Training and consultancy

Transcription

1 Training and consultancy Training and consultancy services from Contact a Family. For families with disabled children, support groups and parent carer forums, and the professionals who work with them. Expertise Consultancy Corporate social responsiblity Quality advice Frontline services Medical information Helping you work successfully with families with disabled children

2 Who are Contact a Family? Our Story We were founded in the 1970s by families with disabled children. They recognised that even if their child s conditions were different, they shared a common experience that of being a family with a disabled child. They understood how important it is to support each other. Today everything we do is about improving the lives of families with disabled children. We achieve this by working directly with parents and carers, and we are driven by what they tell us is important. We are proud of the way we work in partnership, with knowledge and with great warmth. Our vision is that families with disabled children feel valued and are strong, confident and able to make the decisions that are right for them. We aim to ensure Families with disabled children know how to get the right support, for them and their families. Families with disabled children are confident to deal with the challenges they face. The financial disadvantage that families with disabled children face has been alleviated. Families with disabled children are understood, valued and included as equal participants in their communities and in society.

3 Our services We support families, whatever their child s disability or health condition, with a wide range of life-changing help and class-leading services. We do this in the following three ways. We enable families to support themselves Via our national free-phone helpline. By publishing information and parent resources on our website. We run workshops and information sessions. We provide medical information on hundreds of disabilities and conditions. We advise parents in six children s hospitals across the UK. We enable families to support each other Parent support groups. Family fun days and outings. Developing and supporting parent carer participation, enabling parents to work with professionals to improve local services. Our SENDirect service, which enables parents to find and review helpful products and services. Working with professionals. We enable families to support us Campaigns. Volunteering. Research. Fundraising. Contact a Family Training Brochure 3

4 For For professionals professionals Working together: Co-production Co-production is about developing equal partnerships between the people who use services and their carers, and those who run them. It s a methodology for close engagement and achieving genuinely beneficial results for all involved. We work with local authorities, health & social care services, retailers, and others, to help them to work productively with families to deliver great services which promote good health and inclusion. Who is this for? Any local authority, public service, or private sector business which has families as customers. Developing parent carer forums Parent carer forums are one of the most effective routes to engaging successfully with families of disabled children. They re recognised on the national level in England, with 82,000 parents connected to a forum. This training course supports the devolved administrations to establish and develop forums, and to make them a mutually beneficial part of the local education, health & social care landscape. Who is this for? Central and local government bodies in the Channel Islands, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. 4 Contact a Family Training Brochure

5 Helping you work successfully with families with disabled children Supporting parent carers: Everything you ever wanted to know (but were afraid to ask) No-one s ever asked about Me before. A phrase we hear a lot from parent carers. Understanding how you can best meet the needs of parent carers is vital to supporting your business or public service. This course will give you valuable real-world insights into the lives of families with disabled children, and a tool kit for supporting them. Who is this for? Any local authority, public service, or private sector business which has families as customers. Good practice and the law in delivering the SEND reforms: Reducing the risk of a formal challenge Anyone working in education or social care will be familiar with their Section 19 responsibilities for delivering SEND reforms. When things go wrong, everyone loses out. Tribunals are adversarial, costly, and wasteful. We know councils want to work in partnership with parents and young people, but this can be challenging. This course gives you the information, advice, and support you need to reduce the risk of formal challenge and to deliver great SEN services. Who is this for? Education, social care, and health professionals, school governors or academy trustees with a responsibility for delivering SEN reforms, notably Education and Health Care plans. Contact a Family Training Brochure 5

6 For families For families Available for commission by professionals Building resilience and wellbeing for parents Parent carers work exceptionally hard to support their child. They need a wide array of skills, and receive little financial support. This course is designed to address stress, build resilience and wellbeing, and lead to real improvements in both mental and physical health as a result. Who is this for? Parents who would benefit from increased resilience and well-being, or who suffer from significant stress Getting a good night s sleep A child who doesn t sleep well can affect the whole family. Disabled children are more likely to experience problems with sleeping, which in turn affects educational and social performance. This course promotes an understanding of the cause of sleep problems, and reveals effective methods for improving sleep patterns. It also discusses strategies for supporting tired parents. Who is this for? The parents or carers of young children who have difficulty sleeping. 6 Contact a Family Training Brochure

