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SEND Strategy 2026 - 2029

Our SEND Strategy 2026 - 29 sets out how we will support families in Hertfordshire across education, health and social care, for the next 3 years.

How was the SEND Strategy co-produced? 

The draft SEND Strategy 2026-2029 has been coproduced with children and young people, parent carers, practitioners, schools, settings and wider partners across the SEND system. Through a comprehensive programme of engagement across  Summer 2025, we heard from over 1,000 voices, whose lived experiences and professional insights directly shaped the development of the strategy.

SEND Summit

Before we launched the consultation on our SEND Strategy, we held the SEND Summit which was attended by 124 people from across education, health, social care and parent carer representatives. They shared their views, experiences, insights and ideas in interactive workshops. Over 100 people joined the event via the livestream and submitted questions for a Q&A session.  

Before the summit, we held a series of pre-engagement events and activities.

Over 50 hours of County Councillor and Officers time was spent meeting with over 130 parent carers and professionals at community events.  The Local Offer Team attended 23 community events and chatted to 77 people about the challenges and solutions.

We also ran an online survey before the SEND Summit to capture people's views and experiences. 531 responses were received in a parent carer survey, 193 responses were received in a survey for educational professionals, and 135 responses were received in a survey for young people.

The insights, ideas and experiences shared in the SEND summit and in the pre-engagement activities and survey were used to develop our proposed SEND Strategy. 

Consultation

Our consultation on the proposed SEND Strategy ran from 14 November 2025 to 6 February 2026. We gathered views via an online survey, and held a series of consultation activities with young people, parent carers, schools and staff.

Online survey

128 responses were received for our online survey, (56 parent carers, 43 educational professionals, 13 SEND workforce and 14 other).

Children and young people

  • Our SEND Participation Lead consulted with children and young people through the Voices of Hertfordshire programme.
  • SfYP Youth Councils discussed the strategy too.
  • We ran a focus group with the Experts by Experience where they discussed their views on the strategy

Online consultation sessions

We ran online parent carer focus groups to give parents, carers and young people the chance to share their views on the new proposed SEND Strategy. 

We also ran an online workshop with our SENCo Online Feedback Group where they were able to share their perspective on the strategy and offer ideas and insights.

We used the feedback from all of these to inform the final version of the SEND Strategy and ensure it reflects the priorities, concerns, and lived experience of children and young people with SEND, their families and professionals that work with them. 

Our Ambitions

Ambition 1 - Listen, Engage, Collaborate, Evolve

We will continuously listen to children, young people, families, staff and education settings and take time to understand their experiences. They should always be engaged in our continuous improvement work. This is so we can continue to learn about what works and what doesn’t.

What this means for you and your child

You’ll have opportunities to share your thoughts and ideas to help make our services better. We’re working on making our communication with you clearer and more helpful. If there is a disagreement, we’ll do our best to sort it out quickly and fairly. And if something doesn’t go as it should, we’ll listen, learn from it, and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Ambition 3: Local Provision for Children and Young People 

We will provide children and young people with access to high quality education, health and social care provisions that are local to them and work together to consider their needs and outcomes. All of our provision will operate flexibly to meet varying and changing needs. 

What this means for you and your child

Most children and young people will get the help they need in their local mainstream school. For those with more complex needs, there will be specialist support available. As schools and settings become more inclusive, we want families to feel confident in the support their school offers. And when it’s time to move on after school, there will be more local options for college or training.

Ambition 5: Preparing for the Future

For children, young people and families, transition at any age or life stage is vitally important and can be stressful. We will support children and young people to be ready for the next step in life. 

What this means for you and your child

When your child is ready to take a next step, services that support them will have planned for it. As your child gets older, they are supported to think about the future and what options are available to them.

Delivering our SEND Strategy

To make sure we achieve each of our ambitions, we have developed a robust action plan.  This will help us to measure our progress against the aims of the SEND Strategy.  It will help us know when we have succeeded, and keep an eye on areas where we still need to improve. 

Read more about how we're delivering our SEND Strategy (pdf 426kb).

The outcomes we are aiming for


We want every child and young person to succeed.
To help us check how we’re doing, we have created a set of indicators for each of our Outcome Bees. The Outcome Bees are based on what children, young people and families told us is most important to them. By checking these indicators regularly, we can make sure our SEND Strategy stays relevant, inclusive, and focused on what families need.

These indicators help us see:

  • If our work is making a positive difference
  • Where we may need to change or improve things
  • When we should celebrate progress

You can read more on Outcome Bee indicators at How do we measure our progress?