Leeds SEND Parent/ Carer Participation Forum - Leeds is working with Contact, a national charity with expertise is helping to establish forums, to develop a new SEND parent / carer participation forum for the city that will be funded by the Department for Education. The aim of the forum is to make sure the services in their area meet the needs of disabled children and their families. 

They do this by gathering the views of local families and then working in partnership with local authorities, education settings, health providers and other providers to highlight where local services, processes and commissioners are working well, or challenge when changes or improvements need to be made. 

Contact will be supporting parent / carer support groups in Leeds to set up a new forum over the next 12 months. To enable Contact to apply for the funding to support the Leeds parent / carer participation forum we are looking for some parents / carers to support the application (this is a condition of the grant). 

We are looking for parents / carer who would be happy to support Contact holding the money for the next 12 months and developing a parent / carer forum in Leeds. By supporting the grant you will not be expected to undertake any work, but Contact will be in touch with you to ask you to agree how the money is spent. 

If you would like to support the grant application, please email kayleigh.thurlow@leeds.gov.uk by Monday 30th May 2022. 

Special Needs Jungle hosted Minister Quince this month for a information video on the SEND Review, in collaboration with the NNPCF, Contact and Family Fund. SNJ enjoyed working alongside Tina and Sarah to present the information video which was massively over-subscribed and participants fielded over 200 questions in 45 minutes. SNJ has sent the unanswered questions to the DfE. You can find the recording of the information video here. They’ll be holding a further information video with Mr Quince, and hopefully a podcast, in the coming months. 

SNJ have also been working with the SEND Review team to suggest ways to ensure the upcoming consultation is as accessible as possible for parents and young people, considering the limited time and access only to mobile devices many have. 

SNJ will be dividing the Green Paper into separate articles to help parents, young people, and practitioners understand the implications and respond. SNJ plan to offer a way to enable those who do not feel comfortable responding on a government website to submit their views through them.  

SNJ have also published their Race and SEND report, which has been welcomed by the SEND Review team. 

SCOPE are launching a careers advice service for young disabled people in Leeds. Career Pathways is a careers advice service for disabled people aged 15 to 25. We provide careers guidance to support people to explore their career options and to achieve their career goals. Each young person will receive up to three one-hour 1:1 sessions with a Careers Adviser. 

The sessions will make young people aware of career options and employment routes open to them, support young people to develop their career goals and create an action plan to achieve them and make young people aware of the support available to them, whether they decide to continue education or enter the workplace. These sessions could take place in person or virtually. For more information please click here. 

Leeds Locksmith Supports Little Hiccups Charity.Little Hiccups is a Leeds based charity that has been set up by parents who have children with additional needs and disabilities. Andy from Lemon Locksmith found out about children’s charity Little Hiccups by chance. 

Andy goes on to say, “I have 2 small children myself who have been deprived of going to soft play centres for nearly the last 2 years due to lockdown. So I understand how enjoyable this kind of play can be for children, especially now. It’s good to know that the Little Hiccups charity provide the Stay and Play sessions for children who are no doubt happy to make the most of it after been stuck inside for so long! My aim is to raise at least £300 however as much as possible is great.” 

Stay n Play has increased in popularity since lockdown. Families have continued to grow during Covid but we have found that access to traditional resources have been harder with waiting lists increasing exponentially. Consequently, people are turning to charities like Little Hiccups for support. We have many new families where children have been born and/or diagnosed in the last couple of years and who have been unable to find the support and information that they need. At Little Hiccups Stay n Play, their little ones have a safe place to explore, but the parents can also meet other families in similar circumstances. Due to popular demand, Little Hiccups are in the process of looking at opening a second Stay n Play session. Andy’s donation will go a long way to funding this. 

Andy’s plan is to donate any proceedings he makes from night time lockouts over a period of 2 weeks and he has set up a Give As You Live page for people to donate to. At the time of writing, this had already made £400! It is unfortunate that people are getting locked out of their homes, but we are very grateful to Andy and the individuals who are donating Lemon Locksmith is a family run Leeds locksmith. 

Andy also welcomes donations from none customers also in order to raise as much as possible for Little Hiccups. If you would like to make a donation, pleaseclick here.