News for forums Here you’ll find all the latest news and updates for parent carer forums. You might also find it useful to visit our upcoming learning events page and our resources for forums page. In this article Contact & NNPCF Joint in-person Conference, date, location. Date: Tuesday 4th February 2025Location: Mercure Northampton, Silver Street, Northampton, NN1 2TA Booking now closed. Please see our dedicated conference page, which includes a link to this year’s Frequently Asked Questions page. Due to budgetary constraints the event will not be live streamed, dependent on speakers and agenda items some sessions may be recorded and shared via Contact’s YouTube channel shortly after the conference. We are really looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible there, as ever if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]. NNPCF & Contact Virtual Conference – recordings now available The Contact and NNPCF’s Joint Virtual Conference took place on Wednesday 20th November 2024 and recorded sessions are now available to view on our Dedicated Conference Page https://contact.org.uk/contact-nnpcf-conference-2024-25/ As ever if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]. Meet Ele the new digital wellbeing platform We’re pleased to introduce you to Ele, the new digital wellbeing platform delivered by CiC, our wellbeing and forum support provider. Ele is the new one-stop shop for elevating your health and wellbeing. With thousands of videos and resources covering a range of different topics, Ele provides easily accessible personalised support 24/7. Here’s what Ele has to offer: Netflix style user experience Over 6,500 lived experience videos 2000 Blogs, podcasts & roundtable discussions with experts UK wide directory of 12,000 support organisations To learn more about Ele, please contact your Parent Carer Participation Adviser. We’re excited for you to meet Ele and start exploring all the support and resources available to you and with this in mind we would like to invite you to an interactive Online Learning Session – please see our Learning & Events for forums page for registration details. Please note if you are unable to attend on the day, a recording of the session along with any relevant documents will be made available after the session on our Resource Pages. Transport – Can you help? We all know that SEND Transport is a really challenging issue with many local authorities tightening their offer and more families being denied this vital support. Contact have launched a new SEND Transport Project that aims to highlight the issues and bring about change that will improve disabled children and young people’s experience of school/college transport. Channel 4 News highlights school transport issues for disabled young people (contact.org.uk). We value your experience and insight and want to give you the opportunity to feed in. If you think you can spare approximately an hour to answer some questions please take a look at this information and contact [email protected] 2023-24 joint face to face Conference recordings now available The 2023-24 Contact & NNPCF joint face to face Conference took place on 29th February 2024 in Newcastle upon Tyne. Recordings from sessions on the day and a highlights film are now available on our dedicated Conference page. Parent carer participation annual review 2022/2023 Our Parent carer participation annual review for 2022/2023 is now published! Read how we supported parent carer forums and the impact that forums had locally in 2022/2023. Parent Participation Matters! Throughout February we’re shining a spotlight on the incredible work PCF members are doing across England – sometimes in the face of enormous challenges, diving into real life examples of the positive impact forums are having and the genuine difference they are making to children and young people with SEND and their families. Keep an eye on Contact’s main news, parent participation success stories, Contact’s social media and make sure you are signed up to the NNPCF and Contact Participation newsletter to stay updated. Thank you to all the PCFs sharing their stories with us. 2023-24 virtual conference recordings now available We’re pleased to be able to share recordings from the November 2023 Contact & NNPCF Joint Virtual Conference which took place across 14, 15, and 16 November. See our dedicated conference page. Summary Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit Last year we produced a Diversity & Inclusion toolkit for forums to support them to be welcoming and inclusive to all families. We have a produced a short, summary version of the toolkit to help forums including those just starting out, to plan inclusive and accessible events and meetings to help build their membership and to be as representative as possible. Use the summary toolkit on its own or alongside the full toolkit to support your forum’s outreach to all communities. Please let us know about your forum’s successes engaging underrepresented families, via your adviser or by emailing [email protected]. Face-to-face conference recordings now available The face-to-face conference took place on 28th February 2023 at the Double Tree by Hilton in Bristol City Centre. Many thanks to all of those who joined us in person and those who joined us via the live stream. The face-to-face conference included presentations from key partners including the Department for Education, Ofsted and NHS England. In addition, there was a Q&A panel and a workshop session to co-produce policy areas. We are pleased to be able to share recordings of the conference sessions and relevant presentations. These can be viewed on our dedicated conference page. Contact awarded funding to help improve parent and young people involvement in SEND services in England We are delighted to let you know that the Department for Education (DfE) has awarded Contact and partners, the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF), Council for Disabled Children and KIDS, a new contract to make sure parent carers, children and young people are involved in the delivery of SEND services and provision in England and have access to information advice and support. Read the full announcement of this good news. Part 2 Annual Virtual Joint Conference 2021-22 Part 2 of the Joint Conference took place on 23rd and 24th March. Please see the Contact and NNPCF Virtual Joint Conference page of our website for links to recorded sessions from the conference. Parent carer forum Diversity & Inclusion toolkit All parent carer forums aspire to be inclusive and representative of the families in their areas so that they can effectively represent all parent carers’ voices. Following on from our conference sessions on the Diversity and Inclusion toolkit and developing an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policy, we are pleased to be able to share: Amended Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit We have developed some template Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policies for parent carer forums to adapt for their own use: EDI policy for new or developing parent carer forums ACAS EDI policy which can be adapted to suit Comprehensive EDI policy for larger or more developed parent carer forums These templates are to help parent carer forums to develop policies which are right for them at their stage of development. Individual forums will need to ensure that the policy meets their needs and enables them to develop a fully inclusive culture. To learn more about reaching out into your local community with confidence and eloquence, watch the recording of the official launch which took place at our recent virtual conference. Parent carer participation annual review 2022/23 Read our latest Parent carer participation annual review for 2022/2023. Read how we supported parent carer forums and the impact that forums had locally in 2022/2023. Part 1 -Annual Virtual Joint Conference 2021-22 Our annual joint conference took place virtually between Monday 29th November and Wednesday 1st December 2021. Please see the Contact and NNPCF Virtual Joint Conference page of our website for recording of sessions and associate resources. Contact and NNPCF parent carer participation newsletter (England) Contact and the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) produce a joint parent carer participation newsletter. Download past versions of the newsletter: News from Contact and NNPCF December 2022 News from Contact and NNPCF September 2022 News from Contact and NNPCF July 2022 News from Contact and NNPCF June 2022 This newsletter contains key information about the development of parent carer participation, information about important changes across health services, special education and social care in England, news for local forums, the latest news from the NNPCF and opportunities for forums to participate. Sign up for the parent carer participation joint newsletter.