7 Helping you work successfully with families with disabled children Dealing with challenging behaviour Disabled children may present as having challenging behaviour for a variety of reasons. It s vital to understand the source and type of this behaviour, and how it can be managed effectively and sensitively. This course provides attendees with essential understanding and techniques for how to deal with it. Who is this for? The parents or carers of young children who have difficulty with challenging behaviour Money matters Families with children with additional or complex needs often have lower-than-average incomes, while simultaneously facing higher living costs as a direct result of those additional needs. This course provides an understanding of the range of financial help families can access, and demystifies the benefits system. The course was designed by our in-house expert welfare rights team, who have 30 years experience supporting families. Who is this for? Parents or carers who may be entitled to support from the benefits system, or who experience financial difficulty. Contact a Family Training Brochure 7

8 For support groups, parent For support groups, parent carer forums, and networks carer forums, and networks Effective networking This course builds on our unique and popular Re:Group model, which combines elements of training in effective networking with a wider facilitated session involving other groups and agencies in your area with whom you wish to engage, Whether your group is entirely new or long-established, this informative and transformative course will help you build your relationships and strengthen your networks. productively with families to deliver great services which promote good health and inclusion. Understanding the health and social care landscape The NHS is the world s second-largest bureaucracy navigating your way around it can be overwhelming. This course provides you with an introduction to the complexities of the NHS and explains the role of each agency, what they do, and their responsibilities. It also helps you to identify key points within it for influencing and engagement so that you can have a say on what the system is doing. Who are they for? This pair of courses is specifically designed to support smaller groups, such as user-led groups, support networks, and parent support groups. They focus on how your group can be more effective within local networks and how to navigate the health and social care sectors more effectively. Developed with our Support Groups Manager, they are based on her work with more than 700 parent-led groups of various sizes across the UK 8 Contact a Family Training Brochure

9 Consultancy What we do Our consultancy team can help you understand what the families of disabled children you work with really need and help you to co-produce services that will improve their lives. Our evidence-based methods draw on our extensive experience of working alongside families. We can help you understand the national policy drivers affecting families with disabled children. We can support you to help families make sense of the health, social care and education policies that directly affect them. We know what works to improve the lives of families with disabled children, and we know what doesn t. We understand the pressures on organisations in a climate of reducing resources and increasing demand for care, so we want you to have the most up-to-date information about the widest range of support available to families. What we offer Bespoke intelligence-gathering solutions, such as through focus groups or surveys to aid with service planning and design. Intelligence-led reports, drawing on our knowledge and the interactions we have with thousands of families each month. Advice and facilitation for co-producing services. Direct support from our knowledgeable staff to establish services, such as advice on the establishment and governance of parent carer forums. Our services are based on the knowledge and expertise gathered from our extensive charitable activities. We engage with 160,000 families a year, including 82,000 through the National Network of Parent Carer Forums, 11,000 parents who call our helpline and 12,000 families who attend our workshops. Contact a Family Training Brochure 9

10 About our offer About our offer Benefits of working with us Prices Parent carers you work with will be more confident, less stressed, and less likely to need additional assistance from statutory services. Parent carers will be able to support their children and themselves more effectively. Your services will function more effectively and appeal to a wider customer base because they are better-designed and disability-aware. Your staff will be more confident, with greater expertise. We operate a differentiated pricing model to ensure our commercial work can subsidise our work with families. Typical prices are: Voluntary sector Statutory sector Commercial sector Full-day course 730. Full-day course 995 Full-day course, 1,090. Half day course 560. Prices for consultancy work vary depending on the commission. Please call us to discuss your needs and we will be happy to provide a quote. Discounts We offer discounts for affiliates and multiple bookings: Two bookings will receive a 5% discount Three or more bookings receive a 10% discount Contact us Sarah Sharlott Head of Business Development businessdevelopment@cafamily.org.uk 10 Contact a Family Training Brochure

