Who owns the next step when school stops working?
One child can sit across education, SEND, health, safeguarding, social care and local authority processes at the same time. The child experiences one life. The system often experiences separate cases.
Today is about the joins: where responsibility becomes blurred, where families repeat the same story, and where everyone is involved but nobody is clearly holding the next action.
Five questions for multi-agency work.
Multi-agency does not automatically mean coordinated. Someone still has to hold the thread.
Who is holding the plan — the actions, the owner and the review date?
Are we working from the same story, or do different services hold different fragments?
What has actually changed for the child or family because of our involvement?
What happens while we wait? Waiting lists should not mean a child loses connection or education.
What happens if EHE is raised? Keep the conversation factual and non-coercive and make responsibilities clear.
Move from debate to something useful.
Agree, disagree, challenge us or add something we have missed.
Feedback is welcome from families, young people, home educators, schools, trusts, SEND professionals, local authorities, health, wider services, researchers and policymakers.