Nicola Leonard, a 41-year-old mother from Sunderland, has co-created an app called Understanding My Child to support parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The app aims to help families navigate the often challenging process of securing an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), a legally binding document that outlines a child's additional needs and how they will be met.
Personal experience drives innovation
Leonard is mum to an eight-year-old son with autism and a six-year-old daughter with ADHD. She told ChronicleLive that her own struggles—and her work assisting other parents—inspired the app. "I have an autistic son and a daughter. My son was diagnosed about six and a half years ago. Ever since then I have spent I don't know how long trying to help other parents through the process including things like filling in the forms for EHCPs," she said.
Leonard noted that many parents struggle to determine how much evidence to gather and in what format. "I must have had thousands of conversations about the process and I was thinking about how on earth I might be able to help more people," she added.
Collaboration with app developer
Leonard reached out to her friend Chris Ewart, who had recently built an app. "I just thought I would ring him to see if he could build an app for this. It was an unequivocal yes," she recalled. Together, they created Understanding My Child, now available on Android and Apple app stores. The app includes a journal feature and trend-tracking tools, designed to eliminate the need for parents to search through old messages before important meetings.
Leonard explained that they consulted experts including teachers, social workers, and the North East Autism Society. Feedback was consistently positive: "I love it, but can it do more?" she said, describing how the app evolved through late-night brainstorming sessions. "For the last five months we have been Whatsapping at 11pm, I've been sketching things out with kids' crayons—and now we have this app which will hopefully make it so parents are empowered."
Leveling the playing field
Leonard described the EHCP process as one of the most painful experiences of her life. "What I would say is that it seems you are up against a system that doesn't want to help you. And I wanted to help level the playing field and make it so you could walk confidently into a meeting and say 'here is the evidence'," she said. "Doing those meetings and filling in those forms was one of the worst things I had had to do in my life. You have to walk in and tell them the worst version of your child—and it's one of the most painful things I have done."
The app is now live on both major app stores, offering a free resource to help parents document and present their child's needs effectively.
