About education, health, and care plans
An education, health and care plan (EHCP) is for children and young people who need extra specialist support.
The EHCP will look at your child's education, health, and care requirements, and set out the additional support to meet those needs.
Input from parents
An EHCP is co-produced with the parents and child or young person. As part of the assessment process, you will be asked to complete the EHCP all about me (DOCX, 77.59 KB) section with your child to give your views so that they can be central to our decision making. This also helps us to get to know your child. Professionals will be expected to work with families about the things that are important to them, to help them achieve their aspirations and outcomes.
EHCP examples and guidance
An EHCP has sections about special educational needs and associated health and care needs, what the outcomes wanted, and the support they will need to achieve them.
You can see an example of how an EHCP is written in our exemplar Enfield EHCP template (PDF, 582.87 KB) which shows all of the sections. We have also produced EHCP guidance (PDF, 791.48 KB) on each section with helpful links.
More information and guidance
You can watch a useful Education Health and Care Plans video, made by Our Voice. This was made before the transfer from statements to EHCPs. Although the video refers to transfer review meetings, the information is still relevant if you replace this with annual review meetings.
See how young people have contributed to their EHCP, and further information, advice and support available.
Our EHCP pathway (PDF, 1178.82 KB) explains the assessment process that you will go through, which may result in an EHCP for your child. There is also a guide for parents and carers to the SEND reforms, which describes how the new system works.
Statutory assessment
If your child needs specialist support, their case will have to be considered through an assessment.
The assessment considers the support your child needs to do well at school, stay healthy and safe, enjoy themselves with friends and develop independent skills. This should help lead to long-term opportunities, including higher education and employment. These are called outcomes and if your child needs an EHCP, they will be written into it.
Request an EHCP assessment as a parent/carer or young person aged 16 to 25 years (DOCX, 102.67 KB)
Request an EHCP assessment as an educational setting (DOCX, 98.07 KB)
If you're a parent, carer or a young person, you should discuss your request with your school's special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) or inclusion manager, as they can provide you with support for your application.
The SEN Team and the Independent Support Service are also here to help you with any questions you might have about your application, and to provide support and guidance in completing the forms.
For more information, email sen@enfield.gov.uk or contact us on 020 3821 1919.
EHCP information, advice and support
You can find more information and support about education, health, and care plans from the resources below.
- The SEND Information Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) provides a wide variety of support to parents and young people. This includes help with section A, requesting statutory assessments and reviewing the draft plan, as part of the education, health and care process. For more information on the SENDIASS service, view the easy read guidance or visit YouTube to watch the video.
- The Council for Disabled Children has information about involving parents and carers.
- The SEND Code of Practice provides statutory guidance to organisations who work with and support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
- Section 41: Secretary of State approved list
- Out-borough schools (PDF, 76.52 KB)
- Our Voice Parent Forum offers informal support
Schools SEND funding and personal budgets
Schools SEND funding
Mainstream schools get funding for pupils with SEND in 3 parts:
- Core funding for universal provision - funding provided to all pupils
- Funding for targeted provision - funding support that is different to that provided to all pupils because of an evidenced need
- Top-up funding for pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans - funding allocated for every pupil with an Educational Health and Care Plan at the school
Most pupils’ special educational needs will be met by early years providers, mainstream schools and further education colleges from resources already allocated to them, and will not require extra support beyond this.
Personal budgets
A personal budget is the money used for the provision identified in the EHC Plan.
Local authority budgeting
In some cases, the local authority maintains the budget and uses it to fund the provision, for example for block or out-of-borough therapy.
School budgeting
Alternatively, the local authority can transfer it to the school, who use it to provide the specialist support a child or young person needs, such as a specific intervention group or EP time.
Direct payments
Finally, a direct payment can be made for the young person or their family to manage their own budget. Personal budgets are not about getting additional funding, but are about using the allocated resource identified in the Education, Health and Care Plan in a more personalised way.
We can only make direct payments if it’s in the best interests of the child or young person, and when it will be used to secure the agreed provision in an appropriate way. Direct payments will not be made if it’s more cost effective for the local authority or school to secure the provision.
More about personal budgets
If your child or young person has an EHC Plan, you have the right to ask for a personal budget to be calculated and you can request it to be made as a direct payment.
Having a personal budget is optional and will be discussed with you as part of the EHC Plan planning process. Parents or guardians and young people may also request a personal budget during a statutory review of an existing plan.
You can read some helpful guidance about types of personal budgets at KIDS.
You can also watch a video from KIDS that explains about personal budgets and direct payments in SEN at YouTube – Personal budgets explained.
My EHCP
Your education, health and care plan (EHCP) assesses your education, health and care needs.
If your needs are not being met at your school or college, you can talk to them about an EHC needs assessment. They'll ask you to complete the EHCP all about me (DOCX, 77.59 KB).
Other young people have made a video about how they used this to show their hopes for the future:
Request an EHCP assessment as a young person aged 16 to 25 (DOCX, 102.67 KB)
To find out about travel and transport help, including help getting to and from school or college, visit our travel and transport page.
Mediation and dispute
Mediation is the process of informally and voluntarily settling a disagreement. It is designed to allow different parties to discuss and clarify issues, and help settle disagreements. The process is led by an independent third party.
You can view more information about mediation and dispute in Enfield.
Transferring to an Enfield school or college with an EHCP
If you’re moving to Enfield and your child or young person has an education, health and care plan (EHCP), or is in the process of being assessed for one, view the process for transferring to an Enfield school or college (PDF, 198.12 KB).
It’s important that you do not take your child or young person off roll from their current school or college until they have a new school or college place confirmed. Otherwise they could end up without a place anywhere.
Before moving you may want to research schools in Enfield. You can find information about how mainstream schools meet the needs of children and young people with SEND by looking at the School’s SEND Information Report which should be available on their websites. Details of school websites can be found on our School Directory.
Find out more about Special Schools in Enfield and mainstream schools with specialist provision.
Annual review of EHCP
An education, health and care plan must legally be reviewed every year. This makes sure that information and provision are up to date and still accurately reflect your child's needs. This is called the annual review.
The video below from the Council for Disabled Children will give you an idea of what the annual review involves and why it is important: