Using AI to Support SEND Services in the city

Using AI to Support SEND Services in the city

Many of you will have read recent stories in the media about how we're exploring the use of technology to improve our services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND).  As part of this work we're currently testing the potential use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help our SENMAS team with some parts of the Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan process.

Why are we exploring AI?

Our main aim is always to provide the best possible support for children and young people with SEND. By using AI, we hope to streamline our processes and free up our dedicated SEND Caseworkers to focus on what matters most: working closely with families and providing better and more personalised support. We know from your feedback that you want to be able to get in touch with your caseworker quickly and get a prompt response. By freeing up more of their time from writing plans we believe that we can improve the amount of contact you get, and also allow your Caseworker to have more time to do more proactive work to chase things like consultations and outstanding reports so that you aren't left wondering what's happening with your child's assessment, review or plan.

How might AI be used?

If our trialing is successful, AI could be used to generate parts of the drafts of EHC plans, which will help your Caseworker to formulate or write your child’s EHC plan. This will help to tailor the plan to the individual needs of each child or young person. This will also help to make your plan more accurate and comprehensive - showing a true picture of the needs of your child. 

If our trial is successful we will also look at how AI can be used in the annual review process to support keeping plans up to date.

Benefits for families

If we proceed with using AI to support our EHC plan drafting, we hope to:

• Reduce delays: AI could help us generate drafts more efficiently, reducing the time it takes to finalize EHC plans while also working with you. 

• Improve communication: With more time available, our SEND Caseworkers could focus on communicating effectively with families, listening to concerns, and providing personalized support.

• Improve quality: the hope is that Ai will pull out all the important points of the reports received and propose a good quality EHC plan. This will help to make the quality of our EHC plans more consistent. 

What's happening next?

We're currently in the trialing phase, exploring the potential benefits and challenges of using AI in this way. We'll be monitoring the outcome of our trial closely and we hope that you can join us on our new AI journey by evaluating the positives and the negatives as we progress. This will include a really strong process around the quality assurance of these plans to make sure that they remain person-centered.

Our commitment to you

I want to reassure you that AI is not intended to replace the human element in our SEND services. Every EHC plan would be carefully reviewed and checked by our experienced SEND Caseworkers to ensure that it meets the individual needs of each child or young person.

We're committed to providing the best possible SEND services in Stoke-on-Trent. By exploring innovative solutions, we hope to improve our processes, reduce delays, and focus on what matters most: supporting our children and young people with SEND.

If you have any questions or concerns about our exploration of AI in SEND services, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at Daniel.Marson@stoke.gov.uk . We're always here to listen and provide support.