Support from other services (BTEd)

What other services are available to boost engagement and explore additional needs including sensory strategies
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Activities Unlimited - Activities Unlimited provides inclusive leisure opportunities for children and young people with special educational needs (SEND) across Suffolk, supporting their social, emotional, and developmental needs. By offering activities for the whole family, it helps reduce barriers to education through confidence-building, connection, and community support.

Alternative Tuition Service (ATS) - A Suffolk-wide service offering short-term, personalised education for CYP aged 5–16 who are out of school. Sessions focus on English and Maths, build rapport, and support reintegration through regular school liaison.

Attendance Service -The Suffolk School Attendance Service supports schools and academies to address attendance issues both strategically and through individual casework. By promoting regular attendance, the service helps raise pupil achievement, improve school outcomes, and foster social inclusion, enhancing young people’s chances of a successful transition into adulthood.

Early Help - Suffolk’s Early Help Service supports children with barriers to education through tailored interventions, school consultations, and direct work with pupils and families at the early intervention stage. Operating across five local teams, the service also facilitates referrals via CAF and MASH to ensure joined-up support that promotes every child’s access to learning.

Education Access Service - The teams within the Education Access Service provide support, education and advice for schools, CYP and their families when attendance at mainstream school is vulnerable. We work together with a range of services to support schools and children across the whole of Suffolk as required.

Teams include:

Alternative Provision Team -The role of Alternative Provision is to provide children and young people with another education setting that will suit and meet their current needs, provides early and short-term intervention and promote their engagement in the curriculum.

Alternative Tuition Service (ATS) -The statutory education service for children out of school due to medical reasons or permanent exclusion.

Education Access Team – A school facing service that supports Children and Young People (CYP) who are unable to access full time education due to being permanently excluded or are vulnerable to permanent exclusion.

In Year Fair Access Protocol (IYFAP) – The IYFAP is the process to operate the Fair Access Protocol which considers the re-integration of permanently excluded children, those returning to a mainstream school from an AP or PRU and supports the process of Off-Site Directions (OSD) and Managed Moves (MM).

Emotional Wellbeing Hub - The Emotional Wellbeing Hub provides access to NHS Children and Adolescence Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Parents and carers can make a referral to the Emotional Wellbeing Hub if they are concerned about the mental health of a child or young person aged 0-25 years, and if you live in East and West Suffolk.

Family Support Service- Suffolk’s Family Support Service helps families build resilience and improve outcomes through targeted support from family teams, parenting programmes, and youth coaching. Working across universal and specialist services, it addresses barriers to education, wellbeing, and employment, with access via an Early Help Assessment.

Inclusion Facilitation Service - As part of the Psychology and Therapeutic Service, we work alongside the Educational Psychologist Service. We use One Page Profiles to introduce ourselves and model this person-centred way of working. Our interventions are carefully tailored to meet individual needs and delivered in a way that best suits each person: either face to face, virtually, or a hybrid mixture of both. Inclusion Facilitators (IFs) can offer alternative ways to support you, for example, as part of the Graduated Response.

Mental Health Support Team - The MHSTs are an early intervention service that support children and young people, their families and school/college communities with mild to moderate mental health difficulties. MHST works across a selection of primary and secondary schools as well as colleges in Suffolk. They provide dedicated, onsite mental health support within schools/ colleges. MHST works in term time and in school holidays.

Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) - Where to find help if you are concerned about your child's speech, language or communication skills.

Sensory Support - This page offers practical sensory support resources from Suffolk’s Inclusion Facilitation service, including checklists, activity ideas, and strategies to help children and young people with different sensory needs at home and in school.

School Nursing - Health support offered to parents and children aged 5-19 (up to 25 for SEND).​ Within Suffolk, our School Nursing teams are part of our Health and Children's Centre Service. We provide a range of services to help you and your family stay safe, happy and healthy.

Social Care - Suffolk’s children’s social care services offer a tiered approach, from universal support to specialist interventions, to help children and young people with additional needs access education. Through assessments and coordinated support, services like the Disabled Children and Young People’s Service provide tailored care, equipment, respite, and transition planning for those facing barriers to education.

Specialist Education Service - SES is made up of six teams of specialist teachers: Cognition and Learning including Specific Language Difficulties, Communication and Interaction, the Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) service, SEMH, Whole School Inclusion Service and Sensory Service including Vison and Multi-Sensory and Deaf Services.

The team work with schools by delivering training and advice on Special Educational Needs and working with schools to support individual children with and without an EHCP. The team focus on supporting schools to include children alongside their peers and by sharing and modelling evidence based strategies and interventions to help children access education.

Suffolk Family Carers - ‘Young Carers’ are children/young people who regularly provide care for a family member or close friend, including siblings. We commission Suffolk Family Carers, to provide a county-wide service for Young Carers. We also provide additional clubs/groups for families and siblings through our annual grants process, with services detailed in the AU Activity Guide 2026-27.  

Suffolk Mind - Suffolk Mind supports people from the age of 4 upwards, through:

Working across the Mental Health Continuum, we aim to provide support and information for everyone.

Suffolk Youth Justice Service - The Suffolk Youth Justice Service works with young people aged 10 to 18 at risk of offending or have offended. 

SCC Psychology and Therapeutic Services (P&TS)

The Psychology and Therapeutic Services (Educational Psychology & Inclusion Facilitation) work with children and young people from 0 – 25 years, as well as with the adults who care and work with them.

Virtual School - Suffolk’s Virtual School supports the educational progress of children in care by working closely with children and young people, schools, social workers, and carers to ensure they receive the best possible learning opportunities. It provides guidance on Personal Education Plans, post-16 education, and funding like the Pupil Premium Grant to help improve outcomes for children in care.

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires councils in England to appoint a Virtual School Head to discharge the local authority’s duty to promote the educational achievement of its children in care; this encompasses both the Virtual School and the Virtual College. The Virtual School’s Extended Duties also includes children previously looked after and children with a social worker.