Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what opportunities parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have had to contribute to the development of new professional standards for mediators working with SEND.

In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, the department committed to work with the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) and the College of Mediators (CoM) to review and build on the existing professional standards for SEND mediators, which was first published in 2018. The standards are owned by CMC and CoM and apply to those listed on their joint register of accredited SEND mediators.

CMC and CoM conducted a review of the existing standards last year and are currently consulting on proposed updated standards. Departmental officials have been working closely with CMC and CoM to ensure that the views of families, local authorities and other stakeholders are considered.

Parents and carers of children with SEND can contribute their views directly by responding to the consultation via the CMC’s website: https://civilmediation.org/send-consultation.

The department has also engaged with the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF), which is the national combined strategic voice of parent carer forums working in co-production with the government. All funded local parent carer forums are, by default, members of the NPCF. The department has engaged with NNPCF via the department’s SEND Dispute Resolution Steering Group, where they have had an opportunity to comment and share their views on plans to update the standards. NNPCF have also shared details of the consultation with their network.

The Council for Disabled Children and Contact have also shared details of the consultation.