Parent Panels - Parent Carers Together

What is a parent panel?

Parent panels are groups of parents and carers who have an interest and experience of a particular subject and can give feedback which will benefit the wider SEND community.

Short Breaks

Our first parent panel session focussed on the BCP Short Breaks service.

Local Authorities have a legal duty to provide breaks for carers and disabled children which are called ‘short breaks.’ The BCP Short Breaks programme provides activities for children and young people aged 0 to 19 years with special educational needs/disabilities (SEND).

A review of the BCP Council Short Breaks offer is currently being undertaken and the forum helped with this review by collating feedback from the two panels we held on the topic-a virtual session and a face to face session, both on 16th May. Those who were unable to attend, were invited to email in their thoughts.

All feedback was anonymised and shared with members of BCP Council to help them to shape the Short Breaks service to meet local need.

Click through the slides below to read our Sway report which summarises the feedback gathered.

In November, Parent Carers Together had a meeting with commissioners for the service and BCP data showed that the uptake of Short Breaks places were low. We asked them why that was, and they didn’t know, so we want to find out.

Therefore, we have devised a quick, four question online survey which we are asking BCP parents and carers of children with SEND to take the time to answer.

Can you take a couple of minutes to answer whether you have accessed Short Breaks or not at all as this information will be helpful.

Survey will close on 14th January 2024.

We want to run more Parent Panels in 2024, we’ll post more information on this page and across our social media in January.