Service feedback

Online survey

We appreciate your comments and feedback, good and bad, and welcome parents, carers and young people who have an interest in what we do to help shape our service.

Complete online survey

Complaints

We strive to give you the best possible service, if you have a comment or complaint you can put this in an email to: [email protected] – marking for the attention of the Service Lead.

Latest service feedback

Sample of positive comments received:

This has been more than helpful, I feel like you’ve given me a map to follow now and I know where I can go next, thank you so much.

Thank you again for your guidance and support during what has been an extremely difficult time for us.

Thanks so much, this stuff can be really complicated, it’s been good to go through it.

Thanks so much for your advice, it sounds like it will help us in this situation.

This call has been invaluable, its helped me work out what my immediate steps are and what I want to prioritise. thank you.

This has been so helpful, I have a much better idea of what I can do next after this, thank you.

I feel so much better about what happens next now, thank you.

I want to thank you sincerely for all your advice, guidance, and support throughout this process—it has made such a difference.

This is just in time for my meeting today, I didn’t know much about these processes so it has been very interesting.

Thank you, I feel like I have got my own plan of action in my head now.

Brilliant – this has helped quite a lot. I didn’t have any knowledge about things like the SEND Code before. I’ll look forward to getting the email.

its been so nice to feel listened to, I’m going to take all of this information and work out what steps I take now, thank you.

it’s really daunting trying to piece it all together in my brain, you have been a great help and definitely given me something to go back with.

You’ve been absolutely amazing, I feel so much better after speaking to you, thank you so much.

This has been the most helpful conversation I have had during the whole EHCP process, I really appreciate it, thank you.

Amazing, thank you. Your info is brilliant. Knowing there’s someone to speak to is so important.

This is much more helpful than what I’ve heard before, it makes much more sense, thank you.

I do feel more reassured now, thank you for explaining things.

You’ve given me a totally different avenue to go down now which is so useful, thank you.

You’ve been so helpful today, thank you so much, it feels like a minefield so I appreciate your advice.
Service feedback, July 2025

Training feedback

It’s definitely been helpful. I shall be sharing this info with my other sen mums.

Really useful, will be using this in the school holidays. Will be great to support with turn taking and patience as this is something my son struggles with. He loves lego but usually wants to do it himself, so will be useful as a family session. Thanks.

Thank you very much. i knew about lego therapy already but its great to see you can use the same process with other things.

We have learned some great ideas to try with our young learners.

I have attended as an alternative provision tutor- it has been so helpful, as it reassures me that my approach and advice to parents is ok.

I have found the information on strategies really helpful especially the ‘WIN’ You have been really clear with your advice and answers too which I haven’t found in other webinars I have attended. I also appreciate the links and that you will send the email with the presentation later as i am dyslexic so sometimes struggle to take notes.

Reassuring to know as parents we are using some of the techniques you have discussed today – but also some new ideas to add to the tool box.

Thank you it has been very helpful from a parent perspective from someone who is also a health professional. I have definitely noticed my daughter has struggled with her emotions coming up to her high school transition.

thank you so much, really useful and insightful.

Thank you, very useful and reassurance I’m on the right track.

Our son is Pre-verbal but these sessions can be very informative. My youngest is Austistic and has GDD but all of this can really be reassuring.
Training feedback, July 2025

Your views, we’re listening…

We also ask people to tell us ways we can improve our service…

July 2025

My issues were not understood. I was greatful for someone to listen to me but sadly there wasn’t any distance to the help provided. Email sent to me offered support in the wrong direction. This is an LEA funded service so of course it won’t be that helpful to parents.

SENDIASS response – We’re sorry we fell short of your expectations. Though we are jointly funded by the local authority and health, we operate a confidential arms-length service for families – our leaflet below may help to explain our position.

We would be pleased to check our records for any quality issues, do please get in touch again so we can look up the contact you had with us.

Frequently asked questions about SENDIASS (opens PDF)

June 2025

At our June Advisory Body, Suffolk Parent Carer Forum raised that the impact of our lengthier response times lead to families seeking support elsewhere.

