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Section 23 - Notifying the council of your child's SEND


Health professionals (such as Health Visitors) working with young children are often the first people you might talk to if you have concerns about your child's development. They are there to help you find the right support and discuss options. They also have a legal duty to notify the council of any concerns (known as a 'Section 23' notification) so that different services can work together to ensure that a child's needs are not missed and that the right support is in place in good time (for example, when they start school).

What is a Section 23 notification?

Health professionals and health services have a legal duty under Section 23 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to notify us (Hertfordshire County Council) of any child under the age of 5, who they consider may need some extra arrangements made for them when they start school and has, or is likely to have, special educational needs or a disability (SEND).

Why does the council need to be notified of my child's needs?

Section 23 Notifications help us all work together better to improve services for families. Your visiting health professional will talk to you about the notification at your child’s appointment and will give you advice on organisations and services that may be able to provide support.

The council uses the information from these notifications to plan education services and make sure that in future years, there are enough education places in the right areas and that support is in place to meet the needs of all children and young people with SEND.

It might not mean that your child needs additional support straight away, but if the staff working at your child’s pre-school or nursery believe that your child does need additional support, they will discuss with you why they think it is necessary, and what may be available for your child. 

How do professionals make a Section 23 Notification in Hertfordshire? 

Once a Section 23 Notification has been completed by the health professional who knows your child best, they will send the notification by secure email to a SEND Specialist Advisory Service team in your area. (These are the teams who provide specialist education and learning support to schools).

Some health professionals may also complete the Section 23 Notification form online. The notification will be updated into our secure database and will be reviewed by our Early Years service.

If the service feel that earlier support can be offered (in addition to any support you may be receiving from your child’s early years setting), the Early Years service will contact the visiting health professional or the child’s parent, carer, or guardian to discuss the emerging need and decide if targeted help and support is needed.

We are responsible for keeping your personal information secure and up to date. Information about you is protected by law and must be treated carefully. You have the right to ask the professionals supporting you about information they have and what they are using it for.

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Cookies we use

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Required functionality cookies – these cookies are essential for the website to work.

Performance and feature cookies – these cookies help to improve the performance and feel of this website, for example providing you with personalised services.


Take a look at a list of cookies we use on our website:

NameTypeHow we use itHow long we use the information for

ASP.Net_Sessions

 

Required functionality

An automatic cookie set by our software. 

Just for the time you are on our website.

ServerID

 

Required functionality

An automatic cookie set by our software. 

Just for the time you are on our website.

_ga

Required functionality

To track the effectiveness of our website using Google Analytics. 

2 years

saved-pages

Performance and feature

To save the pages that you visit by clicking the heart at the top of the page. 

1 month

geoPostcode

Performance and feature

This stores your postcode (or partial postcode) when we ask you for your location.

Just for the time you are on our website or 30 days (you choose this).

geoCoordinates

Performance and feature

This stores your location as a pair of latitude / longitude coordinates.

Just for the time you are on our website or 30 days (you choose this).

reckonerName-history

Performance and feature

This keeps a history of all answers submitted to the ready reckoner.

This is set in the control for each ready reckoner. If you haven't interacted with the ready reckoner for the set amount of days, the cookies are deleted.

reckonerName-content

Performance and feature

This keeps a history of what content cards are clicked on when using the ready reckoner.

This is set in the control for each ready reckoner. If you haven't interacted with the ready reckoner for the set amount of days, the cookies are deleted.

SQ_SYSTEM_SESSION

Required functionality

This used to track user sessions on forms hosted on eservices.hertfordshire.gov.uk

Just for the time you are on our website.

Third party cookies

There are links and content from other sites and services on our website. These sites and services set their own cookies.

Below are a list of cookies that the other sites and services use:

Service namePurposeMore information

Google analytics (_utma/b/c/z)

These are used to compile reports for us on how people use this site.

Cookies of the same names are also used for the same purpose by other websites such as Building Futures, Countryside Management Service and Hertfordshire LIS.

Visit the Google Analytics website for more information about the cookies they use.

You can prevent data from being collected and used by Google Analytics by installing Google's Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Google Translation - googtrans

This cookie is used to remember which language to translate each page into if you have chosen to do so.

It expires at the end of your browser session.

Bing

We use a Bing cookie to track the success of our marketing campaigns and make them more efficient.

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Google

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Facebook

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YouTube

We have a YouTube channel, which we may link to. YouTube may set some of its own cookies if you follow those links.

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Netloan

This ASP.NET_Sessionid cookie is essential for the Netloan secure online payments website to work, and is set when you arrive to the site. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser.

 

HotJar

This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels.

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Siteimprove

These cookies are set to help us report on how people are using the site so we can improve it.

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