SFV Annual Meeting – 24th June 2016 CHAIRS’ REPORT Romany from here… 1. Introduction Welcome to our first annual meeting since the launch of the Charity. Richmond and Kingston parent groups combined to create SEND Family Voice in October and we are very proud of what we have achieved so far. I am Romany Wood-Robinson Chair for Richmond and at my side is Caroline North who is the Kingston Chair. Around the room and the venue are other members – they should be identifiable by their badges. There is information on our group on the tables as well as our first attempt at an annual report. We have a lot going on today so I will just quickly let you know what we have been up to – our successes and challenges shall we say and what we hope to achieve this coming year. For those of you interested in more detail it should be in the annual report or on our website - as is our financial report. Feel free to contact us via email or telephone with any questions or for further information and we will get back to you as soon as possible. 2. Who we are SEND Family Voices is one of the parent/carer forums within the national network of forums; we came into being a result of the 2014 SEND reforms. A parent carer forum is a group of parents and carers of young people with special education needs and/or disabilities who work with local authorities, education settings, health providers and other providers to make sure the services they plan and deliver meet the needs of disabled children and families. We are entirely independent of Achieving for Children and other local service providers; our funding comes from the Department for Education via the charity Contact a Family. As a charity, we
are able to apply for other sources of funding to support specific projects that we identify for our community. Our approach is to work in partnership with service providers such as AfC as we believe that this is the best way of driving improvement for families. We ALWAYS put the interests of the family at the centre of our what we do. We are currently a steering group of 19 across Kingston and Richmond; we are all parents of disabled children or young people. Many of our steering group members are also part of other disability groups such as Express CIC (Autism), 21and Co (Downs Syndrome). We have deliberately set up the steering group as a “hub and spoke” model so that we reach as many families as possible. We are all volunteers. 3. What we do o We provide Information to our members on matters both local and national relating to SEN and disabilities – currently approximately 600 people directly receive our email newsletters plus we reach to many more via the “hub and spoke” o We engage in Consultation. We ensure as far as possible that consultation on important matters takes place (we push for this) and where appropriate we organize the process of consultation with families o We participate in decision making – we sit on many committees and strategic boards as representatives of the parent voice. 4. What we have been up to: We try to reach as many parents as possible in the two boroughs through our regular “Dear All” e-mail updates, through open meetings and through consultations. We also handle direct queries via e-mail and telephone – several hundred so far. We work with many professionals in the field, in schools, in other organizations such as RCVS, Healthwatch, the Clinical Commissioning Groups and of course at AFC. This year: We put together key information on reasonable adjustments and on the SEND reforms. Our booklet on reasonable adjustments has met with national acclaim. We led consultations on SEN transport and free schools.
We worked with professionals across health, SEN and social care to create the local definitive guide to the EHCPs and SEN support in our boroughs (the Golden Binder). We have taken hundreds of emails and calls from parents and tracked these issues (anonymised) so that we can best present what parents are really saying to local decision makers. Our solid evidence based feedback magnifies our community voice. We are educating local service providers what coproduction and listening to the voice of families really means.
However, we have still got a lot to learn - we continue to develop better ways to work and to use the strengths of our group. There are many challenges facing young people with special needs, their parents and those that want to help them. We know that there are many issues, which demand more work: around cuts to services, high needs funding reforms, the Education white paper which has scant mention of SEND, also work on post 16 provision, continuing problems with the implementation of EHCPs to name but a few. We are keen to hear from you about your priorities and what you would like us to focus on. Caroline from here… 5. Focus for 2016/17: Our goals and aspirations are to change the world for the families that have young people with special needs but in the meantime …. Maybe a few key things that we’re planning to focus on for the coming year.. Continuing to try to improve the way that EHCPs and in particular Transition Reviews are handled – the current situation is simply not acceptable. Focus on the offer for post 16 – which is developing but is still problematic for many young people. Continue to develop our reach so as to be more representative through improved website and social media and a continuing programme of open meetings and information events
6. Pitch for aid/help: We are a charity and really need all sorts of help so if you have time or experience we can use please let us know. We work out of our homes and our meetings are often in people’s kitchens or dinning rooms so we truly can use all the help we can get. If you have any interest in working with us let me know! We are on the look out for people with some accounting know how as that is not our strength. We could also use someone with administrative skills and can offer a small salary for that. If none of the above check the box, feel free to make a donation as we can always use the money to pay for the things we are unable to do ourselves.!!! 7. Thank you’s: We cannot forget to thank all the people who have helped us this year. The team at AfC: Sarah Herbert, Karen Lowry, Eamonn Gilbert, Anna Chiva, Simon James, Natalie Logan, Fran Wylde & Jane Helm, Clive Seall, Rob Dembrey, Penny Hoffmann-Becking who manages our issues tracking log (sadly a full-time job) & led (and did most of) the work on the Golden Binder Sophie Camilleri who worked closely with Reetu Sood at Richmond CVS in setting us up as a charity and arranging our governance processes. Rachel Derrick, Alison & Kevin Seas and Sam Rospigliosi have all put in long hours on Short Breaks & Aiming High, the Local Offer and Communications. The rest of the team; Caroline Bern, Prisca Cox, Jo Dixon, Tracey Gaggiotti, Sylvie Harding, Teresa Jones, Nicola Staines, Kate Thomson, Lisa Train and Annette Williams all continue to contribute to our common voice and offer their own expertise and experiences. We are a collective and work as one team. We would also like to make an extra special thank you to Heather Matthew at Richmond CVS for mentoring and support. Also a huge thank you to Teresa and the team at Richmond Mencap for letting us piggy back on their event here at the lovely Langdon Down Centre
8. Introduction of our guests We very delighted to welcome Linda Jordan and Richard Reiser; both are SEN Inclusionists [insert profile] Richard Rieser is the managing director of World of Inclusion Ltd, and is an expert disabled international equality trainer, consultant, film maker, writer and teacher. Linda Jordan from the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi). NDTi is a not-for-profit organisation which works to promote inclusive lives for people who are most at risk of exclusion and who may need support to lead a full life. NDTi exists to make change happen - change that leads to people having better lives. Linda & Richard will talk to us about: Key issues for parents and young people on inclusion Friendships and social isolation key issue and positive ways of dealing with this Using legislation to change the way that schools and colleges work Over to you two…