SENDIASS response – We want to thank everyone who has taken the time to give us feedback about our lengthier response times recently. We truly value your honesty and patience with us and appreciate the impact this may have had to individuals, groups, and services.

We’ve made some changes across our team so we can be in the best position to respond more quickly to meet the ongoing needs of families.

Some improvements will be seen immediately, particularly with our response times. It will be a few months before the full positive impact will be felt – while we bring on board and train our new team members.

Thanks so much for your support and understanding.

In response to our feedback survey question: ‘Do you have any suggestions about how we can develop and improve our service?’

We regularly review comments received to this question and follow up any concerns flagged (where we have contact details).

June 2025

‘Actually help children. Don’t just cross the Ts and dot the i,s’

SENDIASS response – We’re sorry we fell short of your expectations. We would be pleased to check our records for any quality issues, do please get in touch again so we can look up the contact you had with us.

May 2025

‘I understand you are probably short staffed but the time that you get back to people could be quicker I did wait quite some time to hear back from doing the online form. But I do appreciate your very busy… you guys are amazing and know your stuff! So worth the wait. Thanks again’

SENDIASS response – Thank you for your kind comments. We appreciate your honesty and patience around our current response times. We are aware and are making changes to our ways of working so we can be in the best position to respond more quickly to meet the needs of families.

April 2025

‘To make it easier to access the online system. Codes and portals were complicated.’

SENDIASS response – We believe the person leaving this feedback means the local authority’s EHC portal, as we do not have an online portal for families to use when accessing our service.

‘Would fall on deaf ears.’

SENDIASS response – We’re sorry we fell short of your expectations. We would be pleased to check our records for any quality issues, do get in touch again so we can look up the contact you had with us.

March 2025

‘Super service great advice very helpful to parents as it’s a minefield.’

SENDIASS response – Thank you for your kind comments.

‘I think increasing staff so that getting through to someone on the phone immediately instead of a call back and decreasing the call back waiting time from days/a week to call back the same day.’

‘Just respond alot quicker I have some stuff to send off ASAP for a tribunal I rang over a week ago to help explained the situation said I need a call back ASAP it’s now been 8 days.’

SENDIASS response – Thank you for your honesty here and we appreciate your patience around our current response times. We are aware and are currently making changes to our ways of working so we can be in the best position to meet the needs of families. As well as getting back to people more quickly, we are reviewing and developing quality assurance practice (to ensure we continue to provide accurate and consistent information, advice and support).

February 2025

‘I think it’s great. I can’t do this section of my life alone. Thank you so much.’

SENDIASS response – Thank you for your kind comments.

‘I was disappointed after contacting you. I had already done a lot of reading and looked through your website for advice. You offered to look over my application for an ECH needs assessment, but as this was just to see if I had missed any sections, there was no point. I needed help to look over the content as I felt that I had written War and Peace and was concerned that I had included information that was not relevant.’

‘More isolated and realise that there isn’t any real help but links.’

SENDIASS response – Thank-you for taking the time to complete our survey. Our development plans include a focus around our Quality Assurance including being clear about what people can expect and we hope this will improve the experience of families using our service.

January 2025

‘I had use sendiass before and had fantastic advice and help with our son some yrs back . This time was was a while different experience, had to talk to someone other than leaving a message a call back several days later with very little advice/ help . Felt very let down not sure I would use again, what has happened to a service that was absolutely brilliant.’

‘Answer the question I asked and help me deal with the phone problem, being a parent your views get overlooked and not taken seriously, people like you can influence but you don’t really get involved just give advice.’

‘Personalised responses, speaking to a human rather than just generic advice, helping families feel valued and supported.’

‘Phone service so it’s easier to explain why U are looking for.’

SENDIASS response – Thank-you for sharing your experiences and ideas for ways we can improve the service. We want to provide families with high quality, information and advice.

We try to tailor our responses for more specific enquiries, though we will often include general information (about the processes around SEN Support and EHC plans, for example). We respond to enquiries via the method originally used to contact us (or as specified by the enquirer on our web contact form). We acknowledge emails can feel less personal. Many parents find it helpful to talk things through with us and we will often suggest this option in an email response.

