Every Cloud Play & Creative Arts Therapy

01/03/2026

Beautifully put Play & Filial Therapy 😊☁️

We need more nuance in how we talk about therapeutic approaches for children, and young people

Highly verbal, cognitive strategies have their place. But they’re not universally developmentally appropriate. A teenager-appropriate approach isn’t automatically right for a preschooler or a child just starting school. And equally, not every teenager is ready for a purely cognitive or verbal process — regardless of their age

That’s where play comes in!

I’ve worked with many teenagers who have found their voice through play-based communication — a board game, a metaphor, a moment of shared play — when words alone couldn’t get there

Developmental readiness matters more than chronological age. Play meets children and young people where they are

28/02/2026

Useful answers to questions you might have regarding the future of SEND support. Thank you ND Hub Glos for sharing. 😊☁️

Gloucestershire Parent FAQ
SEND Reform Practical Questions

1. Will my child lose their EHCP?
No.
No EHCP will be removed before at least September 2030.
If your child has an EHCP in 2029, they can:
Keep it until the end of their education phase, or
Choose to move to the new system.

2. Should I rush to apply for an EHCP before 2029?
Not necessarily, but do not delay if your child needs one now.
The current legal system still applies.Future reforms should not stop you accessing support today.

3. What is an Individual Support Plan (ISP)?
An ISP will be a digital document used in mainstream schools to record:
Your child’s barriers to learning.
Provision being delivered.
Reasonable adjustments.
Agreed outcomes.
It is not currently a replacement for an EHCP, but over time it may become the main support mechanism for many children.

4. Is an ISP legally enforceable like an EHCP?
Not in the same way.
An EHCP is a statutory plan enforceable via Tribunal.
An ISP will sit within school accountability systems and Ofsted inspection, but does not carry the same legal redress route.
This is a key structural difference.

5. Will it become harder to get an EHCP?
From 2029 onwards, likely yes.
Only children who meet nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages will qualify.
The threshold is expected to focus on “most complex needs.”
Details are not yet fully defined.

6. What are Inclusion Bases?
Inclusion Bases are specialist units inside mainstream schools.
They aim to:
Provide smaller, calmer spaces.
Offer specialist support.
Allow children to remain in local schools.
Their quality will depend entirely on staffing, ethos, and trauma-informed practice.

7. Will my child be forced out of special school?
No.
If your child is in special school in September 2029, they can remain until the end of their education.

8. What if mainstream isn’t working now?
Reform does not remove your current rights.
If your child is:
Persistently dysregulated,
Being excluded,
Masking to the point of burnout,
Or unable to attend,
You can still pursue statutory assessment under current law.

9. Will Gloucestershire get more funding?
Yes, nationally funding is increasing.
But how funding is allocated locally matters.
We will be monitoring:
How GCC distributes funds.
Workforce recruitment.
Whether money reaches classrooms.
Whether Inclusion Bases are properly resourced.

10. What about racial disparities?
We know:
SEN identification varies by ethnicity.
Exclusion rates disproportionately affect racialised children.
Neurodivergent girls and children of colour are under-identified.
We will be pushing for:
Equity monitoring.
Anti-racist implementation.
Culturally competent early identification.

11. What should I be doing as a parent right now?
Keep records.
Attend reviews.
Request reasonable adjustments in writing.
Engage early with concerns.
Seek advice before agreeing to any changes.
Stay informed, but avoid panic.

12. Where can I get support in Gloucestershire?
ND Hub guidance and updates.
SENDIASS Gloucestershire.
IPSEA (legal advice).
Local parent networks (Parent Carer Alliance)
School SENCO.
We will publish further updates as legislation progresses.

26/02/2026

Before responding to the Department for Education’s long awaited consultation for the future of Adoption and Kinship Support please do read this from Action against ASGSF 🙂☁️

We recommend you read this really helpful guide to the consultation written by Adoption UK

https://www.adoptionuk.org/pages/faqs/category/adoption-support-consultation

We also recommend that you do not rush to respond to the consultation; it doesn’t close until 5th May.

It might be helpful to take time to fully understand what is being proposed and the potential consequences, and to read the guidance and information that will come out from various sources, including this guide from Adoption UK.

As you will have seen, our campaign has serious concerns about the proposals within the consultation and the overall direction of travel for post adoption and kinship support.

We also have real concerns about the design of some of the consultation questions, the leading nature of these, and their sometimes ambiguous wording. This occurs across both the adult response form and the child and young person form.

We will give some examples taken directly from the form below that you may find helpful (picture example below as well):

⚫️Example 1. Strengthen peer and community support for adoptive parents and children. Do you agree with this proposal?

When taken alone, it would be easy, for example, to strongly agree with this statement. But if it added further context that a consequence of this would be a reduction in access to specialist therapeutic support, you may answer differently.

