We have  a budget for school age children equipment that is recommended by therapists and as a SENSS PD team we authorise and order this. We keep a pool of returned equipment for use by all ages. We struggle with funding new equipment EYs children. We link with settings and try and use the DAF fund if they are over 3 years old. LA have another funding pot for EYs inclusion where we can get a  small amount of money £255 per child. If the child has an EHCP then we can apply to SENO to support with funding through their plan. We have used charity funding for non statutory aged children too.

For us 3yr olds in nursery have equipment from shared store, funded and serviced, as they would in school. We only provide one set, so if children were receiving 30 hours in 2 settings it would get complicated. The expectation is equipment will go up into school with them.

2yr olds in receipt of 2yr Early Entitlement (2HELP/freefor2) are a bit more complicated. We applied for a grant in 2016 and purchased 10 modular  moderate to severe support (JCM tritons), and 10 mild to moderate support (Smithwaite Juni). They are prescribed by OT as usual, and managed by Education. We also bought some smaller equipment. Nurseries sign an SLA and are responsible for insuring and servicing chairs while on site. We then managed to get four more of the most specialist chairs in 2019, as the originals did not have dynamic backs and we did not have enough. We did not get walkers or standing frames. It has given us some flexibility, but it is something we are constantly reviewing- at some point we will run out of the extra covers/harnesses and cushions purchased at the time, and we have no way of replacing when the chairs come to the end of their lives. The numbers of children needing them are also growing- we bought the original 10 after an audit and data tracking and thought 10 was enough for a decade-  all 14 chairs are allocated and so chairs will not be available in April for new starters.

For children receiving childcare before 2 we cannot supply equipment.