Voluntary organisations contracted to support children with special educational needs

Children's minister Sarah Teather announced details of the programmes, which will support the delivery of short breaks, aim to give more information to parents, and help disabled young people and those with SEN prepare for employment, training and independent living.

One consortium, which will be led by Serco in partnership with the Short Breaks Network, has been tasked with helping local authorities deliver on their legal obligations to provide short breaks and involve parents.

The Council for Disabled Children will support services across England to provide information to parents on their rights and responsibilities and the National Development Team for Inclusion will lead another group to work with local authorities, schools, young people and their families to raise aspirations in secondary school and plan for employment, training and independent living after they leave school.

Teather said: "We're proposing some of the biggest reforms to special educational needs and to help disabled children, and we're testing out the best ways of doing this over the next year. But it's important that children, young people and their families get help and support now, from organisations they trust.

"That's why we're funding and extending programmes that have been successful so far and that parents have told us they value, like short breaks and helping young people make the often difficult transition from school to employment or training."

Another consortium involving the ES Trust and the National Children's Bureau will extend the Early Support programme, which currently works with children aged from birth to five, to improve the consistency and co-ordination of services for disabled children over the age of five.

The final recipient of funding, the Early Language Consortium led by I CAN, will introduce early language development training for people working with children up to five. The training will focus on the importance of early language development to improve communication and language skills for all children, particularly those with SEN.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, and member of the consortium, said: "We are pleased that the department has recognised the important work undertaken by earlier initiatives and that, via this new project, essential work to support children’s language development will continue, albeit on a much-reduced scale.

"This programme will play a leading role in helping children’s centres to integrate their services with other local providers and share practitioners’ expertise across the sector."

The successful contractors will support the 20 SEN green paper pathfinder areas.