11 Our expertise Our expertise The history and ethos of Contact a Family is steeped in time spent working with families with disabled children and in helping parents to support other parents. We are a national, pan-disability charity and engage with 160,000 families with disabled children each year. We are the national delivery partner for the Department for Education s, supporting parent carer forums since We operate a national freephone helpline, and deliver front-line services for several local authorities to provide direct support to families. Our services are extremely diverse, and include: Supporting social integration through cinematic film in Wales. Running educational workshops for parents across the North. Holding an autism support group in our Ealing and Southall office, and Supporting hundreds of families per month through our helpline, on topics ranging from education rights to benefit entitlements. We have built our expertise over 40 years, supporting families with a wide range of complex needs, and strive to eradicate families financial, social, and physical disadvantage. Whatever your specific circumstance, our professional team will be able to assist. Learn more about us on our website or contact us to discuss your needs. Contact us Sarah Sharlott Head of Business Development businessdevelopment@cafamily.org.uk Contact a Family Training Brochure 11

12 Our expertise Establishing a culture of parent carer participation in Jersey Why Jersey? The beauty of parent carer participation is that it can flourish in any environment, project or organisation. It s a way of working that requires cultural rather than legislative change. We are easily able to adapt our knowledge and experience to introduce the concept of parent participation to families, practitioners, and strategic partners anywhere. A self-governing island The Bailiwick of Jersey is part of the United Kingdom but is known as a Crown Dependency. This means it is autonomous and self-governing, with it s own independent administrative, legal and fiscal systems. The 2014 Children and Families Act and its associated codes and statutory duties do not apply in Jersey. However, that does not mean that there is no appetite for fostering a stronger culture of parent participation within its services. Members of the island s Health and Social Care teams had heard about parent carer participation and the difference it was making for families in England. They decided they wanted to develop a programme in Jersey along the same lines. Their aim was to help empower the parents of disabled children and achieve better outcomes for the families they serve. A flexible and bespoke package of support Following discussions about how communication was currently working between families and practitioners, we were able to design a flexible and bespoke support package which included: supportive consultancy services to help partners develop their own operational guidelines and protocols inclusive training both for professionals and parent carers to help them assume representative roles in their newly-created parent carer forum access to on-going virtual support via telephone access to a range of written, digital and other resources for the Jersey toolkit. 12 Contact a Family Training Brochure

13 How did we do it? Each of these elements was built on research and understanding of the specific challenges Jersey faces. We ve ensured their new parent carer forum, Parent Forum Jersey, is able to develop a relationship with the National Network of Parent Carer Forums. This means that Parent Forum Jersey has access to the latest news, information and learning webinars. They will also have connections to the wider network of 82,000 parent carers who contribute to parent carer forums across England. The package was designed to be flexible, enabling Parent Forum Jersey to call on our support as required, in recognition of the fact that forums don t mature overnight and issues can arise over time. You ve given me so much to think about... this will have a big impact on the way I work. I thought I knew what a parent carer forum might be, but there s a lot more to it! Looking to the future As a result of our consultancy, Jersey is now beginning to develop the structures necessary to move toward a model of self-help and empowerment for parent carers of disabled children. Once the forum is embedded, we will conduct a full evaluation to evidence the beneficial effects that meaningful parent carer participation is having in Jersey. We thought we d share a couple of comments we ve received while working with practitioners in Jersey. Contact a Family Training Brochure 13

