Co-production week:  Celebrating Parent Carer Forums

2 mins read

Monday 30 June 2025

Tags: parent carer forums, co-production, National Network of Parent Carer Forums

This week is Co-production Week – a time to highlight the power of working with people rather than simply doing things for them.

Co-production means bringing people with lived experience into the heart of decisions that affect them. It’s about sharing power, listening, sharing ideas, and making decisions together from the start. That’s why this Co-production Week we’re celebrating the brilliant work of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums and all the local Parent Carer Forums across England.

Over 1,000 parent carers are involved in running their forum, working tirelessly with local services – like heath, education and social care – to make sure families’ real experiences shape how support is designed and delivered.  

Together, they speak up for over 150,000 parent carers.

Parent carer forums gather and share their communities’ experiences and work in solution focussed ways to create real change; That’s what co-production is all about. 

Thank you to every parent carer giving your time, voice, and insight to help make things better. 

We see you.  We value you.  We stand with you.

More about parent carer forums

Contact works with the Department for Education (DfE) to support parent carer forums across England by providing an adviser team, training and resources to forums, and helping forums manage the DfE grants they are awarded to support parent participation in their area.

Find out more about how Contact supports parent carer forums.

Examples of co-production in action.

Find your local parent carer forum.