Lancashire SEND IAS

Lancashire SEND IAS

Information, advice and support for Special Educational Needs and Disability

Telephone and email support

Lancashire SEND IAS helpline staff and SEND IAS officers give telephone and email support. Here’s what you can expect if you call or email us.

Email enquiries

You can email us: information.lineteam@lancashire.gov.uk at any time with a query about SEND support.

When you email, it’s helpful if you can give us some basic information about your child. It helps us to know:

  • Where you live in Lancashire.
  • The main issue you’re contacting us about.
  • Your child’s age.
  • If you need us to get back to you urgently (for example if you have a deadline, or your child has just been excluded).

If it’s a straightforward question or request, you’ll get a reply directly from one of our helpline staff.

If it looks like what you’re asking is complicated, needs a discussion or you might need more support, we may pass it on to a SEND IAS officer who cover different areas of Lancashire, so your local officer will usually be the one to get in touch. If the service is very busy, you might sometimes hear from an officer from another area.

Your officer might talk with you by email or text and send you some information or links to other resources or organisations. Or, they might ask if they can call you for a chat instead, as sometimes a phone call is easier and more helpful for you.

SEND IAS officers often give telephone support over a few weeks or months. We aim to help you understand more about SEND support, the law and what you can do to make a difference. We give support to:

  • help you to feel confident and knowledgeable when you talk to professionals
  • develop new skills
  • Feel well prepared for meetings, discussions and appeals.

Telephone enquiries

Our telephone number is 0300 123 6706

This is a dedicated helpline open between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. Don’t forget you can email us at any time too.

The helpline is open all year round, not just in term time, but certain times are busier than others. The start of a new term is often busy, particularly the start of the new academic year!

If you need to speak to an officer, we’ll do our best to make sure that happens within a week, but when the service is busy it may be longer than this.

Please note

We always do our best to help you as soon as we can, but we aren’t a crisis or emergency service! We know that sometimes things happen very quickly, for example, if a child is permanently excluded. If you need to speak to us urgently, we will contact you as soon as we can. In the meantime, we’ll try and give you information that tells you what you need to do next.