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Part 2 Contact/NNPCF virtual national parent carer forums’ conference

The conference took place on Monday 15 March and Tuesday 16 March 2021. Recordings and resources from the conference can be found on the dedicated Virtual Conference page. Please see the Learning and events for forums page for further details.

Upcoming online learning and webinars

Please see the Learning and events for forums page for further details.

Great news! Parent carer forum 2021-22 funding increase confirmed at £17,500 by DfE

See more in the full announcement.

Are you new to your forum and thinking about getting more involved?

See the learning and events for forums page which has more information about our new free programme for parent representatives being delivered via Zoom. 

Leading your forum course

Are you an experienced Chair, Co-Chair or Director of your Forum looking to develop your leadership skills further?

Are you succession planning or looking to develop someone from your team to step into a leadership role?

Interested in understanding leadership in your local area?

Contact will be running some free training on leading your forum. Download the flyer to find out more, including the dates, times and how to register your interest.

Upcoming webinars

See details of upcoming webinars on our Learning and events for forums page. Recordings of past webinars and relevant resources are available on our resources page.

First ever virtual national parent carer forums’ conference

A massive thank you to everyone who joined us during the virtual conference week. We are so pleased that so many of you enjoyed it and took learning back to your forums and areas. We had 1,602 registrations and 1,102 attendances across the week, with an attendance rate of 69% which is amazing! 

Recordings and resources from the Webinars, and presentations and resources from the Zoom sessions are being uploaded to the dedicated 2020 Contact & NNPCF Virtual National Parent Carer Forums’ Conference page as they become available, for those unable to attend sessions.

Adapting to Covid-19

We have built a suite of support webinars and webchats for parent carer forums during Covid-19. Keep an eye on our Learning events for forums page along with our Resources page for details of when live events are coming up and when recordings are available.

See also Contact’s Covid-19 pages with further important information about Covid-19 coronavirus for families with disabled children

Contact’s core offer for 2020-21 to parent carer forums

See the support we’re offering forums for 2020-21.

Quality Indicators for co-production – a framework and self-evaluation tool.

Contact hosts the National Alliance for Partnership Working (NAPW), a consortium of delivery partners for the SEND reforms who have been working together to develop a common language around co-production.

Using the Quality Indicators of co-production framework [.doc] should help develop a shared level of understanding and expectation to which all local area partners can aspire.

For more information or support to improve and develop co-production, please contact parent.participation@contact.org.uk

Upcoming webinars

See details of upcoming webinars on our Learning and events for forums page. Recordings of past webinars and relevant resources are available on our resources page.

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.

News on the contract to support parent carer and children and young people’s participation

Contact and the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) are delighted to announce that the Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed that Contact, as part of a newly formed consortium with KIDS, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) and the NNPCF, is the preferred bidder for the contract to support the strategic participation of children, young people and parent carers and that they aim to sign a contract with us within a reasonable period.

All four organisations are delighted that our consortium bid has been successful, and we are looking forward to working together over the next two years to build on our current individual support offers, learning from each other’s experiences and developing new synergised approaches that further enhance both children and young people’s and parent carer participation.

We are really pleased to be able to continue working with parent carer forums and are also excited to be joining forces with KIDS and CDC to share learning and expertise between parent carer participation and participation with children and young people.

We still have some details to iron out with the DfE, so for now we’re not able to share all the details, and until a contract is signed, we can’t publish the new application and monitoring forms, but we hope to be able to do so very soon.