PCT Development Plan 2023-2028
(plan issued September 2023)
Introduction
“Parent Carers Together has come a long way since it was set up in 2019 to represent the voice of parents and carers of children and young people with SEND across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP). We are well respected for being able to make a real difference to services and to outcomes by providing strong parent carer voices. With parents, we have worked in partnership with BCP Council and NHS Dorset to improving a wide range of services and strategies including Mental Health, Keyworker Service, Preparing for Adulthood and work involved with the Written Statement of Action.
At Parent Carers Together, we focus on engaging and empowering parents, embedding coproduction, and ensuring strong parent voices can influence the shape of services so all children have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. We have looked at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for Parent Carers Together’s work and reviewed our Vision, Mission and Values. We have set out in this Development Plan the goals for the next 5 years in order to deliver the best possible outcomes for all children and young people with additional needs, and their families in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.”
(Board of Directors for PCT)
What Parent Carers Together Stands For: our vision, mission, and values.
Our vision is for Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole to be a place where every SEND child & young person is heard and valued, where services are timely and accessible and where parents and carers work with professionals to improve opportunities for all.
Our mission is to be the collective voice of parents and carers of children and young people with SEND in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.
Our values:
- Respect: all people involved with Parent Carers Together, we respect everyone’s views
- Empathy: to accept and work alongside all those we come into contact with, without prejudice or judgement
- Integrity: to be honest and objective in everything we do and communicate openly and honestly
- Accountability: accept accountability for our decisions and actions to PCT members and providers of public funds
- Quality: to constantly improve the quality of the services we provide, through seeking and responding to the views of those we work with
- Leadership: we promote and support the above values with effective leadership and personal example
Developmental goals over the next five years
Goal 1 Extending our reach, engagement and participation and empowering parents
Parent Carers Together wants to reach all communities, including those who may be heard less often. and parent carers at the start of their journeys. Education settings, from Early Years to Post 16 are an essential link in raising awareness of Parent Carers Together and we will review ways to reach parents through education settings.
We need to ensure that parents can access the information they need but also feel able and confident to work together with teachers, health workers and other professionals to have their children’s needs met. Parent Carers Together will continue to offer opportunities to parents through workshops and training to build parents’ confidence and resilience, empowering them to work with all those involved with their child.
Goal 2 Continue to Promote a Culture of Coproduction
Parent Carers Together will continue to facilitate and promote meetings, events and forums where parents and carers work in equal partnership with service providers to assess, design/redesign, deliver, monitor and evaluate the services their children, and others like them, receive. While there are some good working relationships and a commitment to coproduction, it is not yet embedded throughout the system and parents can be disadvantaged if they are not given equal access to the information and support required to be able to make informed decisions.
Goal 3 Influencing policy and practice within Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole and beyond
Parent Carers Together influences policy and practice for better outcomes by building and maintaining stakeholder relationships and presence at policy-making forums in BCP. Parent Carers Together coproduced the BCP SEND strategy with the Local Authority and other partners.
We also work at a regional and national level to improve outcomes for all children with SEND and their families.
Goal 4 Strengthen Partnership Working
Parent Carers Together has a key role as the strategic partner working in partnership with BCP Council and NHS Dorset to enable these organisations to meet their statutory duties to co-produce with children & young people and parents and carers. Parent Carers Together has a service level agreement with BCP Council to work on a variety of workstreams to improve services through feedback from local families regarding their experiences which we have collected via social media, surveys, coffee mornings and other events. The service level agreement recognises the independent status of the forum enabling us to feedback parent views accurately. The forum also has a Memorandum of Understanding with SENDiass4BCP. This is called the ‘Together is Better’ agreement.
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