Share your feedback on new Alternative Provision Guidance from Surrey County Council (SCC)

Are you a parent or carer of a child or young person who has had recent experience of accessing Alternative Provision (AP) for your child?

Feedback from parent carers told us that they would like clear information and guidance on AP. Therefore, the AP team at SCC have been working in collaboration with Family Voice Surrey and parent carers to draft new AP guidance. This guidance aims to explain more clearly:

· What exactly AP is

· The different types of AP and their benefits

· Who’s responsible for arranging AP

This new guidance will be published on Surrey’s Local Offer website. Before this is finalised, the AP team at SCC are seeking your feedback to ensure the new guidance is clear, easy to understand and includes the information that families need.

What will be involved?

You will:

- One week before the group we will send you the documents to review.

- At the beginning of the discussion, we will recap your previous feedback and how we have addressed this in the guidance. Then we will open discussion for you to provide any comments on the guidance that you have.

- The online discussion group will be hosted by Family Voice Surrey and the AP team at SCC.

- Following the groups, there will also be an opportunity to share feedback on the guidance in written format to all those who register.

All the feedback will be reviewed and relevant changes made to improve the clarity and content before the guidance is published on Surrey’s Local Offer website for all parent carers to be able to access. Once it is published, any further improvements suggested by parent carers will be welcome and reviewed on a regular basis to ensure the guidance is as effective as possible.

Why get involved?

By getting involved you are helping to represent what parent carers want from the guidance, ensuring it is clear and accessible, and enabling the AP team at SCC to ensure that it reflects parent’s needs.

We recognise that AP can be complicated and vary depending on the individual needs of children and young people. We are aware that we won't be able to address every personal or exceptional circumstance in the guide. However, we want to address some of the feedback received so far which identified a need for guidance, ensuring it covers what families need as much as possible. It will also aim to include information and signposting of what to do, or who to contact, for those situations that are more personalised. Your help is greatly appreciated in making this guidance as effective as possible.

If you have any questions, please do get in touch with Leanne: leanne.h@familyvoicesurrey.org

Alternative Provision Engagement Event