How to use the Local Offer

Following consultation with parents and carers we have organised the Local Offer in to six areas Special Educational Needs, Health, Family Support and Social Care, Becoming an Adult, Life and Leisure and Information, Advice and Support.

If you click on the subject headings, you will find the services, organisations and related advice and information contained within these groups.

You can also search the Local Offer by using the two search functions at the top of the page:

  • Keyword search
  • Place name or postcode search

To narrow your results list, you can then use the ‘Filter Results’ found on the left of the page.

Local Offer Tag

You will come across the Local Offer tag within your searches, this symbol means the service provider has supplied Local Offer information about how they will support your child.

If you would like to search only for services which have provided Local Offer information use the filter ‘Service has Local Offer – Yes’.

Help with searching

There are a number of different types of searches that you can use, either on their own or in combination to really narrow down and focus your results. These are:

Keywords search (e.g. Council for Disabled Children)

Just typing in a few words into the search box brings you back all entries that contain at least one of the words you have entered. You can also use special characters to limit your results more closely. The plus sign (+) before a word means that each of the results must contain that word, so the example search below brings back all results containing both of the words housing and advice.

+Council +Disabled +Children

Using double quotes (") around your search words brings back only results that contain those words as an exact phrase, for example:

"SEN Support Plan"

Searching for contact names

Avoid searching for names of professionals, some services prefer not to add names of staff as this information can become out of date quickly.

Search by place name (e.g Canonbury)

Entering a place name in the box marked 'Location' will bring back results of services based in and around that location.

Search by postcode (e.g. N1 3LG)

Entering a full postcode in the box marked 'Location' will bring back results in order of closeness to that postcode. This is really useful for finding services located close to your home.

Search by part postcode (e.g. N19)

Entering the first part of a postcode (such as N19) in the box marked 'Location' will bring back a list of services and activities located in your postcode area.

Refine search using filters

Once you have your search results, you may be able to improve them still further by selecting one or more of the search filters which are displayed in lists to the right of your results. These filters allow you to limit results by type (such as age or postcode area). The more use you make of the filters, the more focused your results will be.

Sorting your search results

You can change the sort order of your search results using the options that are shown in the section just above your results. Depending on the type of search that you have done, your results can appear in any of the following sort orders:

  • Sorted by Best Match  (i.e. the best relevance to your search).
  • Name (Sorted alphabetically i.e. in A-Z order of title with numbers first).
  • Sorted by distance (only if you have done a postcode search).
Other useful features

You can save useful services to ‘My Shortlist’, this will allow you to view them again at later.  You can also print, email or export your shortlist to Excel.

If you would like to see exactly where the services listed are located you can use the ‘show results on map’ feature.

Including your Organisation or Service in the Local Offer

Find information on whether your organisation or service meets the criteria to be included in the Local Offer directory.

Related articles