PEP Process

The Manchester Virtual School requires all PEPs to be completed electronically using the secure and confidential Welfare Cloud website. Designated Teachers and Social Workers have access to this system and can add information at any time. Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) have read only access.

It is good practice to record as much information as possible prior to the PEP meeting itself. This gives professionals the opportunity to reflect on the past term and raise points for discussion during the meeting.

Designated Teachers should work with other colleagues in their education setting to identify the child or young person’s successes, strengths, aspirations, and any barriers or support needs ready to be discussed at the meeting.

How to log on

We regularly provide Welfare Cloud with an up-to-date list of all the social workers, Designated Teachers and IROs working with Manchester Looked After Children. Welfare Cloud email each professional with their login details to provide secure access to the PEPs for the young people they are working with.

Welfare Cloud also provides Manchester with a secure ePEP system for young people supported by the Manchester Youth Justice Service. The login process for this is managed in a similar way to the one described above.

It is helpful for education settings to inform as swiftly as possible about any changes to your Designated Teacher. Please contact the Virtual School about any changes via our Team inbox, [email protected]. This will help prevent any delays in setting up accounts and the completion of children and young people’s termly PEPs.

If you have forgotten your login details or encounter any problems with your Manchester ePEP account, please contact Welfare Cloud via phone 01226 716333 or email [email protected]

How to delegate access to another member of staff

If you are a Designated Teacher for a child in the care of Manchester and you need to give access to the child’s PEP to another member of staff within your setting please contact the named Virtual School PEP Quality Assurance Teacher for that child. The setting’s named Designated Teacher remains responsible for checking the final content within the child’s PEP and for clicking “complete” to submit the PEP to the Virtual School for quality assurance.

How to fill in the ePEP and save information

Once you have logged into your Welfare Cloud account, clicked on “ePEP” and then on “My Case Summary” you will find all of the children to assigned to you.

Each child’s ePEP is divided into different tabs which are colour coded to indicate who has the main responsibility for completing each section:

  • Red - Designated Teacher

  • Blue - Social worker

  • Purple - Both the Designated Teacher and social worker

Please note that the ePEP does not have an autosave function. All information which has been inputted must be saved before moving to a new page. As a security measure, if you are inactive within the ePEP system for more than 40 minutes, you will be automatically logged out and any information you have recorded in that time will not be saved. We therefore recommend that you regularly save each page so that your work is not lost. If you are timed out, press the save button and contact Welfare Call who will be able to retrieve your work.

When you have added all the necessary information into all of the tabs within a child’s ePEP, press the “Click When Completed” button at the top of the ePEP. Please note that this button will only appear after the date of the PEP meeting and once all mandatory sections of the PEP have been completed. The Manchester Virtual School asks that all PEPs are completed and submitted within 10 working days of the PEP meeting having taken place.

Once the PEP has been signed off by the Designated Teacher and Social Worker, the Virtual School PEP Quality Assurance Teacher will quality assure the plan. If the Quality Assurance Teacher has any queries about the plan they will contact the Designated Teacher and/or Social Worker. Once the pan has been approved written feedback will be provided to both parties. The completed PEP can then be found as an archived Word document within the “Previous PEPs” section within the “Child menu options” within the ePEP.

The ePEP system will generate a live template ready for the next meeting. This template will contain relevant information carried over from the child’s previous PEP in an effort to reduce the amount of information that needs to be inputted.