About

HPCI – Herts Parent Carer Involvementis a parent carer forum recognised by the Department for Education, Hertfordshire County Council, Herts and West Essex ICB as the parent carer forum for Hertfordshire. We began in 2010 and a summary of our activities across the last year (22/23) is available here.

 

A parent carer forum is a group of parents and carers of children with SEND (Special Educational Needs and/or disabilities) who work with education, health and social care services and providers to make sure the services they plan and deliver meet the needs of children/young people with SEND and their families.  Parent Carer Forums are recognised in the SEND Code of Practice (CoP ref 1.13).

Parent Carer Forums exist across England (not Wales or Scotland) and in almost all local authority areas. Over 110,000 parent carers belong to Parent Carer Forums.

Parent Carer Forums are made up of parent carers with children and young people who have all types of SEND from the local area. HPCI covers all of Hertfordshire.

You can read more about these forums, how they work and the national picture for parent carer participation by going to Contact’s website.

How HPCI is Organised

HPCI is a CIC (Community Interest Company) and as such is a not for profit organisation.  As a Company we don’t have a Constitution but rather Articles of Association.

HPCI is an involvement organisation and as such does the following:

  • provides SEND related information to our parent network
  • organise events
  • recruit, train and support parent carer representatives
  • survey parents about their experiences and views on services
  • work alongside statutory and voluntary sector services providing the parental perspective
  • maintain links with support/voluntary SEND organisations working in Herts

We have a parent network of over 1,300 parent carers, a smaller group of around 30 parent carer representatives and an unpaid Board of Directors here who oversee the running of HPCI.

We also organise Involvement Partners which is made up of representatives from interested SEND support/voluntary groups in Hertfordshire who we communicate with regularly and hold twice yearly meetings with.

We also have five part-time employees:

  • Operations Lead
  • Rep Coordinator
  • Board and admin officer
  • Membership and Comms officer
  • Admin support for the Autism in Schools project (one year post)

Our Vision:

Children and young people aged 0-25 years with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reach their full potential and experience the same life choices as their peers who do not have SEND.

Our Mission:

HPCI is a parent carer led organisation which represents the views and experiences of families in order to influence the development and improvement of services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (and their families) in Hertfordshire.

Our Aims and Objectives:

  • To be the strategic body for parent carer involvement across health, education and social care in Hertfordshire.
  • To be representative of parent carers covering all Special Educational Needs and Disabilities for children and young people aged 0-25 years in Hertfordshire.
  • To increase membership, to encourage and support parent carers to be actively involved in Herts Parent Carer Involvement, and to train parent carers to represent others.
  • To improve the impact of involvement through effective co-production with service providers.
  • To continue to improve HPCI Board effectiveness and review all elements of the Organisation.
  • To forge links with local parent networks in Hertfordshire and parent carer forums from neighbouring Local Authority areas, for mutual support and to share good practice.
  • To encourage effective two-way communication and partnership working between parent carers and professionals.
  • To link with parent carer forums regionally and nationally to influence, through partnership working and co-production, services and government bodies at regional and national level.

Funding

As part of the current funding arrangements with the Department of Education the Local Authority has agreed to the following memorandum of understanding (MOU) when working with the forum i.e. HPCI.

  • We commit to uphold the principles of the SEND Code of Practice and to work in partnership with the DfE funded local parent carer forum to improve local services for children and young people with SEND.
  • We recognise the independence of the DfE funded parent carer forum.
  • We value the role of the DfE funded parent carer forum in representing the needs, experiences and views of parent carers of children and young people with SEND including their role in raising issues, providing constructive feedback through open dialogue, and challenging partners when necessary.
  • We agree to work together with respect and as equal partners.
  • The Local Authority also agrees to abide by the principles of co-production.

HPCI and campaigning

Parents and carers sometimes ask us why HPCI doesn’t actively campaign for such things as more funding for SEND.

HPCI is a parent carer forum funded in part by the Department for Education.

As part of our agreement with them we are unable to actively campaign. However, HPCI is free to send out information about SEND related campaigns or campaign groups.

As an organisation we will often share the same aims and goals as campaigners and can work alongside them towards achieving improvements in services and lives for our children and young people.

The HPCI CIC Directors

The directors oversee the running of HPCI and meet approximately 7 times a year. The role of director is unpaid.

HPCI’s directors have a wide range of views and experiences across different types of special needs and disabilities and also have links to other networks of parent carers.

You can find out more about HPCI’s directors here.

HPCI Policies and Position Statements

As a parent carer forum, our parent network comes from a wide range of backgrounds and their children have a wide range of SEND. Parents in our network also have a range of views about services and our parent representatives work to reflect those views in the work they do. To help our reps in their role, HPCI has drawn up position statements and policies on a range of topics. The Policies pages can be found here.  And the Position Statements can be found here.

Regional

HPCI is a member of the Eastern Region of Parent Carer Forums (ERPCF). The Eastern Region covers 11 forums covering Peterborough, Central Bedfordshire, Bedford Borough, Luton, Hertfordshire, Cambridge, Suffolk, Norfolk, Southend, Essex and Thurrock. Two representatives from each forum meet 3 times a year and look at local and national developments.  They are able to feedback to the regional representative of the NNPCF (National Network of Parent Carer Forums) and the Regional Adviser from national charity Contact.

National

There are two key national partners for HPCI.

NNPCF (National Network of Parent Carer Forums) was launched in 2011 and is made up of all the parent carer forums in England. It is funded by the Department of Education. The role of the NNPCF is to ensure strategic parent carer participation at a national level. NNPCF reps, who are all parent carers, work with a broad range of organisations which include: Department of Education, Department of Health, Department of Work and Pensions, Department of Justice, the Council for Disabled Children, British Academy of Childhood Disability and many others. To find out more go to NNPCF

Contact (formerly Contact a Family)

Contact is a national charity providing information, support and campaigning for families of disabled children.  Contact is the national partner to the Department for Education and NNPCF for parent participation in England. They have regional advisors who support parent carer forums directly and they provide guidance, information and training for parent carer forums as well as gathering information about how forums have made a difference. Their parent participation information can be found at Contact