Who We Are
We are a local registered charity who are actively seeking to improve services in all areas of the lives of children and young people with disabilities or additional needs. We are here for Parents and Carers of children and young people aged 0—25 years with a disability or additional needs.
We aim to work together with professionals and parents so that the services for our children and young people meet their needs. Putting parent carers and their children at the centre and helping them to be heard.
What have your experiences been like as a parent carer? If you have something to share, let us know
Our Strategy from 2023 – 2028
What We Do
- Help parents engage with professionals across Health, Education and Social Care.
- Facilitate participation in service delivery.
- Provide a voice for parents at strategic level meetings.
- Hold informative events.
- Help parents and carers have access to the information about what services are available to them.
- Signpost parents and carers to other agencies/ organisations who provide specific services that we do not.
- Provide family based trips and activities.
- Run a community centre.
- Provide short breaks.
History
The Voluntary Sector Forum (Bev Walsh) applied for Phase 1 of the Parent Participation Grant Programme from Together for Disabled Children. The funding was used to hold two key events in March 2009 to raise awareness of Aiming High for Disabled Children and to ask parents to sign up or express an interest in setting up a forum. The Voluntary Sector Forum applied for Phase 2 of the Parent Participation Grant Programme from Together for Disabled Children. The application for Phase 2 was £10,000 submitted to TDC and was successfully awarded to in May 2009. The funding has been used so far to set up a steering group and organise the new Parents Forum Family Voice Peterborough. The Voluntary Sector Forum closed in October 2009 and we started to work as an independent voluntary group called Family Voice Peterborough. We held our launch event on October 15th 2009 at The Ramada at which parents and carers were given the opportunity to meet with John Richards Director of Children’s Services and take part in various workshops/ presentations by the Special Educational Needs team (SEN) and Speech and Language Therapy (SALT), the story is located here
Structure
The Aiming High for Disabled Children programme was launched in May 2007. Its stated aim was “to improve service provision across the board for disabled children and their families, enhancing equality and opportunity for them” this quote comes from (Department for children, schools and families) DCFS
The Parent Participation work stream of Aiming High was “designed to develop the active involvement of parents in service planning and decision making processes at a local level to ensure that parents are active agents in shaping services” this quote is located in this PDF file on the DCFS website. Some of our grant monies were provided through aiming high for disabled children and administered by Together for Disabled Children (TDC), however the Aiming High Programme and TDC ended in March 2011.
The current government committed to continue with the parent participation programme until 2013 and we have been successfully awarded the money under this programme so far.
We successfully registered as a charity 31st March 2011 which has enabled us to pursue other fundinging streams to enable us to continue with all that we do.
We have a committee led by Chair and supported by a Secretary and Treasurer. We also have an open forum group of Parents and Carers who are informed and involved in the forum on various different levels. All our committee members are also Parents/ Carers of children and young people.
Our Strategy from 2023 – 2028