parent carer forums
A parent carer forum is a group of parents and carers of children with special educational needs or disabilities who work together with local authorities and health services to improve the way services are planned and delivered for families.
Parent carer forums work to make sure the voice and views of parent carers are central to the decision-making process.
Joining your local parent carer forum is a great way of keeping up to date with local and national SEND issues and feeding back about the services your child gets.
If you want to get more involved, you could become a parent representative who works alongside the commissioners who plan local services for disabled children, giving the parent carer view. Or join your forum’s management team to decide on the strategic priorities for families with disabled children in your area.
Find out more about how your local parent carer forum works to improve services for disabled children and their families and how to join:
Brighton & Hove PaCC represents the voice of parent carers in Brighton and Hove.
We are made up of 12 parent representatives who meet on a regular basis to discuss and act on issues relevant to parent carers. These parent reps also sit on strategic decision making boards to ensure that the parent carers’ perspective is heard when services are planned, delivered and evaluated.
Brighton & Hove PaCC also runs focus groups and events for parent carers such as our PaCConnects, the PaCC Awards and the PaCC picnic at Disability Pride.
We work closely with eight PaCC partners who are made up of groups, charities or organisations that are involved with parent carers and their children in different ways.
PaCC works hard to forge links with the local authority and professionals across the city of Brighton & Hove. We produce regular reports and position statements on the key issues for parent carers.
East Sussex Parent Carer Forum (ESPCF) is the forum for parent carers of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in East Sussex. ESPCF works to ensure that every parent carer in East Sussex feels that their voice, their views and their experiences matter and contribute towards developing and improving services.
ESPCF will:
- Reach out to parent carers to be involved. For example, the ESPCF will invite parents and carers of CYP with SEND across the county to join them in sharing their experiences and prioritising actions
- Represent parent carers’ experience and expertise to decision-makers. For example, Parents and carers will be offered training to attend key strategic meetings to ensure parent carers are involved in planning processes
- Make recommendations for service improvement. For example, position statements will be formed with parents’ views on key issues requiring action and ESCPF will monitor the response.
Amaze provides administration, financial, IT and strategic support to ESPCF.
- For parent carers: please join ESPCF to get involved in raising awareness of children and young people’s needs, ensuring recognition of parent carers’ expertise and working together to improve services.
- For service providing organisations: please get in touch to discuss how you can work with ESPCF to strengthen support to local families.
To find out more, please contact info@espcf.org.uk or 07493 371928 or visit the ESPCF website
Click on the logo to find out more about the West Sussex Parent Carer Forum.
