Parent carer forum membership smashes 110,000!

2 mins read

Friday 17 February 2023

Tags: parent carer forums, NNPCF, parent carer participation, co-production

For the first time ever, membership of parent carer forums across England has grown to over 110,000.

That’s over 110,000 parent carers working in co-production with strategic partners in education, health, social care and other organisations in 152 local authority areas.

What do parent carer forums do?

Forums make sure that local, regional, and national services best meet the needs of families of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). 

They represent the voice and experiences of those receiving services. And they make sure that service providers take account of them when planning, designing, implementing, and reviewing services. 

How does Contact support parent carer forums?

For14 years, Contact has worked with the Department for Education (DfE) to support the 152 forums in England.

We do this in a number of ways. We provide training and resources to forums, and we help them manage the DfE grants they are awarded to do the work they do.

Find out more about how Contact supports parent carer forums.

Useful resources from this year’s conference

Contact also supports the work of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) – the national umbrella organisation for PCFs.

This includes organising an annual national conference with the NNPCF, which this year was attended by over 285 forum members.

At the conference, forum members took part in a number of sessions on topics, like SEND law and planning the recovery in children’s community services.

Visit our participation YouTube channel to view some of the sessions that took place at this year’s conference. Some of the videos will be useful even if you’re not in a forum.

Read the latest parent participation annual report.

More about parent carer forums

Find your local parent carer forum on our website.

If you’re interested in joining – or just finding out how your local forum is working for you – get in touch!