Our SENDIASS team

Our Advisors

All of our advisors have SEND legal training run by Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (IPSEA). That means they can give you legally based information about your rights and responsibilities and those of schools, colleges, the Local Authority and education professionals.

All advisors also attend regular training on SEND issues and are fully Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checked. This means a check has been done to make sure they can work with vulnerable groups, such as young people.

What do SENDIASS advisors do?

These are the kind of things your advisor can help you with:

• Understanding legal processes, such as Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments and plans and knowing what you need to do and when.
• Preparing for meetings.
• Developing a good working relationship with your nursery, school or college.
• Making decisions, by talking about what all your options are and the pros and cons of each.
• Knowing how to do practical tasks, such as asking for an EHC needs assessment, checking a draft EHC plan or getting referred to a specialist.
• Understanding how to deal with conflict in relationships with professionals or move forward when things have gone wrong.
• Feeling understood and listened to.

Meet the team

SENDIASS Herefordshire has two part-time advisors and one part-time young person’s advisor (who works directly with young people) covering the whole of Herefordshire.

• Sammy Powell (Young Person’s Advisor)
• Michelle Young (Advisor)
• Laura Bass (Advisor)

SENDIASS Worcestershire has two full-time and one part-time advisors and one full time and one part time young person’s advisors (who work directly with young people) covering the whole of Worcestershire.

• Delia Crosby (Advisor)
• Tricia Griffiths (Advisor)
• Claire White (Advisor/ Young Person’s Advisor)
• Abi Sinclair (Young Person's Advisor)
• Kelly Hill (Young Person's Advisor)
• Kasia Bialas (Advisor) 

Herefordshire and Worcestershire SENDIASS also has a Training and Development Officer, Sally Keane. Sally is responsible for developing and delivering free training, both face to face and online, on a variety of different SEND subjects to parent carers, young people and professionals across Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Visit our Training page to find out more. 

The team is headed up by Team Manager, Chris Boxall and is supported by Jenna White, who manages the information resources that the service produces, including the website and social media.