Closure Statement

Closure Statement for SEND Family Voices 22nd September 2018 Dear All Closure Statement It is with sadness and regret that we are today announcing that the Trustees of SEND Family Voices voted this week to close down the charity. The post 16 event with Steve Broach on September 27th will be our last public activity. Our last day of operations will be October 1st, after which our email address and phone number will no longer be manned.

We have reached this decision as we feel that, sadly, it is not possible to operate in the spirit of the SEND reforms in the current climate. All of us volunteered in order to improve the lives of vulnerable families in our community. We hoped that by bringing the parent voice into the heart of decision-making, systemic change for the better would follow. This has not happened. We increasingly feel that despite making considerable efforts to represent parent views in consultations and feedback to Achieving for Children (our most significant partner) and regularly bringing constructive ideas for solutions, we are either not listened to, or there is no scope for modifying plans to reflect parent input. Whatever the reason for this, it makes a mockery of the concept of co-production, which the SEND reforms aimed to promote, and the concept upon which SEND Family Voices was founded in 2014.

Earlier in the year AfC refused to sign off our funding application for the Department for Education parent carer participation grant (our main funding source) until we met with them to discuss principles. When we asked why they felt this to be necessary (despite the fact that we had had several meetings of this type over the years) AfC responded with: “SEND Family Voices is using every opportunity to criticise our services and highlight our deficits�.

We absolutely disagree that this is how we had been operating and at that point we felt that AfC wanted to use such a meeting to exert control over what we do and say and therefore we had no option but to step away from the funding so as to preserve our absolute independence. We intended to continue as a community support group.

Since then we have spent considerable time trying to find a satisfactory way forward by discussing our position and the concerns that we have for the parent community with Contact (who administer the funding and support for parent carer forums), the Department for Education, AfC and our local councillors and MPs. Unfortunately, we have come to the conclusion that, in this climate of austerity, there is either no will or no capacity amongst decision makers to really listen to and respond to parent voices, even though parents and young people were supposed to be at the heart of the SEND reforms.

Furthermore, we believe that continuing to operate as a parent carer forum in this climate risks lending a veneer or legitimacy to decisions taken by service providers that we feel is

undeserved. We already have a number of examples of where our input has been misrepresented.

This has taken its toll on our Steering Group members over the last 9 months, many of whom are also having to manage extremely challenging personal lives. This means that there is simply no capacity or energy to reposition SFV as a community support organisation. The individual members will continue to run their own disability and topic specific groups and will continue to support the community in this way.

As we understand it there is still funding available for any pan-disability organisation who would like to step forward as the official parent carer forum. We hope that there may be individuals or an organisation who wish to take forward aspects of our work such as the Golden Binder, the short breaks consultation information or keeping an issue log and we would be very happy to give any support necessary. We would like to reassure parents that all personal information currently held by SEND Family Voices will be destroyed and not passed on to other organisations.

Over the coming weeks we will be ensuring an orderly wind up of the charity. If you have any questions relating to this announcement, please email us on SENDFamilyvoices@outlook.com before October 1st and we will do our best to respond.

We will send out a further email to our database before October 1st giving details of alternative sources of information and support.

We would like to thank all the parents who have been in contact with us over the years, attending coffee mornings, consultations and events. Also, all the voluntary sector organisations who have given us advice, support and helped publicise what we do. We would also like to thank the Heads and SENCos in local schools, the staff at Achieving for Children, the various Health Service organisations and other service providers for inviting us into their organisations and working with us.

SEND Family Voices T: 07469 746 145 E: sendfamilyvoices@outlook.com W: www.sendfamilyvoices.org