Lawyers will you help? We invite all lawyers to answer questions for our members who come from all parts of the SEND community including parents, schools, charities and other professionals. How to Give Answers is a guide for lawyers and legal professionals, knowledgeable in the laws that affect SEND families, who are willing to share their knowledge for free through our Ask Experts Q&A.

Introduction: why give answers
Families, schools and many others come to our Ask Experts Q&A needing urgent help with SEND legal problems. Contributing your answer guides their next step in the complex legal landscape. By contributing your knowledge you can empower members of our community to help SEND children get the education to which they are entitled in law.

More answers are better than one so we would encourage you to add to and comment on existing answers helping to produce a professional consensus on tricky issues. Our Q&A is a public resource with many users invisibly benefitting from your answers so what you give can go a long way. We have had over 300k interactions with users in the last 3 years alone and that will only grow with more good content.

Thank you for helping the SEND community by quickly and easily sharing your knowledge.

Step 1: getting started
You will need to Join the platform in order to answer questions. This is quick and easy.

• It will only take 2 minutes to set up your profile and authenticate your email.
• Include your organisation, this helps people know who you are.
• Outline your professional experience in your biography and include a link to your company website.
• Add a link to your Linkedin profile if you have one.
• Add a photo so users can recognise you.
• Now, JOIN

Step 2: how to help

• Go to Ask Experts.
• Search or scroll through the questions.
• Select those you have knowledge or experience in.
• We invite multiple answers on the same question because it helps the questioner understand different aspects of the topic.
• Answer each question with, where possible, reference to case law.
• You can cross reference to another existing Question and Answer (for example, in our No-nonsense Guides).
  • To add a cross reference type “>” (‘greater than’ sign)
  • Start typing a key word from the question you want to link to
  • Existing questions will appear in a drop down menu
  • Scroll and click to select the one you want to link to in your answer
  • Once the link is added, continue typing as normal
• Use the @ symbol to link to other members of the platform in your answer, useful if you are quoting another contributor.
• Answer request allows you to share a question with others who you think might contribute.
• Following a question ensures you get emails when a new answer is added.

Step 3: being mindful of all users

You are sharing your knowledge to help the SEND community, families and those around the child who may not have experience of legal language.

• Please explain acronyms.
• Aim for short, clear sentences.
• Use short, common words where possible, some users have English as a second language.
• Break long lists into bullet points.

Now, go to: ASK EXPERTS and give your answers. Thank you so much for your help!

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