Parent Carer Participation Good Practice Bulletin November 2014 In this bulletin Improving services Norfolk – SEND information sessions Bedfordshire –closure of hospital services Strengthening Parent Carer Participation Bury – using interpreters to reach more parents Hertfordshire – identifying diversity of members News DH guides: health input to SEND DfE funded support update Improving services Area: Norfolk – Informing & consulting with parent carers about SEND Reforms Forum: Family Voice, Norfolk Website: www.familyvoice.org.uk Contact: [email protected] Activity: Family Voice, working with Norfolk County Council, Clinical Commissioning Groups and voluntary sector, co-produced Norfolk’s response to the SEND reforms. From this a need for wider communication to inform parent carers of the changes to SEN legislation was identified. Subsequently Norfollk County Council funded the parent carer forum to run eight workshops across the county, offering both morning and evening sessions, enabling the wider voice to be heard. The forum sent information about the workshops to schools, voluntary sector organisations, children’s centres and asked Norfolk County Council to pass information on to families with children on Norfolk’s Register for Disabled Children. Outcomes: The response to the invitation to these events was considerable. Many parent carers who couldn’t attend the workshops contacted the forum before and after the events asking for information about the SEND reforms. The publicity about the events resulted in a sharp increase in membership for Family Voice, resulting in 25 new applications to join the forum. This represented 6.4% growth in one month. Why this works: The forum were able to inform parent carers about current changes to government legislation whilst also hearing and then feeding back on, parent carers’ views on local provision and services. This ensured the forum represented a wide parent carer voice to Norfolk County Council, as well as working with the LA to disseminate information about the changes due to take place over the coming months. The feedback from the LA was very positive - they particularly liked that the report did not seek to interpret what parents had said but simply told it as it is! And out of this valuable piece of work the forum were able to significantly increase their membership. You can download a more detailed report on this at www.familyvoice.org.uk/images/FV%20SEND%20Report.pdf If you have an innovative and effective example of Parent Carer Participation or know of something that might be useful to share, please send it to [email protected], or in England to your regional parent carer participation advisor. Improving services Working with CCG on withdrawal of paediatric services at Bedford Hospital Forum: Bedford Borough Parent Carer Forum Email:[email protected] In July 2013, some paediatric services, including inpatient care and the Open Access Service (a service that fast tracks families to paediatric services, bypassing A&E) were temporarily withdrawn from Bedford Hospital by the clinical commissioning group (CCG), due to safety and quality concerns. Activity: The parent carer forum had also identified some issues with paediatric care at the hospital and welcomed the opportunity to work with the CCG to improve those services. On October 2013, the forum organised a meeting where the CCG came to present their ideas about future plans. Twenty families attended so the CCG was able to hear directly from families who accessed paediatric services. Parents talked about the impact on their families of the temporary closure of certain paediatric services. The forum also provided parent carer representatives to sit on a paediatric stakeholder forum alongside health and social care professionals and other key stakeholders. When the CCG and Bedford Hospital started to plan bringing services back, the forum represented the parent carer voice at planning meetings. Outcomes: Meeting forum members, particularly at the open forum meeting, gave CCG representatives a greater understanding of what services were needed locally and helped to ensure that Open Access and A&E arrangements returned. Feedback was given that the experiences of parents helped to guide discussions on the ‘minimum’ level of interim services put in place at Bedford Hospital once the decision to pause the consultation was taken. The CCG gained greater understanding of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and the disproportionate impact of the interim services on families. The forum were able to have an influence on the reinstating of interim services. The forum is continuing their joint working by feeding into the current Bedfordshire Healthcare Review. The result of this work has meant that the forum and CCG now have an excellent working relationship of benefit to both parties. “Bedford Borough Parent Carer Forum was particularly supportive in facilitating a strong parent/carer voice throughout the process. They helped to identify parents/carers to join our stakeholder forum, hosted a focus group with Bedford families and carers and also sent out regular updates on changes to services.” Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning group Communication and Engagement Team Why this worked: The Forum had links with families who frequently used Bedford Hospital paediatric services so were able to provide direct evidence of how the current system was not sufficiently meeting the needs of many families. Through regular attendance at strategic meetings, forum representatives became known and respected as representing the parent voice. Consequently, the CCG were willing to work with the Forum as they had already linked with them through hospital and board meetings. Both the Forum and the CCG were willing to work together to ensure services were in place that would work for the families who use them. New resource for health commissioners and forums Do you want help explaining to health commissioners and Clinical Commissioning Groups how health services for disabled children work (or don’t work) , parent participation and the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms? We have recorded a seminar, Improving health services for disabled children, which addresses all of these issues, including health input to the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms and Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. Please recommend it to your local health commissioners and CCGs. Forums might find watching the webinar helpful to preparing for meetings with health. If you want a copy of the PowerPoint slides to adapt for your own use email [email protected] Strengthening Parent Carer Participation Bury Parent Forum – Working with trainee interpreters to reach the Asian community Hertfordshire: identifying diversity of parent carer forum members Forum: Bury Parents Forum Web: www.buryparentsforum.org.uk Email: [email protected] Forum: