A family community group is working with professional authorities to help improve Special Educational Needs and Disability services for children in Salford.
Nearly 100 service providers and more than 300 families and carers helped to launch the first Salford Parent Carer Forum on Saturday (18 March) at the AJ Bell Stadium.
The forum was established with help from Salford City Council, the Local Authority, the NHS and 90 professionals from 32 different services.
The aim of the forum was to listen to parent, carer and family’s views and experiences of Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) services in Salford.
These views and experiences are gathered by the service providers and practitioners and will be conveyed to the government.
Alongside support from the local authority and organisations across Salford, the government will then put in plans to effect positive change in the SEND services in Salford.
In 2021, a group of parents were inspired to start the forum because of their shared struggles with getting access to SEND services in Salford.
Lucy Collins, Viv Ormrod and Charlene Delve were three of the parents inspired to organise the forum.
Ms Ormrod said: “The Government say that every local authority should have a Parent Carer Forum. Salford didn’t have one”.
Viv’s works with the Local Authority day-to-day but explained: “I have a child with special educational needs who has not gone through the easiest of journeys to access the right support. So we’ve come together with a few other parents who have had similar experiences trying to access services, to try and make things better.
“We know that the systems aren’t perfect but if we can work with the services…we can take [what we have found] to the government and say this is how [the services] aren’t working.”
Lucy and Viv also stressed the importance of sharing positive experiences with SEND services as well as the negative.
This is so that professionals can understand what is working within their services and means all parties involved can celebrate when the programmes have a positive impact on carers, parents and young people with SEND.
The forum hosted 90 service professionals from 32 services from private, local authority and healthcare services as well as a number of volunteers from organisations across Greater Manchester.
Some of the attendees included Health Watch Salford, the Northern Care Alliance, Salford Educational Psychology Service, Time Specialist Support, Salford Virtual School Team and many more.
Alongside the 90 professionals were fun activities to keep the children entertained including face painting by ‘Smudges Face Painting’ and balloon modelling from ‘Round the Twist Balloons”.
Geoff Catterall, Salford City Council’s Head of Complex Needs, gave a talk at the beginning of the event. He said: “The good things in Salford [are] this. It’s a really hard system for families to get their heads around.
“Despite all that, we talk and we work together and we…as professionals, public bodies and organisations must continue to listen to families”.
“Many of the services providers attending the event agreed the forum has been needed in Salford for a while and that there has been “nothing like this ever before in Salford.”
Lucy Collins, Chair of the forum, said: “All of these services have given up their Saturday to be here today. I don’t think we could have asked for a better turn out. We’re so happy…we hope we can start to break down barriers.”
Many parents at the event expressed how much they enjoyed the event, with one mum explaining the forum was “so good [and] so useful” and that “hopefully this is the start of some improvement in Salford.”
If you are a parent or carer in Salford and need help finding access to the right services, please visit the Salford Parent Carer website or contact the team via email (info@salfordpcf.com).
You can also visit and contact the team via their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
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