Thank you to all the parent carers who have responded to calls for information via face-to-face meet-ups, social media, emails and phone calls. For transparency, we have listed all the themes you have raised with us below. If you feel we have missed (or misrepresented) anything, please get in touch.

Transport

We were really sorry to hear about the distress caused to families regarding cancellations of school transport routes as children and young people returned to school in September. Whilst parent carers accept that sometimes issues such as illness and breakdowns can affect their child’s transport to school, the number of routes that were not ready to go at the start of the term continued to impact families in respect of distress to children, school non-attendance, increased stress for families trying to co-ordinate transportation across the city, loss of earnings and reduced work hours for parents.

PPCV shared a number of social media posts on behalf of Plymouth City Council, and were blown away by your feedback. Through your engagement, we were able to identify recurring themes such as increased times young people were spending on transport, information that families were not familiar with, ideas for recruiting more passenger assistants and ideas for better route planning. A meeting between PPCV, SEND Help Plymouth and the Transport Team was held on 10th September to discuss these ideas.

Our next face-to-face Family Forum on Friday, 13th November at Moments Cafe (PL1 1RJ) will be an opportunity to discuss Transport. We will be joined by a member of PCC who will talk about what the Transport Team have put in place so far and what future plans look like. It is also an opportunity for you to raise issues and ideas, and put them to the Transport Team. We have already compiled your feedback from our social media posts a few weeks ago and will take that list with us to share on your behalf. At this event, we will also be joined by Jo Twine from SEND Sufficiency.

School Related Distress

Thank you to all the parent carers who provided information and experiences to help shape Guidance around School Related Distress (also known as Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance). Whether you attended the face-to-face meeting with Educational Psychologists at Plymstock Library on Tuesday, 15th September in person, or submitted information via email, messenger or conversations with PPCV or SEND Help Plymouth, your input and engagement was vital and greatly appreciated.

The main points that you told us you needed to see in the guidance included:

• Language to support young people, not blame them
• Clear accountability processes
• Usable toolkits and flowcharts of expectations and strategies, and what to do if they are not followed
• Whole school culture (at all levels and reflected in policies) and sharing good practice/creative ideas
• Environment
• Training for families and settings
• Clarity with attendance reporting (authorised, unauthorised, health/medical)
• Family experiences valued on an equal level as professionals – trust and believe the young person and their family
• Flexibility with timescales for support programs – don’t just stop after a 6-week block and expect everything to be OK straight away.
• Evidence that it is deliverable (this time!)

Our thanks go to Steph Nash and Valerie Marshall, Education Psychologists who worked hard producing the draft guidance and really appeared to listen to the families in the room. They have since reported back that similar meetings with professionals and school staff echoed the parental discussion, and many were already suggesting ideas of what else schools could do to support young people with school-related distress. As soon as we receive any updates relating to the guidance, we will let you know.

Border Barrier

During the summer holiday, families living on the Plymouth/Devon border have brought to our attention the difficulties their children with SEND are facing regarding access to clubs. For example, a child may live just over the Plymouth border, but attends a Plymouth school, therefore are unable to access activities with their peers. The closest alternative in Devon would mean a 45-minute drive to a session that their school friends will not be attending. This is similar to the issue raised and reported in our What you have told us (Apr – Jun 2026) report, but affecting those on the Plymouth/Cornwall border.

Advocacy

• A number of families have expressed how difficult they find high-pressure situations such as medical appointments, school meetings (TAM/Annual Reviews), social care visits and housing issues. This can often lead to communication breakdown, important information being missed, and perceived aggression. Any advocacy services that currently exist appear to be working beyond capacity, and are only able to offer support to those with an identified learning disability or via virtual appointments. It is felt that there is a gap in parent advocacy services, and no face-to-face support for those who feel they need support.
• This was also reported in our What you have told us (Apr – Jun 2026) blog post.
• A “Communication Advocacy Service” has been suggested by a parent carer, potentially with trained volunteers, similar to being offered a chaperone for certain medical appointments.

Dyslexia Pathway

The lack of a dyslexia pathway in Plymouth has been raised a number of times by parent carers. Although there are useful resources on the GATI website that can be used to support children in school, some families have reported that accessing resources and further support needed in further and higher education requires a diagnosis. This is only available privately costing anything upwards from around £450. Diagnosis is important to families to not only access funds for additional resources, but (quoting one parent) “I don’t want them to feel like they are just stupid, like I was made to feel.”

New to the world of SEND

We have been honoured to meet so many parents who are new to the world of SEND over the past few months, but really sad to hear that they felt like they were at a loss with no-one to talk to who understands their situation or where to find support. We hope that our latest newsletter (September 2026) is a starting point for introducing you to groups and activities (and will act as a reminder to families who are not new to the world of SEND – we would also welcome your feedback about groups we have missed out!). We really liked an idea shared by a few parents about a flow chart or route map to point them in the direction of services they may need or questions to ask. This is something we would like to work on – please bear with us.

SEND Conference

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the 2026 SEND Conference. You can read a full breakdown here: https://plymouthpcv.co.uk/your-feedback-from-the-2026-send-conference/

Blog added 22/9/26

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Pexels