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

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 parent.participation@contact.org.uk.

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:

We have developed some template Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policies for parent carer forums to adapt for their own use:

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 2020-21

Our Parent carer participation annual review for 2020-21 is now published!

Read more about how we support parent carer forums and the impact that parent carer forums had on the Covid response and locally.

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:

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.