Leeds SEND Parent & Carer Participation Forum

Leeds Special Educational Needs & Disablities (SEND) Parent & Carer Participation Forum

Exciting news - a number of organisations (including Sunshine & Smiles) who support children and young people with additional needs, across Leeds, are working together to help to develop the new Leeds parent & carer participation forum. To make sure this fourm can be representative of as many families as possible it will take a little time to set up & develop! And this is where we need your help to get things started. There is no ongoing commitment at this stage it is just giving your name in support of the current plans. It is very important that Leeds has an independent parent & carer forum so please do read on and consider adding your name in support of this process.

Leeds are working with Contact to develop a new SEND parent & carer participation forum that will be funded by the Department for Education.

A parent carer forum is a group of parents and carers of disabled children. Their aim is to make sure the services in their area meet the needs of disabled children and their families. 

They do this by gathering the views of local families and then working in partnership with local authorities, education settings, health providers and other providers to highlight where local services, processes and commissioners are working well, or challenge when changes or improvements need to be made.

Contact will be supporting parent & carers support groups in Leeds to set up a new forum over the next 12 months. To enable Contact to apply for the funding to support the Leeds parent & carer participation forum we are looking for some parents and carers to support the application (this is a condition of the grant).

By supporting the grant you will be agreeing, that with support from Contact, to the following principles:

• We commit to uphold the principles of the SEND Code of Practice and to work in partnership with the local
• authority/health organisations to improve local services for children and young people with SEND.
• We recognise the local authority and health organisations as our strategic local partners.
• We value the role of the local authority and health organisations in carrying out their statutory duties and
• will raise issues from parent carers providing constructive feedback through open dialogue, and
• challenging partners when necessary.

If you support the grant, you are not the forum and won’t be expected to undertake any work, you would be agreeing that the proposed costs are an effective way of ensuring parent participation in Leeds. There would be no detriment to you or come back from this, the support is just to ensure the Grant is parent carer led to develop the new forum.

If you would like to support the process and application for the grant please email kayleigh.thurlow@leeds.gov.uk by Monday 30^th May 2022.

More news articles