The Local Offer Development Group recognise that speaking to parents, carers, children and young people, schools and colleges, health and social care professionals and voluntary sector colleagues, is the best way to ensure that the Local Offer is an excellent resource. Engagement has been embedded in practices and means that ongoing development will ensure that the Local Offer is adapting to the changing needs of children, young people, parents and carers.
Over the last 18 months we have gathered feedback from a range of people and a summary of views so far has been collated.
Click Here to see feedback that we have received, and our response to it.
Recent Sessions
WEB – Young Women’s Group
We received some fantastic feedback from the young women’s group at WEB. The girls in this group range from age 14-18 and so the transition area of the Local Offer was particularly relevant to them.
Overall the group told us that:
- A news section updated regularly with local events would be useful
- Information around Duke of Edinburgh, NCS, supported volunteering, apprenticeships and jobs should also be included, as should where to go and who to contact
- They would like to see images of children and young people with disabilities and stories with photographs of young people with SEND living in Wirral
- Some of the language such as “early years” doesn’t mean anything to them and it would be more helpful to have an image showing the rough age of a child
- They would like to see video clips and moving images with sound
- They also said that the word “Information” at the top of the home page doesn’t explain much and that this needs to be expanded
Based on this we are:
- Collating feedback from all groups that we have spoken to and looking for the key themes
- Working with the Youth Theatre to create some video clips explaining any jargon and also how to use the site
- Refining and adjusting the language used wherever possible
- Engaging with NCS providers to encourage them to add their services to the Local Offer
- Developing a volunteering section
- Asking for organisations to link us up with those families that may like to offer snippets of their stories, around key areas such as getting Education Health Care Plan.
A big thank you to all the girls at WEB for your time, effort and well thought-out feedback!
Wirral Metropolitan College
A focus testing session took place with a group of young people with additional needs from Wirral Metropolitan College on Wednesday 11th November. It was a lively session which captured some excellent points.
The students particularly wanted to see some images and pictures on the site and also asked for a video explaining what the Local Offer is and how to use it.
The young people’s full report will be uploaded to the site soon. Many thanks to Wirral Metropolitan College and the young people for their time and support.
Who Cares?
Who Cares? Is a Parents & Carers group who were happy to give some feedback on the new site. The group said that many of them also access the Allsorts Parents/Carers group, so information would be shared/collected through this source also.
The group explained that they would like to contribute to the on-going development of the Local Offer but due to high demand on their time they need a way of doing this that is easy as possible. A range of suggestions were made and these will be presented at the next Local Offer Development meeting for a decision on moving forward.
Meadowside School
Community Action Wirral staff attended Meadowside School’s open day to introduce the Local Offer. After a tour of the school and a warm hello from the pupils, it was decided that a workshop for parents and carers would be the best way of gathering feedback and promoting the Local Offer all at once. This is now being developed and will be delivered early in the New Year.
It was suggested that something delivered by a young people such as the Youth Voice Theatre would be the best way of engaging those pupils coming up to transition who would benefit from using the Local Offer.
Wirral Family Voice
An informative transition event at the Welcome Centre was attended. During this event, parents and carers were shown the changes that had been made based on feedback from the old site. The comments were that the new site is much more user friendly and easier to navigate.
It was highlighted at this event that more information on Transition needs to be available on the site. The social worker present agreed to provide some information for the Local Offer on the information that he shared at the meeting in relation to transition. The Community Action Wirral team have been invited back in January.
Orrets Meadow School
Some of the families at Orrets Meadow School felt they would like to look at the Local Offer together with their child at home and see how user friendly it was. Taking the time to look in-depth at the content and relaying how useful this is to the whole family will really help to shape Wirral’s Local Offer in a way that is most beneficial to families.
Feedback will be published shortly.
Some other Organisations and Groups that have been engaged
NEET Action Group, Tranmere Rovers, Youth Fed, PSS, WEB, Autism Together, Barnston Dale Activity Centre, BeeWirral, Mencap, the Oxton Gateway Project, Forum Housing, Your Housing, Action for Children, Stick & Step, Family Ferries, Beewirral.
Invitations to attend groups with parents and young people to gather further feedback have been received from:
- Autism Together
- Homestart
- WEB Young Women’s Group
- Observatory School
- Joseph Paxton Parents Evening
- Youth Voice Theatre
Future Developments
Many areas of the new site have already been improved based on the feedback received to date but there are further improvements planned from the most recent feedback, these include:
- Working with a local youth theatre group to film some short video clips to include in the site
- Adding more images of local people and places
- Adding case studies to tell local stories and bring the site to life