FAQ

WPCV is a local parent carer forum, that provides opportunities for parent carers of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities aged 0-25 years, to use their experiences to influence local decision making and improve services. WPCV is run by a Steering Group who are all parent carers and have a wide range of experience. Further details about the Steering Group are available in the About section. We also have a number of parent carer representatives who work with us and increase our capacity to attend meetings and gather information.

A parent carer is anyone who has the parental responsibility for a child or young person with special educational needs and or disability. Your child does not need to have an EHCP, be in a specialist school, receive DLA/PIP or even have a formal diagnosis for you to be a Parent Carer.

Each year WPCV is able to submit a grant application for the Department For Education Participation Grant (in 2021/2022 this was £17,500). The grant application process is manged by Contact a Family on behalf of the DFE. On occasions WPCV will receive other funding for example from local organisations or grant providers to support it’s work or for specific projects or it will receive payment for providing participation services to third parties.

Yes. WPCV is managed purely by parent carers and is a stand-alone organisation. We have no political affiliations and do not provide any commissioned services. In our role as ‘critical friends’ we do work closely with decision makers in education, health and social care, to ensure that parent carers experiences and views influence service design and delivery.

WPCV is reliant on your support. By becoming a member you show your support for WPCV and help us to understand the needs of SEND families in Warwickshire. We also need to hear about your experiences of services, what worked or what didn’t work for your family. To influence decision making we need evidence about what should change and why, your voice is that evidence. We also want to hear what you think of the work that we do and how we can be better.

The main role of WPCV is to ensure that parent carers have a voice in local decision making. To do this we need to have representatives at meetings where SEND service provision is being discussed. Parent Carer Representatives attend meetings on our behalf to gather information about service development and to provide the parent carer perspective in any discussions. It is important that Parent Carer Representative share the general views and experiences of parent carers in Warwickshire and not just their own. Parent Carer Representatives also need to attend meetings with the Steering Group so that they are familiar with the issues being raised by the parent carer community and to report back on the meetings they attended.

The feedback from parent carers is crucial to our work. The issues that parent carers identify in service delivery inform our activity and priorities. It provides information about what works or what doesn’t work from a families’ perspective and means that we can identify where the way services are delivered could be improved. The Children and Families Act requires that local services are designed in partnership with families and so local decision makers must evidence that they are doing this.

Go to the Join page on our website and complete the membership form. We ask for some basic information about your family to help us to build a picture of the needs of children and young people with disabilities or additional needs in Warwickshire and to ensure that we can stay in touch with you.

Only parent carers of children or young people (aged 0-25) who have a disability or additional need can become members. We are however happy to share the information that we produce with anyone who is interested in the issues that we are trying to address. If you are not a parent carer you can sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with our work.

WPCV cannot provide individual advice or guidance to parent carers. On some occasions where there is an issue being experienced by a number of families we will work with individual families to develop case studies, to inform our discussions with local decision makers. WPCV is able to signpost families to other services that are specifically funded to provide advice and guidance for parent carers and to resources and information that parent carers might find useful in their individual circumstances.

The National Network of Parent Carer Forums represents local parent carer forums at a national level. All local parent carer forums, which are funded via a participation grant from the Department For Education, are members of the NNPCF. The NNPCF national steering group is made up of parent carer representatives from each of the English regions. The regional representatives meet regularly with local forums at regional meetings, providing a pathway for local issues to be considered on a national level. The NNPCF works closely with the DFE, the Department of Health and other Government departments to raise the profile of the issues impacting on parent carers and children and young people with SEND.

WPCV works with Commissioners for both Warwickshire County Council and Coventry and Warwickshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Commissioners lead on the development and procurement of services, based on local need. They oversee the tender process for services and play a key role in contract monitoring.