⚫️Example 2. Provide proactive support for adopted and kinship children at key life stages, such as transitions to secondary school. Do you agree with this proposal?

It would also be easy to strongly agree with this, but when you realise that what they deem to be proactive support is 6 x 2-hour parent sessions or training when your child is in Year 6 at school, you may decide you don’t think it’s adequate or proactive at all.

⚫️Example 3. Require clinical adoption support therapies to be compliant with NHS evidence standards. Ensure all interventions are well evidenced and assessed. Do you agree with this proposal?

This sounds good in theory but fails to recognise the many very effective therapies that have been developed but cannot be assessed under the standards suggested here, or have not yet been assessed in this way.

This proposal has the potential to significantly limit some well known, effective therapy models that the government has funded through the ASGSF but where appropriate research into them has not been funded at the same time. That doesn’t mean evidence doesn’t exist or that the therapy models aren’t effective; it means investment should be made in this area.

Limiting therapy to those currently offered through CAMHS, for example, would be a mistake and could see the unique nature of our children’s needs overlooked. The ASGSF was designed because of the very specialist nature of need and the very specialist nature of the therapeutic interventions required. It is well evidenced that statutory services fail our community. We absolutely support growing the evidence base for therapies used, but it is important to remember that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.

⚫️ Example 4. Improving value for money to ensure every pound spent is used efficiently, sustainably and on families. Do you agree with this proposal?

This sounds great, but what do they actually mean? There is nowhere near enough information to make an informed decision about this at present. For example, money can be very well spent on specialist therapeutic provision, but it can also be the more expensive option in the short term while saving huge amounts of money in the long term and, more importantly, providing children, young people and adults with the support they really need to thrive. However, with this leading question, the DfE could gather responses that the government can then use as they wish to support whichever narrative they choose.

⚫️ To summarise:

If we are all led by the nature of the questions to select strongly agree by the form’s very design, the government (Department for Education) could end up with substantial quantitative data that appears to support their proposals when, in actual fact, you aren’t in support of them at all.

We do not currently know how they will present the qualitative data collected within the comments section of these questionnaires. We do not know who will be interpreting the data or information collected, or what weight it will carry in decision making.

We therefore recommend you take time to consider the questions carefully and your responses to them.

If you do not agree with the overall proposals being made within the consultation around the future of post adoption and kinship support, then your answers to these leading questions may need to reflect this.

23/02/2026

100% agree with Dr Naomi Fisher. 😊☁️

No one is connecting the dots on SEND. More and more children need extra support with school - but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with our children. The problem is a school system that lacks flexibility, and which can’t accommodate the many different ways in which children learn and develop. The problem is a system which sees 'behaviour' as something to be punished, rather than feedback on a situation that isn't working.

We have a school system that prioritises test results over developmental needs, that favours control over autonomy and in which there is little time and space for meaningful relationships between adults and children. It turns too many children into failures, measuring them against a narrow academic benchmark. It punishes them for minor misdemeanours and teaches them that learning is mostly about doing what you’re told. It prioritises attendance over meaningful engagement.

Then when children show us that this doesn’t work, we say there’s something wrong with them. We say they need to attend more, try harder, put more effort in. And when that doesn’t work, then the system says they must have SEND, because why else would they need something different?

Of course SEND costs are rising, because the school system isn’t fit for the children it serves. We need an education system that start the goal of with providing what children need to thrive, not with ‘driving up standards’ or ‘100% attendance’.

More play for the younger ones. More autonomy for the older ones. More diversity of opportunity. More focus on relationships. And an emphasis on interest-led learning and finding purpose, rather than on tests and exams. It's not rocket science.

For the more you put the pressure on to get those standards up, the more of our children are squashed in the process.

19/02/2026

Great movie recommendation from the lovely team at Toucan For Children Play Therapy Service 😊☁️

16/02/2026

Thank you Play & Filial Therapy for this gorgeous description of child centred Play Therapy. Instigated by the incredible Virginia Axline and now practiced by our BAPT Registered Play Therapists®️

😊☁️

15/02/2026

Love this 🌻🌻

😊☁️

09/02/2026

Pop along and say hello if you’re at the SEND Fair today! We are here until 2pm at table 12 😊☁️

08/02/2026

Thank you Action against ASGSF changes for your reflections on our statement and for the supportive comments made. We feel backed into a corner in terms of how we can support these families and increasingly frustrated at the lack of response or decision making from and Ministers.

06/02/2026

For the past year we have worked tirelessly to support families impacted by the UK Government’s damaging changes to the Adoption & Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF).

We fully support the call to action by Action against ASGSF changes

Read more in our impact statement below

05/02/2026

Delighted to be part of British Association of Play Therapists Global tour for

😊☁️