Autism Hub

February 3, 2025
Kids the charity Autism HUB. Are you a young autistic person who has just been diagnosed? Are you a parent wondering how best to support your autistic child? Do you want to connect with people like you? Then The Kids Autism HUB could be for you. The Kids Autism Hub is for young people aged 12 – 25 who are newly diagnosed with autism, young people who are on the diagnosis pathway, and the family members of those young people. It is now possible to self - refer and you can find out more information and how to do this on the KIDS Website .

ISOS Report Update from the National Network of Parent Carers (NNPCF)

January 28, 2025
You may recall that in July, the Local Government Association (LGA) and County Councils Network (CCN), in partnership with ISOS, published a report titled “Towards an Effective and Financially Sustainable Approach to Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) in England.” In their response, NNPCF expressed their hope that the report would serve as a platform for initiating important conversations and welcomed greater involvement with LGA and CCN moving forward. As a result, NNPCF has been credited by ISOS for helping use their report as a “platform” to discuss SEND reform. Read more about the ISOS Report.

SSIF Seminar - Support Plans and Support Whilst Waiting for EHCNA or EHCP

By Irvana Davies • January 6, 2025
SSIF invite ParentCarers of Children with SEND to our third Seminar this year. ‘Support Plans, ISPs, Support Whilst Waiting for EHCNA and EHCP’ is the third in a series of valuable an informative events for ParentCarers that will run throughout the year. This seminar is aimed at ParentCarers who are not sure of the support and information available to them and their families whilst they are waiting for an Education and Health Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) or an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP). We will aim to answer questions such as: What is an Individual Support Plan (ISP), and who is it for? What are Reasonable Adjustments and can I expect them to be made for my child? What is the SEN Register? What is SEN Support? What can I do to support my child or young person at home? Are there any workshops or webinars I can access? We have a panel of professionals from the Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) Team, Health and Education, who will talk about what support is available and how to find it. They will also bust some common myths. We are inviting ParentCarers to submit any questions they have for the panel by email, by Monday 20th January 2025, via email, to jody@southendsendindependentforum.org.uk There will also be an opportunity for people to participate in a co-production session to develop a useful route map/flow chart of the Support Whilst Waiting process. Book your ticket here.
Share by: