Early Years Special Educational Needs and Disability Inclusion Fund (EY SENIF) in Barnet

We asked:

We asked for your views on the EY SENIF document which describes how early years settings, who provide the free entitlement for early years provision for children living in Barnet, can access the Early Years SEN Inclusion Fund for children with more complex educational needs.

You said:

We received 33 responses to the online consultation. Generally there was a very positive response in terms of the number of participants who agreed with the document. Of the 33 who responded generally the vast majority of participants agreed or tended to agree with various aspects of the document, in particular:

• what funding can be requested
• the duration of the funding
• the application process
• what guidelines do the decision makers have regard to when considering whether to provide EY SENIF and the extent of EY SENIF.
• the scope application and decision making process of the EY SENIF for children.

In addition, a number of suggestions were made in respect of various aspects of the document and were taken into account.

We did:

We reviewed all the responses helpfully submitted and made some amendments to the document including the need for the decision makers to provide reasons to the setting when refusing an application. In addition, we noted the importance of the applications, and thought it appropriate that we emphasise that the SEN Team should efficiently process such applications to ensure the young children are appropriately supported. You can read about the full results here. The revised EY SENIF document is available here.