How It Started
This project started the way most SEND stories do: with a parent trying to get help for their child and finding the system incredibly hard to navigate.
The flood of information
When my child was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), I started looking into the support available. There's actually a lot of good information out there, from council websites, government pages, charities, and parent communities. The problem isn't that it doesn't exist. It's that there's so much of it, spread across so many places, that you don't even know where to start.
What you really want is someone to just guide you through it and point you in the right direction.
Then came the DLA application
Dozens of questions, many of them unclear about what they were really asking. You could tell the answers needed to be framed in a specific way, but nobody tells you what that way is. And describing your child's worst days in detail, over and over, is emotionally draining.
What We Built
Where AI fell short
So I turned to AI. ChatGPT was impressive at first. Confident, well-written answers. I gave it all my documents and supporting information. But I kept finding problems. It would write a whole paragraph for a question that was just a yes/no tick box. Sometimes it would give an answer that sounded completely correct but was actually wrong. It had no way of knowing what the form was really asking for.
The other problem was information overload. Ask a simple question like "what is DLA?" and you'd get pages of text with emoji, bullet points, numbered lists, sub-headings. For someone already overwhelmed by the SEND system, that kind of response just makes things worse.
What if AI had access to genuinely accurate, up-to-date SEND information instead of guessing?
A different approach
I thought there had to be a better way. What if AI had access to a curated SEND knowledge base, and was carefully instructed to respond in a way that's actually helpful, not overwhelming?
That's what SEND Parents Help is. I built a detailed knowledge base covering the areas families need most, from benefits and education plans to local authority processes and appeals. The AI assistants pull from this knowledge base rather than guessing, and they're instructed to keep things clear, calm and practical.
Where We're Going
I originally built it just for myself. But after talking to other SEND parents and realising how many people were going through exactly the same struggle, I decided to open it up to everyone.
Completely free to use, and always will be.
You just need a ChatGPT or Google Gemini account (both free to start, though a paid plan gives you better limits while working through SEND paperwork).
A SEND Parent