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RIASS Redbridge
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RIASS Attendance to Meetings

Our aim is to enable our young people and parent/carers to participate independently in meetings following our input. However, attending meetings and providing support is a very small part of the service that we offer and would only do so when it is necessary.

RIASS offers three levels of service:

  • Information
  • Advice
  • Support

Information: This is provided through the website, our helpline, outreach sessions at schools and children’s centres and our programme of online and face-to-face information sessions.

Advice: Sometimes information is not enough. You may also want individual advice to help you to find the right information, make sense of it and apply it to your own situation.

​Support: If our information and advice is not enough to enable you to advocate for yourself or your child, RIASS may be able to provide you with one-to-one support, subject to available staffing resources. This could include reviewing forms you may have drafted and coming with you to meetings to help you have your views heard. 

We prioritise giving one-to-one support to:

  • Young people with SEND aged up to 25.
  • Parents and carers of children and young people who have been excluded from school, do not have a permanent school place, or are not attending full-time education.
  • Parents/carers who need extra help (e.g., those with communication or literacy difficulties, or a disability that affects their ability to advocate for their child).

We do not operate a system of named caseworkers (i.e. we do not have one worker allocated to each case, this means that you may be helped by any member of the RIASS team, depending on staff availability). We are a small team, and we collaborate and share our expertise to ensure the best support is given to each young person and/or parent/carer.

Arranging meetings

We can not arrange meetings on your behalf with other professionals and/or education settings. Although RIASS is a statutory service it is impartial and other professionals including education settings to not have to meet with us. As an impartial service, we do not favour either side or have influence over the outcome of any meeting and this is another reason on why we are unable to arrange a meeting.

The RIASS role is to empower young people and parent/carers, and part of our work would be to be advise you of the benefit of having a meeting and how to approach the service or education setting to do this.

Coming with you to meetings

We cannot guarantee to meet all requests to accompany parents/carers/young people to meetings with schools and other professionals, due to the limitations within the service. We can offer information and advice to help you to prepare for these meetings.

RIASS empower parents by providing them with information and advice in advance.

RIASS Tribunal attendance

RIASS can help parent/carers prepare for Mediation sessions.  We do not usually attend Mediation meetings, but this can be discussed on a case-by-case basis, depending on individual circumstances and on our case load and availability.

RIASS are not legally qualified so we cannot act as your legal representative in Tribunal Hearings, but we can assist you to prepare for your hearing and support you to put forward your views and wishes during the hearing.

Please refer to the RIASS Tribunal Policy for more information

School and Education Meetings

RIASS will provide the information and advice ahead of any education meeting and will only attend meetings where:

  • the placement is at risk.
  • it is a phased transfer and there is uncertainty regarding the next placement.
  • the child has multiple or complex needs and parent/carers are struggling to engage support or necessary services.
  • it is a complex situation and at risk of going to SENDisT.
  • following a SENDisT decision there are on-going issues regarding implementation or delivery of the ruling.

RIASS do not attend exclusion meetings but can provide advice around Disability Discrimination and SEN support needs in advance of the meetings.

We do not attend Governor meetings. Other education meetings are at the discretion of RIASS.

Parent face-to-face meetings

RIASS will provide the information, advice, and support with face-to-face meetings when:

  • Parents may have additional needs of their own.
  • Parents require support to write their contribution to the EHCP Needs Assessment.

Social Care Meetings

RIASS would not attend any social care meetings unless these are related to the SEN of the child or young person.

Health Meetings

RIASS would not attend any health meetings with families.

Other situations would be determined by RIASS as to whether the meeting would warrant our attendance. If we do attend, we will always remain objective and impartial.

Please refer to RIASS Empowerment Model.