Be a Family Champion
Who can be a family champion?
- Are you a parent or carer of a child with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) aged 0-25 living in Essex?
- Do you want to be part of improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND?
- Could you share yours and others experience of living in the world of SEND
If you answer yes to the above, why not become one of our volunteer Family Champions?
As the Parent Carer Forum for Essex, we need to hear as many views and experiences from as many families as possible, in order to share a collective voice, to represent your needs and help improve services. Our aim is to make real, positive changes for children and young people with SEND and their families by making sure services hear this voice at a strategic level, in order to do this we need to hear from parents regularly on the challenges they face.
Everyone involved in the forum is a parent/carer, we know your time is precious.
We would love to have all our family champions involved fully in all aspects the role has to offer, but we understand with family and work commitments sometimes that is not possible. However much you can be involved it is all appreciated and makes a difference, and the best part you can adapt the level of involvement around your needs at the time. Below we have given a broad example of what different levels of involvement for Family Champions might look like:
- Level 1 – Share requests for feedback on specific subjects with your groups and families, encourage the completion of GW for any parent expressing a view or experience.
- Level 2 – All of the above plus attending support groups/coffee mornings to help promote EFF and obtain feedback from attendees
- Level 3 – All of Levels 1 & 2 plus attending/participating in steering groups/workstreams/working groups/meetings on specific subjects to represent a group of parents
What is a volunteer Family Champion?
A Family Champion is a parent/carer that shares their views and the view of those they represent whether, for example a support group or network, a group of friends or parents/carers from a school. You bring the voice of your families into the policy making process and have the opportunity to share the issues and challenges faced by families in your group/area. You will have the support of your Family Champion Quadrant Lead.
Benefits of being a Family Champion include:
- Builds confidence and develops transferable skills
- Making a vital contribution to the families in your group
- Opportunity to share learning and network with other Family Champions
- Regular Meetings with your Family Champion Lead.
- Opportunities to engage in projects of interest.
- A pack of resources to use when talking to families.
- Early notification on events/webinars you may like to attend.
- A regular update of EFF news and other news/training/events from around the county.
If you are interested in finding out more or signing up please email yourvoice@essexfamilyforum.org