Working with Local Inclusion Forum Teams

The Service can be accessed by early years settings and mainstream schools through the Local Inclusion Forum Team meetings (LIFT) which is chaired the Inclusion Coordinator for the STLS, and attended by a multi-agency partners, including Early Help, speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and SENCos.

An expected prerequisite for taking a referral is that early years settings and schools demonstrate that they have used their resources and best endeavour’s to meet the child/young person’s needs, the role of these meetings is then to offer advice and support though solution focus discussions If a referral is accepted expected outcomes are agreed to form the basis of the STLS work.

There are four main outcomes from a LIFT discussion:

  • Advice, support and ideas from the discussion at the meeting to take back and try
  • Access to training programmes or the opportunity for bespoke training
  • Support from another school
  • Specialist Intervention from a specialist teacher, special school outreach teacher, Educational Psychologist (through the core discretionary offer or commissioning), Early Help involvement or other district based SEND provider.