Our service aims to empower people to understand and take part in discussions and we would only be directly involved when the person using the service has let us know they have support needs of their own (and are therefore unable to independently navigate SEND processes or communicate with school/the local authority).

We’re sorry we fell short of your expectations on this occasion. We hope very much you give us another opportunity and encourage you to let us know about any specific additional needs should you use the service again – so that we can provide you with the right level of support.

November 2024

‘Not at all. Could not improve, amazing service.’

SENDIASS response – Thank-you for your kind comments.

October 2024

‘I understand that the service may be busy but to employ more advisors… sometimes families are in mental health crisis like myself dealing with the issues with the SEN educational system in Suffolk. I feel that to also have a coding on prioritising needs and considering when someone needs more support quicker than someone else. Maybe a green amber and red with red being crisis and very distressed. I had to wait 4 days for a call back and in that moment of need I was in a very bad way and emotional and stressed when you don’t receive an answer on a call.‘

SENDIASS response – Thank-you for your helpful feedback. We are currently reviewing our processes and exploring digital technologies which might help us to manage enquiries efficiently and focus resource where it is needed.

August 2024

‘Improve on communication and time scales for things to happen.’

SENDIASS response – We are aware that the delay in responding to enquiries can be frustrating. We aim to meet our published response times (within 5 working days). Due to high demand, we sometimes exceed this and we have been working on ways we might build capacity.

We followed this up with the parent – thank-you for sharing your experience of using our service, this will help us to work out where we can improve.

July 2024

‘Contact parents by telephone if they requested that rather than just sending an email of info that isn’t personal and doesn’t particularly give specific support. It was the first time I had contacted you, I was desperate for advice. However I waited over a week to hear back then just received a email of information that was very vague and didn’t address my concern.’ (anonymised – unable to follow up)

SENDIASS response – We aim to provide a high quality, personalised response to queries, via either the method originally used to contact us or the method specified by the enquirer on our web contact form. The nature of some enquiries about specific processes means that the email response can feel less individual. If you might be willing to contact us with your name, we can check back to our record of the enquiry and respond to you.

April 2024

‘I appreciate your knowledge and support so much. It just takes a long time. I couldn’t get through on the phone and no one responded to my voicemail. Emails take a long time to get a response, although it is clear that this will be the case from the auto reply. So… thank you for your help, but the main improvement, as I am sure you are aware, is to have more of you.’

‘I had to wait a week for someone to ring me back which I wasn’t expecting and it meant we didn’t have the answers to our questions when we had a caf meeting.’

‘As with anything SEN related, more resource, and by that I mean more people employed to offer the expert support you provide.‘

‘…advice has been instrumental in helping us win our appeal! Only thing I will say is it’s not always the easiest to get through on the phone but XX has always called me back as soon as she can. Thank you!’

SENDIASS response – Thank-you for sharing your experiences and ideas for ways we can improve the service. During March and into April our response times were much longer than we would like, up to 6 working days. We are aware of this concern, and we are working out ways we might build capacity within the service to manage the high demand.

March 2024

‘I feel with the number of children in the system it needs an overhaul with more resources and to cut wait times. Not directed at yourselves as I said xx was extremely helpful once I got to talk to her.’

‘More face to face workshops for parents in Saxmundham and Leiston area would be beneficial to parents of child with SEN needs.’

‘Online live chat feature that could help answer small questions.’

SENDIASS response – We are very grateful for the helpful suggestions for ways we can improve and will consider these when planning next steps for our service.

We are already exploring online chat options to improve accessibility to our information and advice, and working out ways we might build capacity within the service to manage the high demand.

We re-introduced face-to-face training sessions after Covid and were surprised to find there was very little interest from families (we had an average of 3 people attend our sessions around the county which wasn’t sustainable). We therefore made the decision to offer training predominately online with the option of offering a face-to-face session on request. The positive feedback we receive from families suggests this works best for the majority. However, if you know of a group of parents and carers who would like a face-to-face session, please encourage them to contact us so that we can agree a venue, day and time which suits the group. Email: [email protected]