Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is planning to take over summer 2021 to help young people in receipt of statutory services to re-engage with those services as covid-19 restrictions are eased.

The department has ensured that children's social care services have continued to operate throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.

The department’s regional improvement teams are working with local authorities who are experiencing challenges in providing statutory social care services to children. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission have restarted their inspection and revisit activity, which once again allows us to monitor and hold local areas to account for quality of services. We established a vulnerable children and young people survey of local authorities and have been reviewing data to give insight into the ongoing delivery of children’s social care services.

We are continuing to support local authorities to deliver services that meet the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Education, health and care plan quality and timeliness is something we have been monitoring through the COVID-19 outbreak and continue to do so. The NHS COVID-19 recovery plan includes measures that will support the recovery of health services for children with SEND and additional funding for respite services of £3 million. The published COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing recovery action plan (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/973936/covid-19-mental-health-and-wellbeing-recovery-action-plan.pdf) also references various areas of support for children, including £31 million to be used to address particular challenges faced by individuals with a learning disability.

Therapeutic, speech and language services for children with SEND have been impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. The department are working urgently with education settings, the relevant Royal Colleges, and the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that these issues are tackled. We have taken steps to remind schools and colleges that they should allow access to therapists and health professionals, and of their ability to use recovery and catch-up funding to secure further therapies within school.

We continue to provide support to families on low incomes raising children with disabilities or serious illnesses. We provided £40.8 million for the Family Fund in financial year 2020-21 to support over 90,000 families on low incomes raising children with disabilities or serious illnesses. This included £13.5 million to specifically respond to needs arising from the COVID-19 outbreak. This financial year a total of £27.3 million is available.

Beyond the support for children and young people in receipt of statutory services for children's social care and those with SEND, we are working across government to ensure that wider, targeted services are also available. NHS mental health services have remained open throughout the COVID-19 outbreak and have deployed digital tools to enable them to connect with people and provide ongoing support. All NHS mental health trusts have provided 24/7 open access telephone lines (https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/publication/covid-19-immediate-establishment-of-24-7-urgent-nhs-mental-health-telephone-support-advice-and-triage/) to support people of all ages, and other health services for children and families have continued to operate.

Additionally, we are ensuring that other key services such as early help, youth services and the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme are protected and there for children and young people who need them. We have asked social workers to make sure that children and young people known to children's social care are encouraged to make use of the HAF programme. The programme provides disadvantaged children across the country with enriching activities whilst supporting them to be healthy and active. I have written to all special and alternative provision schools to encourage them to offer Department for Education-funded summer school provision for their pupils and signposted them to HAF provision in their local areas where relevant.