What the toolkit asks of the wider system
Some changes cannot be made by parents, carers, workers or young people alone. These eight asks are for funders, commissioners, senior leaders and organisations that can change the conditions around young people and families.
Eight changes the wider system needs to make
The toolkit is clear about what good practice can achieve, and where its limits are. These eight changes address the conditions that individual practice cannot fix on its own.
Every child needs one named person who can hold their story across services, support continuity and give the family one reliable point of contact.
Too often, different parts of a young person’s life sit with different services. Information is split, responsibility is unclear and children get lost in the gaps.
Build protected reflective time into the calendar for schools, Mental Health Support Teams, VCSE organisations, council services and NHS services.
This is not a wellbeing extra. It is a condition of doing good work.
Where possible, reflective supervision is led by someone other than the person’s direct line manager.
An Education, Health and Care Plan, often called an EHC plan, is a legal document that sets out a child or young person’s needs and the support they are to receive. It is for children and young people who need more support than is normally available through SEN support.
Base support on assessed need, not assumptions about risk, behaviour, race or gender.
For senior leaders: review one-to-one support, EHC plans and referrals to ask:
- Are Black boys being allocated support because of assessed need, or because adults assume they present greater risk?
- Are Black girls’ learning, emotional or neurodivergent needs being missed or recognised too late?
- Are reviews identifying and challenging racial assumptions before they become fixed decisions?
Black educators and workers can carry additional pressure in racist systems. They may be expected to represent Black communities, explain racism, translate culture or take on the most difficult work with Black children and families.
Fund peer support and supervision that understands Black culture and racialised experience. Make it part of the workforce offer, not an optional staff benefit.
Families of children and young people with SEND need access to independent advice and advocacy.
They need people who can help them understand their rights, prepare for meetings, challenge decisions and speak up when support is not in place. This cannot depend only on an offer controlled by the same local authority making decisions about their child.
SEND understanding cannot sit only with Special Educational Needs Coordinators, known as SENCOs.
All staff working with children and young people need to understand SEND, including how needs can be missed or understood differently across racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Build this question into training: why might this child not have been referred yet?
Do not focus training only on children who already have a diagnosis, referral or EHC plan.
Fund opportunities for families and young people to connect before a crisis.
This includes family-to-family support, gatherings for young people across different areas, and a moderated channel where community feedback on services is heard and answered.
Families made the case clearly: it takes a village to raise children. The village needs opportunities to meet, build trust and see each other as allies.
Maybe an annual youth club where everyone comes together and we start to recognise that these are not your enemies. They look like you and I.Parent, our family focus group
Connection before a problem becomes a crisis is prevention.
Fund the conditions that make good practice possible, not only the direct work with young people.
This means realistic caseloads, manageable class sizes, paid time for VCSE partners to join multi-agency sessions, and funding for the train-the-trainer work this toolkit relies on.
This ask sits beneath all the others. Without the right conditions, practice cannot reach the scale or quality that young people and families need.
Turn these asks into action
If you fund services, sit on a board or write bids, here are three concrete next steps.
Put it on the agenda
Bring this page to your next funding or board meeting as a standing item. Bring Chapter 14's evidence for the conditions with it.
Cost one change
Pick the ask closest to your remit and cost it for one borough. A named key worker pilot, a supervision offer, a funded convening budget.
Build it into funding and contracts
Build the asks into the next relevant specification or bid. Then tell the Healthy Dialogues team through the suggestion form in Chapter 17.