SENDIASS stands for Special Educational Needs and Disability Information, Advice and Support Service.
Each local authority must have its own SENDIASS that offers free, impartial and confidential information, advice and support to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their parents and carers.
We offer an impartial and confidential service. This means we do not share information about you and do not speak to schools or the local authority without your consent, unless we feel that you or someone else is in danger. We may alert the appropriate service in order to keep people safe.
SENDIASS Hounslow has lots of knowledge about the local area and can signpost you to organisations that might be able to support you the most. We are an impartial service, which means we will give you honest, clear and professional information so you can make choices and decisions which best suit you and your family.
We are unable to tell you what to do but will help you understand your choices and options. If you contact the service, we can chat with you over the phone or email to help you with your query.
No, the service we provide is free. There will never be a cost to using our service.
However, we may signpost you to services where they could offer training/courses for a fee.
No. We are a small service with limited resources. The service operates from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. We have a 24-hour answer machine and respond to all enquires within five working days.
Yes, Hounslow SENDIASS will be happy to discuss your situation further and provide you with information, advice and guidance. Our goal is to help you to work a way forward with your situation.
Yes, Hounslow SENDIASS will provide information, advice and guidance to young people with SEND aged 16 to 25. We provide this on matters relating to education, health and social care.
Young people (aged 16 to 25) can contact us directly for information, advice and support. They can choose to allocate someone else to speak to us if they are not able to do so on their own.
We are only an advice and support service providing information around SEND matters. We are not decision-making officers so cannot request or issue EHCPs.
Hounslow SENDIASS is an advice and support service. We are not part of the SEND team. We are an impartial and confidential service with no access to Hounslow files.
We are only able to provide parents and families with information and guidance about the process. We are unable to run the appeal or to prepare documentation.
The Children and Families Act (2014) Section 20 states that:
“A child or young person has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her."
A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she has either:
- significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age or of others of the same age
- a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of the facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions