West Berkshire PCF Newsletter

As a Forum we can support and train parent carers to enable them to have their voices and opinions count, and to be involved with shaping services alongside the professionals who provide health, education, adult and social services.

Our shared mission is to improve and enhance the experiences and opportunities of children and young people with additional needs, by enabling parents and carers to be heard, and to be at the heart of decisions about development and delivery of services in West Berkshire.

The forum represents the views of the collective community and not an individual voice, we are unable to advocate for individual families, but can signpost to specialist services.

Your opinions are always wanted and valued, and by being a part of the West Berks Parent Carer Forum your voice can be heard. New members are always warmly welcomed, so if you would like to know more come and join us.

- Fiona Worby

What have we been up to?

LOCAL OFFER EVENT - BROOKFIELDS SCHOOL

On the 7 November 2018 we hosted a coffee morning at Brookfields School around the Local Offer. Coral Taylor from West Berks Family Information Service came along and did a presentation about the Local Offer explaining how it works to the parents/carers. It was really informative, and they all agreed it encouraged them to use the Local Offer more.

EARLY YEARS SEND GROUP

On the 9 November 2018 we attended an Early Years SEND Working Group with professionals and the Local Authority

ANNUAL NNPCF CONFERENCE & AGM IN COVENTRY

I attended the two day National Network of Parent Carers Conference. The conference is busy but incredibly informative and I took part in several workshops with topics such as ‘Whole School SEND’, The Principles of Coproduction, Demystifying SEND Funding and more. We also had a range of speakers from the Department for Education, NHS England, Department of Health and more who answered our questions. This is a great networking channel, and we get to meet many other parent/carer forums at the conference, and are able to discuss our ‘hot topics'.

SEN TEAM Q & A SESSION

December is normally a quieter time for the Forum in the lead up to the festive season, but we managed to squeeze in an incredibly interesting Q&A session with Nicola Pontin from the SEN Team at the Local Authority. This was a very well attended event, and we had lots of fantastic feedback

BATH BOMBS AT CASTLE SCHOOL

I had a fun morning with the parent/carers teaching them how to make bath bombs. There was a little bit of mess and lots of fun and laughter, and each got to take home everything they made.

2019 COMMUNITY STAY & PLAY

We attended a Family Stay & Play Event at Swings and Smiles along with other community services on 3 January, and WBPCF provided the wonderful Roly The Magician to entertain the children. He was a great success and very funny, and lots of fun was had with the balloon animals. Roly’s beautiful little bunny rabbit ‘Star’ made an appearance too, and was loved by everyone children and staff alike!

PLANNING TOGETHER FOR GREAT LIVES

I met with Reading Family Forum on 15 January to design a presentation to showcase the views of parent carer forums . The presentation is a collaboration of West Berkshire Parent Carer Forum, Reading Family Forum, and REACH Wokingham, and will be presented in February at the EHCP Learning Event which is collaboration between NHS East Berkshire and NHS Berkshire West CCG’s, along with the Parent Carer Forum’s.

COFFEE MORNING AT HERMITAGE PRIMARY SCHOOL

On the 18 January I went along armed with cakes to Hermitage Primary School, and met with the SENCo and Parent/Carers. We chatted about the services available to them in West Berkshire, and it was a great opportunity for parent/carers to meet up and get to know each other in school.

FIRST STEERING GROUP MEETING OF 2019

We had our first Steering Group meeting of the year on Monday 21 January, it was really great to see all of our members again, and we talked about what events we would like to hold throughout the year for the parent/carers in West Berks. Keep an eye out on our future newsletters, as more info about these will be on there.

Upcoming PCF Events

Steering Group Meeting Monday 11 February

If you would like to find out more about us, and come along to our steering group meetings , then please do contact me at fionaworby@roseroad.org.uk

SEND Info Day - Wednesday 6 February

Since October last year, we have been busy organising this years Special Needs Information Day, and it will be soon be here! We have over 30 stallholders coming along with a huge range of services to showcase to you, and some fabulous talks in place for you to attend ( although spaces are going fast)
We are very lucky to have the wonderful Carly Jones MBE who is coming along to be our Keynote Speaker, and she will be doing a talk on Autism Women & Girls-Demystified.

You can register for the free talks here.

We will be attending the following meetings in February:

- The Joint Implementation Group (JIG Berkshire West) in Reading at the end of January.
- The EHCP multi-agency moderation panel
- The South East Regional Gathering in London
- RBH Children and Young People strategy meeting
- Coffee mornings at Dingley’s Promise
- EHCP Learning Event
- Autism Partnership Board
- Volunteer Sector Group Meeting
- Multiprofessional Meeting in Hungerford, so a busy time coming up.

What's on in West Berks?

Autism Berkshire Workshops: Autism Berkshire are running 3 free courses at Thatcham Baptist Church, Thatcham, 9.30am-2.30pm.
Wednesday 30 January: Understanding Autism
Wednesday 27 February: Meeting Sensory Needs
Wednesday 27 March: Managing Anger

For more info and to book your free place, please click here.

Swings & Smiles February calendar: Please click the picture above to enlarge.

Coles Diner HD Gamers Den: Gaming session held every 2nd Tuesday of the month from 6.30-8.30pm at Coles Diner, in the Mary Hare School, Newbury. There is no waiting list for the night but they do ask that you just let them know if you plan on attending by contacting them on 07867 311236 (text only) or email: k.gardner@maryhare.org.uk.

The Engine Shed Meet Ups - Please click the image above to enlarge.

DISCLAIMER: West Berkshire Parent Carer Forum (PCF) publishes this newsletter to allow information supplied from a range of organisations to be freely available. Please note that information included in this publication is supplied by the organisations themselves. Whilst West Berkshire PCF uses reasonable effort to ensure accurate and up-to-date information is provided, information and organisers of local societies do change frequently. Therefore West Berkshire PCF cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information provided nor does it assume any liability or give any warranty of any kind for the information contained or omitted from this publication. West Berkshire PCF takes every reasonable step to ensure the validity of the publication but cannot guarantee the quality of services or activities offered. The inclusion of a provider does not imply a recommendation or endorsement by West Berkshire PCF. Parents should make their own enquiries. We understand not all of our information will be relevant to you but do our best to include a wide range of information covering all disabilities, ages and areas.

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West Berkshire Parent Carer Forum · 6 Albury Gardens · Reading, West Berkshire RG31 7ZY · United Kingdom