About Us
Oxfordshire Parent Carers Forum (OxPCF) is an impartial, independent body led by a dedicated team of volunteers. The team are all parent carers of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
We all believe that every disabled child and young person in the county should have access to the same opportunities, experiences and information as their non-disabled peers. We are hosted by Oxfordshire Family Support Network.
“One person caring about another represents life's greatest value.”
Our Mission
Our mission is to be a well-informed, connected and empowered community of families of children and young people with SEND in Oxfordshire. To enable this, we gather the views and lived experiences of local families and provide opportunities for their voices to be heard.
We work in partnership and advocate for co-production with the Local Area Partnership (LAP), with the aim of involving parent carers and their lived experiences. As subject matter experts across a wide range of workstreams, we strive to ensure that parent carers’ concerns are heard and addressed. Our role is to highlight where local services excel, advocate for needed changes or improvements, and work with the LAP to create meaningful opportunities for parent carers to be actively involved in co-production.
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The LAP includes Oxfordshire County Council (OCC), Oxford Health, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and Integrated Care Board Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (ICB BOB).
We strive to ensure that the lived experience of parent carers and children and young people in Oxfordshire play an integral and equal part in the LAP’s decision-making process to help shape, develop, implement and evaluate SEND services and systems.
Our Aims and Commitments
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We will work in partnership and build links with health, education, social care and other voluntary and third sector organisations to ensure that local services meet the needs of families of children with SEND in Oxfordshire.
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We listen to parent carers in Oxfordshire and actively gather their lived experiences. We do this via our online peer support group, Oxfordshire SEND Room, various surveys, feedback forms, polls and events. We ensure that this information is fed into the Local Area Partnership (LAP) to help inform their decision making process with the aim that the planning and development of SEND services are co-produced, using the voice, views and lived experience of the families that use them.
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To give an equal voice to all, no matter how small or large the community. We aim to make parent carer participation an integral part of service and information development and provision in Oxfordshire, creating better outcomes for children and young people with SEND and their families.
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We are involved as OxPCF in various workstreams, projects, focus sessions, events and other means of input. Our input may take place at both a specific steering group or member level or at a wider, more widespread input, forum feedback level. The level of involvement is determined by the specific requirements of any given workstream.