14 FAQs FAQs Quality How do I know your training is high quality? Our courses and workshops are evaluated after delivery, averaging 97 per cent satisfaction rate by participants. They re delivered by our experienced and knowledgeable Contact a Family professionals, drawing on 40 years experience working with families with disabled children, and are co-produced with parents themselves. All trainers delivering courses for Contact a Family hold a teaching qualification relevant to the adult learning sector. Many have additional qualifications relevant to their professional background, including those in education, welfare rights and nursing qualifications. Our approach Why does Contact a Family offer training and consultancy? We recognise that there is a vast network of support structures and services that surround families with disabled children. Our ambition is to be there for every family with a disabled child, whenever they need us, but we also want to help professionals to deliver the best possible service. Our training courses and consultancy services are designed to work with you to ensure you can deliver high quality and supportive services for families, while also remaining within your own organisation s objectives and frameworks. In addition, our commercial work subsidises our charitable activities, meaning we re able to provide more support directly to families who need our services. 14 Contact a Family Training Brochure

15 FAQs Expertise Getting started Why is Contact a Family a trusted expert on sleep? We have worked with families and clinical experts for nearly 40 years to look at a variety of ways of helping children (and parents) to sleep. We have trained sleep practitioners, and we offer a parent-focussed course informed by our extensive work with parents.... and on managing challenging behaviour? In addition to our long-standing experience, we worked closely with the Challenging Behaviour Foundation to devise the content for our workshops.... and on managing money? We have a dedicated team on our freephone helpline who support parents to navigate the welfare system. Our helpline offers parents the chance to have extended discussions about their financial situation, with a particular focus on reducing financial disadvantage among those with disabled children. We also produce a wide range of guides and information to help parents to manage their finances. We ve gained a detailed and wideranging knowledge of the specific financial pressures families may come under, and we ve used this experience to develop our courses.... and on parent resilience and wellbeing? Our parent advisery team are qualified trainers and hold many other clinical and professional qualifications. Since we were established, we ve spent 40 years working with and speaking to parents to determine what works for them. Every two years we undertake a major piece of research to identify the current issues and challenges for the families we support. We also carry out broader research into wellbeing and mindfulness, and their impact on parent carers. In Northern Ireland we re about to start delivering an accredited programme of wellbeing training, which we plan to also roll out across England. Taken together, this expertise combined with our unique mission to support the whole family means we have a deep understanding of the causes and solutions for promoting family wellbeing. Contact a Family Training Brochure 15

16 For professionals professionals FAQs What is Contact a Family s background in co-production? We were founded in the 1970s by parents who wanted to develop mutual support while improving services for their children. They realised they had unique insight and expertise to share, and it was on that realisation that Contact a Family was founded. Today this means parent carer participation is in our DNA, and we pride ourselves on having strong parent carer representation and input at all levels of our organisation, including around 25 per cent of our staff. In the late 1990s, we began to influence the Government to adopt a co-production policy with parent carers when designing services. Today we have a strong, expert parent carer participation team delivering a major support programme to 150 parent carer forums across England. In recent years we have overseen a 23 per cent growth in membership of parent carer forums, while processing small grants to a combined value of 2.3 million on behalf of the Department for Education, a contract we have held since We founded the principle of parent carer forums in England, and grew the National Network of Parent Carer Forums in its early days. We continue to support its development as a strong national voice. Each year we host an annual parent carer forum conference, the largest single gathering for parent involvement and co-production in the UK. 16 Contact a Family Training Brochure

17 Get in contact with us City Road, London EC1V 1JN Free helpline for parents and families (Mon Fri, 9.30am 5pm) (Access to over 200 languages) Registered Charity Number: Charity registered in Scotland No. SC Company limited by guarantee. Registered in England and Wales No VAT Registration No. GB Contact a Family is a registered trade mark. Although great care has been taken in the compilation and preparation of this guide to ensure accuracy, Contact a Family cannot take any responsibility for any errors or omissions. The photographs in this guide do not relate to any personal accounts. Contact a Family, June 2016 Contact a Family Training Brochure 17