Hertforshire Parent Carer Involvement Web: www.hertsparentcarers.org.uk Email: [email protected] Activity: The parent carer forum held an information day for families, inviting local organisations to have stalls. At that event they made links with ADAB, a local voluntary organisation who were running courses for people to train as interpreters. The parent carer forum knew they would benefit from interpreters attending some of their events, so liaised with ADAB to offer ‘on-the-job’ experience to the interpreters undergoing training. Outcomes: As a result of the forum’s link with ADAB, they were able to offer a skills building course for Asian families who did not have English as a first language. Having interpreters enabled the parent carer forum to reach parents who would not normally attend training or meetings because of the language barrier. This resulted in more confident and informed parents who were better able to represent their child’s needs to professionals in meetings. One parent fed back that they now felt able to attend the Team Around the Child (TAC) meetings on their own and confident enough to ask if they did not understand what was being discussed. Activity: The forum decided to gather monitoring information about parent carers attending forum events after the local authority asked how representative the forum was. The forum adapted the local authority’s BAME monitoring form obtained from the commissioning team. One side of the form is made up of an evaluation of the event, and the other asks attendees for information such as if they are disabled, a lone parent, whether their child receives free school meals from Year 3 upwards, what they consider their ethnic background to be, whether they are male or female. There is an option to not answer. The form is printed on colour paper to distinguish it from other papers gathered at events and to help with collating the information. The forum wanted to be able to identify the range of parents they are representing as well as be able to offer help with transport and childcare costs for low-income parents to attend. Outcomes: The trainee interpreters also attended an information day organised by the parent carer forum, enabling the parent carer forum to engage with the wider community. The forum were able to monitor the backgrounds of people attending events and demonstrate they were reaching fathers, families from BAME communities, those on low incomes, parent carers with disabilities and lone parents. Why this worked: The forum is gradually building up a picture of the diversity of their membership through the information they obtain. This is a great example of co-working between the parent forum, a local voluntary organisation (ADAB) and volunteers. Everyone benefitted – the volunteer interpreters gained valuable experience from working with families who have children with additional needs, the parent forum were able to reach and engage parents who may otherwise not have attended meetings/training and the local voluntary organisation was able to offer practical experience to volunteers attending the interpreting course. The forum also benefited from the experience the volunteers brought with them; for example one was a nurse at the local hospital. The forum can demonstrate in the service level agreement with their Local Authority that they are working to be representative of their diverse community which can help in securing future LA funding. Why this worked: The forum were clear on what they wanted to achieve from gathering monitoring information around a range of issues from identifying BAME communities in their area to those on low income. They developed a simple but effective process of ensuring those who attended forum events complete evaluation forms and that this information is then collated, anonymising the forms. The forum had a clear purpose for the information being gathered. News for forums *SEND reforms implementation survey* – fill in now* The latest SEND survey has been sent to parent carer forums and local authorities (LA’s). LA’s and health have a legal duty to implement the Children and Families Act 2014. This is your forum’s opportunity to let the Department for Education know how the implementation of the SEND reforms is going in your area and let NHS England know which local clinical commissioning groups are slow in implementing the reforms. If the parent carer forum and LA responses differ significantly, this will highlight potential issues to the DfE/NHS England which they can address. It is vital that forums feed in their views for this reason. For transparency, forums and LA’s may wish to discuss and complete their surveys together. You can complete the survey online. A word version of the survey is available to help you consult with your forum members. For further information or queries, please contact Helen Jones. National Network of Parent Carer Forums’ AGM Our largest and most successful national parent carer participation event and National Network of Parent Carer Forums’ AGM took place on 1 October in London. See the highlights video from the day and keep an eye on the Learning and events for forums web page for further presentations and videos from the day. New guidance from the DH Children with special educational and complex needs: Guidance for Heath and Wellbeing boards. Sept 2014. Health and Wellbeing Boards have a pivotal role to play in supporting how the health, social care and education support the needs of children with complex and SEN needs in light of the SEND reforms. This is a useful document for forums to signpost their HWB contacts to. See www.gov.uk (search on title) Need help writing a financial control policy? A financial control policy describes how the forum will authorise and record financial transactions. An example of one can be downloaded from the Contact Family website at www.cafamily.org.uk/runaforum. Latest information for parent carers from Contact a Family SEN reforms in England Contact a Family, working with the NNPCF have developed a series of factsheets to help families understand recent changes to the special education system in England. • Introduction to the Children and Families Act 2014 • Extra support in mainstream school - SEN support • Education, Health and Care needs assessments • Education, Health and Care plans • Preparing for adulthood • The local offer explained • Changing from the old system to the new - how will it happen? They can be downloaded from our website at www.cafamily.org.uk/the-sen-process Contact a family 209–211 City Road, London EC1V 1JN 020 7608 8700 [email protected] www.cafamily.co.uk Incorporating The Lady Hoare Trust. Registered Charity Number: 284912. Charity registered in Scotland Number: SC039169 Company Limited by guarantee. Registered in England and Wales Number: 1633333. VAT Registration Number: GB 749 3846 82 © Contact a Family, August 2014
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